December 23, 2024 • 47 mins
Today we are talking Agency with our friend Lara! We talk getting outside, the best ways we can show up for children, and how we teach students to learn about their own needs.
About Laura
Lara Lloyd The Forest School Lady and Owner of Park Hall Forest School
After living in Finland, Lara was a traditional Primary School teacher in strict Private schools who was always trying to find an excuse to flee the classroom and get outside. She now runs a year-round, fully outdoor early years setting where the emphasis is on guiding children to look after their needs, their friends and their environment and be the best humans they can be. Lara has a masters in family psychology and so also tries to integrate the whole family into the Forest School way of living. Lara offers training including an agency audit and online mentoring chats to troubleshoot issues in your setting on your path to independence and agency.
You can find Lara and her school at @theForestschoollady and @parkhallforestschool
Intro Music: David Biedenbender
Other Music: Noru Pixabay
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lara Lloyd (00:00):
We don't know whether, if it's what
(00:02):
connections and links a child ismaking in their brain about
dandelions, just while we happento be talking about magpies, you
know, just let them get on withit, because that's what's
important to them right now, andthat's what's going to stick
with
Introduction (00:17):
So now we'rerecording the so welcometo
Teach Wonder. Yes, welcome toTeach Wonder, a podcast hosted
by Ashley O'Neill and JulieCunningham.
Ashley O'Neil (00:42):
Today is the day.
This conversation is one thatI've been thinking about for
weeks, and I'm so excited tofinally share. Our guest is
Laura Floyd. When we were inIceland, we met a ton of lovely
practitioners, and Laura is oneof them. We bonded over the last
bite of gluten free cake walksthrough town and pedagogical
debriefs, joy and clevernessradiate off of her, and that
(01:03):
energy comes across in thisconversation. We typically edit
our interview interviews just abit for length and clarity, but
we did not want you to miss amoment with Laura, so this
episode runs a little longerthan our usual. It's worth the
Listen, though, Lara has thisway of saying things that just
stick with you. I've beenthinking about this conversation
since we had a few weeks ago,and many of the ideas that Julie
(01:25):
and I brought back with us camefrom the external processing we
did with Laura and the rest ofour group. Laura will tell you a
bit more about herself, butwe've also linked her for school
profiles in our show notes. Inthis episode, you'll hear
Laura's philosophies aboutchildren, agency and nature, and
she draws on her experience in away that brings new and unique
perspectives to topics we'vebeen covering this season. We
(01:46):
hope you enjoy this conversationwith Laura as much as we enjoyed
talking with her.
Lara Lloyd (02:01):
Okay,
Julie Cunningham (02:02):
it's so good to see you and to hear your
voice. Um,but, can you - notBut. And Lara, can you tell us
your setting is really uniquefor us and for our listeners? I
think we don't haveanythingquite like what you have and
quite like how you work withchildren that we would be
(02:24):
familiar with here. So can youexplain what yourwhat your
setting is like for us?
Lara Lloyd (02:31):
Absolutely okay.
Sowe run a program, an outdoorprogram, that is all year round,
five days a week for children,kind of largely aged two to
five. And then also we have, ona Friday, we have what we call
Freedom Friday, which is a homeEd session for children who've
(02:52):
been coming to us since theywere kind of two or three. And
then they've continued theirhome Ed journey. They just find
that the one thing they can'tkind of capture in a lot of
their other work is that feelingof being dropped off by their
carers and being part of acommunity that's for them,
(03:12):
that's their own. And so we kindof give them that on a Friday,
and also some children who havemade the transition to school,
but kind of just want to keepone foot in what we do. That's
their Friday session as well. Sowe often hope that when our
program starts off with afamily, when the children are
(03:32):
two, that we can kind of keepthem with us one way or another
for a long time, whether that'sbecause siblings attend or
whether that's because they keepcoming to us for their care and
vacations like day camps, orbecause they're going to have
part of their education with us.
(03:53):
Yeah, so. We're set on a farm.
It's not a real farm. It's afarm that's kind of open to the
public at various times of theyear. So there are lots of
animals. There are sometimesthere's things growing, but not
in great quantities. There'sdefinitely tractors around
during the day, and kind ofgrumpy, ill tempered farmers, as
(04:18):
well as jolly, happy farmersaround during the day, some of
the animals, the children willknow by name, and they will
greet in the morning, andthey'll be like, Hi Rosemary
pig, hi Susie pig. And they'llkind of develop links with and
they'll want to check in withevery day. And we've had piglets
born recently. So it's beenreally interesting for them to
(04:41):
see those getting older andbigger, and then obviously,
sometimes the other end of thatscale, whereby we've got older
animals that aren't there all ofa sudden one morning. So that's
something to talk about as well.
