After class I give a ride home to one of my classmates. It is a nice time to share our thoughts about our program: the readings, our discussions, our interactions as a co-hort. This classmate is preparing himself to be a teacher in middle school. Last week he told me that after finishing this book, he now thinks that he might want to teach Kindergarten. At that time, I had not yet read this book but his comments paved the way for my frame of mind.
Now that I have completed the book, I understand his sentiments. I had always intended to get back into a high school setting for teaching. After-all, as a language major, where else can I teach? But these past few years working in a preschool I have discovered a love for working with younger students. Paley's heartwarming interaction with her Kindergartners reinforced this feeling.
You Can't Say You Can't Play. What a lovely book! In this book, Paley discusses the possibility of a new class rule which is that one student can not exclude another from free play. In reflecting on her school years Paley remembers a classmate who was often excluded. Her First Grade teacher said of this student that "she'd have more friends if she lost weight and changed her dress once in a while." I find it disturbing that anyone who calls him/herself a teacher would speak like this of a child, let alone within hearing of another student.
Paley decided to discuss her new rule with her students before implementing it. I appreciated this and the joy she found in the discovery process. Her ensuing conversations were enlightening. The students who found themselves rejected the most often were, of course, for the new rule. However, what is interesting is that when these children found themselves included, they were themselves quick to exclude someone else. No innate feeling of "I've been in your shoes so now I will employ the Golden Rule."
I especially found insightful the reasons for excluding another student given by the bosses, or the child in charge.
Lisa: "It was my game. It's up to me." "I'm more sad if someone comes that I don't want to play with." "I can't play if I'm sad."
One reason Ms. Paley wants this new rule is that children who find themselves excluded are sad. And, sad children can not learn. But now she learns that forcing children to play with someone that they really do not want to play with, makes them sad as well. "Can this new plan work?" she often asks herself. She sees inclusion in the public domain of school as a moral objective. But what about "the other moral imperative," the right to choose one's companions. As parents we hope that our children will choose their friends wisely. We do not think of it as alienating another child. We envision our children surrounding themselves with friends who will be good influences on each other. In justifying her new rule, Paley distinguishes between public and private domain. At school anybody who wants to join can. At home you get to choose your playmates.
Ms. Paley employs three teaching techniques that I just love:
1) She makes up a story to weave the idea of her new rule into the classroom's discussions.
2) The students dictate their own stories to her that they later get to act out.
3) She goes to the older classrooms to discuss this new rule and then brings the older students' thoughts and ideas back to her Kindergartners.
1) The story that Ms. Paley makes up involves a talking magpie, two princesses with diverse physical characteristics, a little witch girl, a homeless boy, dragons and small flower people. Like Paley, when my oldest son was three, I made up a story about "The Little Boy Who Did not Want to Cooperate With his Mama." Coincidentally this story also involved a large, talking bird. When the little boy did not want to do what his mother was asking him to do, this bird would show up to transport him to a place where he could decide for himself; what to eat, when to play, when to bathe, when to sleep. Invariably this did not lead to happiness for the little boy. He would always ask to be taken home to his mother who missed him greatly. This story worked especially well on long flights when my three-year-old did not want to sit buckled up in his seat. My eldest son would think about the story and we would discuss possibilities and options for this little boy. As a parent I felt quite clever until I tried this story with my second born son, who did not have time to ponder the story as there was mischief to be found, by golly.
I did love how, as Ms. Paley's story unfolded, her thoughts on this new rule evolved. In her story the little girl witch becomes jealous of the new friendship between the two princesses. The little witch designs a way to trap one of the princesses so she can have her all to herself. Paley relates this to her new rule in this way; "if you try to keep someone out of your game, it's like a trap that keeps you and your friends in." She refers to classroom exclusion as the "Classroom Trap."
Regarding Ms. Paley's story Lisa wants Magpie to keep one character, who is jealous, from doing something mean to another. Lisa says, "jealous people don't feel nice." Paley takes this as a clue that Lisa wants someone (the teacher) who is "more powerful than jealousy and more dependable than impulse or caprice" to keep her from being mean to her classmates. This is something that teachers of young students especially should keep in mind; that students not only need to be keep safe from others who might hurt them, they also need help reigning in their impluses which might hurt others.
2) After the students write their own stories, they then have the opportunity to act them out, with the authors choosing who gets to be the actors and for which parts. I would have agreed with this freedom regarding one's own story. It was interesting how this evolved in Paley's mind as another way of saying "you can't play." After the new rule is established in the classroom, it eventually becomes necessary to rewrite the rules regarding this acting out of one's stories. Paley decides that they will simply have a list of who's turn is next. Paley discovers that in giving up control of who plays which character, the storytellers become liberated themselves from the demands of peer expectations and the actors, now chosen by chance, not preference, no longer feel beholden to the author for approval. My eyes were opened to this; the students, in giving up one freedom, the freedom to choose who played which part, gained a greater freedom, the freedom to express oneself without trying to meet outside expectations, a heavy burden in those so young.
3) It was interesting to discover what the upper students thought about this new rule; that it was fair but that it wouldn't work. Friendship is more important than fair. Paley notices that they could all remember a time when they had been excluded but they did not reflect on a time when they themselves did the rejecting. A fifth grade girl expresses doubt that the new rule could work because the students wouldn't be bothered by the punishment for breaking this rule. This "punishment" aspect surprises Paley. She explains that "it isn't a matter of punishing someone, it's more a case of protecting someone."
When Paley finally decides to implement this rule, she realizes that she herself must stop excluding students from play. Like her students I was surprised that she would no longer say "no" to Karl even though he would not pick up the blocks. That consequence seems so appropriate. Playing with the classroom toys is a privilege and "with privilege goes responsibility," the responsibility to pick up after oneself. It was interesting to ponder Paley's new take on this, that she was excluding Karl from play and that this would no longer be allowed. Karl would eventually learn to pick up after himself.
In her time of discovery with her children, Paley observed that exclusion is, in fact, an example of "one's good times being predicated upon someone else's bad times." She decided that this was not acceptable in her classroom. Once the rule was in place, the children learned it was easier to open doors than to keep people out. In this Ms. Paley realized that "we must be told when we are young what rules to live by." Perhaps each generation of parents has felt this way but it seems especially so with our generation, that we want our children to learn to think for themselves and we do not want to indoctrinate them. However, kindness and consideration are not something that we are born with. When our children are young, in order for them to feel safe - especially away from home - they need to see that all children are safe. If one student is allowed to be excluded then it could happen to any student. Some students will go to any extreme to see that they are not the ones excluded. Paley observed, the identity of the student being excluded is not the major obstacle. It is the "habit of exclusion" that grows so strong, if allowed to.
Teachers need to remember that our students must learn what rules to live by. They must learn which actions are acceptable and which will not be tolerated. As surely as we teach them that the earth revolves around the sun, we must show them how to have consideration for their fellow inhabitants of this earth.
Ms. Paleys' Biblical point of reference: "The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Leviticus 19:34
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