So the farm forms part of whatwe do was. More than mine, and
(05:02):
also it has some fun facilitiesthat we can use as well. Because
much as we love to embrace theweather, sometimes it's quite
nice to have a little tripinside where they have got a
huge sand pit and kind of slidesand things like that that we can
also use. So that's really nice.
So that's kind of our setting.
(05:25):
An ideal dream day for us wouldbe would see the children kind
of off on their adventures, fromwhen their parents dropped them
off to they would choose theroute where we were going to go
and meander all morning, andthen they would, they would kind
(05:46):
of dictate what was going tohappen next. They would ask if
they wanted some of our input.
They would ignore us if wesuggested something that we
didn't really want. They wouldset the tempest at the pace. We
would kind of shepherd them andand maybe draw attention to
things. Maybe, if they hadneglected their needs a little
bit, we could give them thatnudge, you know, and then we
(06:08):
would end up in our forest,which is kind of fenced all
around. It's like our base camp,where they're very, very
familiar. And then they wouldroam about, and we would be
completely redundant while theydid all the things that they
want to do. So yeah, that's asuccessful day for us when we
are standing maybe nursing a cupof coffee, looking around
(06:30):
thinking, wow, these childrenare incredible at doing
everything they want to do, andthey don't need us at all.
That's amazing. And you'veposted a couple of fabulous
pictures lately online of yourrecent snowfall. So just a
reminder, like for ourlisteners, that you and the
children are outside in yearround, in all different kinds of
(06:53):
weather. I know you mentionedit's nice to be able to go
inside, of course, once in awhile, into the farm, but for
largely, you are outsidedressed, yeah, dressed in race,
dressed in whatever, yeah. Sothe other morning I got there,
and it was minus six when I gotthere, which is not commonly
what we would expect aroundhere, necessarily. But it was a
(07:15):
beautiful, clear day, and thesun was out. There was snow on
the ground. And it's momentslike that that, as a
practitioner, you just think, ohmy goodness, I would be missing
this. Because even we wake upsome mornings and think, oh my
God, why am I doing this? Butyou it's a bit like exercise. I
guess once you start doing it,once you're out there, you
(07:36):
think, wow, how lucky am I thatI have to come out and
experience this. And withinmoments, really, you realize how
special it is. Yeah, sun shiningsnow on the ground. When you've
got all the right layers onyou're okay, yeah, and we supply
all our kits to the children,and it is, it is a big part of
it, but also teaching them toeither sit with being a little
(07:59):
bit chilly for a little while,you know, you're going to warm
up. You're going to go back toyour lovely warm home, you know.
So it's okay to be a bit chillyfor a while, and also that
you've got it the children, andwe have got it within ourselves
to kind of reverse that and getthe body heat going and warm up.
And you've got this, you knowyou have so, yeah, I guess that
(08:20):
all plays into your kind oftheme at the moment of agency,
doesn't it?
Julie Cunningham (08:28):
It does.
Ashley O'Neil (08:30):
So speaking of agency, I know you mentioned, I
mean, your dream day, I thinkincorporates that. But we're
really big on being explicithere and talking about, like,
the why and the what that we doand then the intentional what we
don't do. So can you talk alittle bit about how you provide
agency for the children thatyou're setting over their
(08:51):
learning?
Lara Lloyd (08:53):
I think that is really interesting, yeah,
because that's intentionallyproviding agency. So it's like
you say, it's stripping it backand sometimes looking at what
you're doing naturally, andsaying, but why are we doing
that? Why do we feel that that'sthe way we want to go? And just
checking in with what you saidthere, Ashley, I would say often
(09:15):
it's not doing thingsintentionally. Not doing things
is how we ensure the childrenare kind of, yeah, are embracing
the agency that we so want themto seek. So we will talk less.
That is a massive one. I thinkthat's a huge recommendation
(09:35):
that could go out to so manyadults. And I love to talk. You
know, I would talk endlessly, ifI could about anything, but we
tried to talk less at decisionmaking points in particular. So
just give them a beat, you know,give them that bit of time. You
don't want anyone to bebewildered. But say we've
(09:56):
meandered up the track where wealways go. We're underneath the
oak tree where we. Always makethe decisions. Give them that
bit of time. You don't need torush it. We're not going
anywhere. We got another, youknow, five and a half hours of
the session. So just give them abeep. Stand back and see what
decisions come. See whatsuggestions come. So think,
(10:17):
yeah, what we don't do? I thinkwe within that we are
deliberately a little bit obtuseat times. So possibly when
children are struggling withsomething like putting on a
mitten or adjusting theirclothing or something, I think
it's all too regular that yousee people rushing in, adults
(10:40):
rushing in and trying to curesomething and try, oh, I don't
want any struggle. I don't wantthe children to have any
struggle at all. But actually,we will deliberately leave them
a little while, and we willdeliberately leave children who
are having a disagreement, youknow, and that's something that
when I've had students workingwith me, we will, you know,
literally, I have before, and Isort of extended an arm. No,
(11:05):
we're standing back. It's notthat we haven't noticed. We are
leaving them because we want tosee what they're doing. Because
if they don't experience anykind of confrontation, they
don't experience any kind ofdiscomfort in their
relationships, then it's goingto be a really big shock one
day, isn't it? And so muchbetter that they experience that
(11:25):
here and now in our lovingenvironment, where they feel
real security and belonging,than some later stage where
everything's new and they're thenew kid or Yeah. So I think
yeah, often the things we don'tdo are very, very powerful. We
also don't enforce that childrendo things we and I think this
(11:49):
word invitations gets bandedaround a lot in in education, in
early years education at themoment, but we very much don't
enforce things. We will say, Oh,well, I was thinking that I
might go and do so and so, andeveryone's welcome. Or I think I
might, you know, feel a bithungry actually, and I might
(12:10):
have my lunch. What about you?
How are you feeling? Oh, okay,well, I'll see you in a little
while. Or I'm going to read thisstory, because I really feel
like I enjoyed it yesterday, andyou can join me if you want to,
yes, so a lot of that, and ifyou know that child is not
interested in that, then that'sperfectly fine. You know, they
know what they're interested in,and we don't know whether, if
(12:31):
what connections and links achild is making in their brain
about dandelions, just while wehappen to be talking about
magpies, you know, just let themget on with it, because that's
what's important to them rightnow, and that's what's going to
stick with them. Yeah, I alsoheard you, even just when you
were describing your ideal day,you talked a lot about agency,
(12:55):
right? You said the studentschoose the path on how you're
going to get somewhere, like, anis, I mean, it sounds like they
all kind of need to go together,but nonetheless, they have
choice in the pack, and then youare choice in the path. And then
you also said, and then we mightsay, Oh, do you notice this? But
they can ignore us if they want,right? Like, yeah. I mean, the
(13:17):
adults are talking, but maybewhat we have to say isn't really
all that important. Carry on.
When I was training to be ateacher, my eldest son was
three, and we had me and myparents had really researched
the daycare we wanted to go himto go to. He didn't really even
need to go. We thought we bettersocialize him, you know. And
(13:41):
we've been to all thesedifferent ones, and which ones
did the most activities. Andthis one, the one we chose, you
know, did gardening, and it didbaking, and it did French. And
so my dad went to pick him upone day, and he said, All right,
so you've done French today. Andmy three year old son looked at
him like, well, she did French.
I didn't. And that just stuckwith me so much at this
(14:06):
massively early stage in myteaching career where I hadn't
even probably been let loose onother people's children yet. And
I was like, oh, right, okay, soto the children you are standing
up there. You could be sayinganything you like, but they are
on their own path, and they aredoing their own thing. So don't
think that you are so importantthat they're listening to you,
(14:28):
because they're not. And even athree year old recognized that
and could tell you that, right?
Like it was fantastic, yeah. Andyou never did get along with
school, actually. Sothat's beensomething that's been that
stayed with me a lot. Yeah,yeah, well, and it does sound a
little bit dreamy as well, goingback to our setting, where we
(14:49):
saying they choose the path andthen we follow them along. But
that's not to say that we bendto their every whim. We discuss
with them the practicality.Ofthat, you know. So if we did all
need to stay together in agroup, then we would discuss it,
and we'd say, well, do you knowwhat little Felix, his little
(15:12):
legs probably aren't going tomake it round that particular
pathway. So I think we betterchoose something that's more
suitable for our youngestmembers of the team, orsomething
like that, and we discuss thatwith them, because, again,
that's part of theresponsibility of agency. You're
giving them agency, but you'renot giving them entitlement.
(15:34):
You're giving them theresponsibility as well, that the
choices that they make haveconsequences. We are very lucky
because we don't spend a lot ofthe money that we generate, or
we're given through funding onresourcing. We spend it on our
team, and that's what we investin. And so we generally always
(15:55):
have at least one, sometimes twomore members of the team than
other nurseries in our county,because we feel that that's what
our children benefit frommost,even if they're not doing
noticeably, doing anything, evenif they are deliberately
stepping back. They are there ifneeded, and they are there to
(16:18):
facilitate someone wants to gothat way, and someone wants to
go that way, you know? Yeah,that's I was just thinking so
you can honor more of thechildren's wishes because you
have the staff members to do so,yeah, that's a really great
perspective on that. And it'sboth a luxury and a necessity. I
guess it's a necessity for theway we want to do it. Other
(16:39):
people would see it as a luxury,but I would say, Cut away other
costs that are just notimportant, and they are not
impacting directly on what thechildren want to do in the
present moment.
Ashley O'Neil (16:54):
You said, I love what you said about involving
them in the decision makingprocess, and it reminds me of
when we were all havingconversations together,
something I just was, I keptbeing struck by, is there's a
deep honor in you and respectfor the child like you. Respect
that they deserve to have a seatat the table when it comes to
all of the decision making, andthat comes along with respect in
(17:17):
them, enough to say, you know,this is why we can't do that and
informing of them of yourdecisions. Do you feel like that
intrinsic respect you have foryour students is universal, is
that something you work on a lotwith your staff,because I see
(17:39):
that varying a lot amongstpractitioners that we work with
and see andstudents that we havewho are going to be teachers
someday. So how do you capturethat with your your team, so
that they really get that that'sthe point. That's the thing.
Lara Lloyd (17:56):
Um, I think a lot of that comes through knowing the
children really, really well.
And when I say that, I thinkthat then become that sounds
like a bit of a disappointinganswer, but if you do think
about the fact that, like I say,we make the spend on team, so we
might have September new intakeof children, 11 children, four
(18:17):
adults. So you can't help butknow all of those children
really, really well. And withknowing them,come, you know,
comes a love for them and anaffection for them. And with
that comes, you know, trust andyeah, this idea that you want to
(18:38):
lift them up, and you want themto realize all their potential,
and you wouldn't dream, youwouldn't dream of doing
something which didn't honorthat. Now, within that, there's
also the idea of that, and Idon't know whether this is
helped by our particular thenature of our work that we are
(19:00):
all outside together, fightingthe elements together, but we
are of a tribe, I suppose. Andwe are not the adults, and they
are the children, necessarily.
When we count, we will count allof us to make sure no one gets
left behind. We will count, youknow, the full range and so. And
(19:23):
they will look around and theywill say, you know, well,
where's Lara gone? You know,we're all over one and so it
just becomes natural then thatwe would listen to everybody,
our youngest members, oursmallest members, our slowest
members, just the same as wewould listen to our oldest or
(19:44):
the tallest members, youknow.And I do think that this
kind of links into something Iwas thinking about from Iceland,
something we noticed from thepractitioners was that they
didn't. Treat children as analien species. They were not
(20:05):
treating them as if they were acompletely different, I think, a
completely different creature.
They were treating as an if theywere younger humans, you know
which they are. And so we don'tneed to think carefully and kind
of choreograph how we're goingto speak to them or act in front
(20:27):
of them, because they're peopletoo. We just need to be normal.
And so at times when we werekind of maybe hanging about,
waiting for a couple of childrento get their outdoor clothes on.
You know, there wasn't thissense of theater like I would
notice this, maybe in a Britishschool, whereby the children
(20:47):
would be kept busy and thechildren would be kept
entertained and the childrenwould be kept controlled. There
was just hanging about, becausesometimes in life, you gotta
hang about. You gotta wait for abus. You gotta wait for the
train, you've delayed intraffic, and you've gotta hang
about, and you might look at abird, or you might look at a
raindrop on a window, or youmight look at your shoe, or you
(21:08):
might think about something thathappened this morning, and that
space is really, reallyimportant and natural, and it's
natural for Children, the sameway it might be natural for you
after you've had a day at workand you just want to drink a cup
of coffee and no one talk to youfor a little while, because
children are the same as us. AndI think maybe that's something
(21:31):
we've talked about as a team,and maybe that's just something
that when, yeah, you're allsharing that experience of being
outside in the rain or the snowor the sunshine and that joint
sometimes not torture, buteither expedition and sometimes
this marvel of nature, it kindof it's impossible to not feel
(21:55):
that they're people just likeyou, And because they teach you
so many things that you just go,Oh, wow. Yeah, I hadn't thought
of it like that. Thank you.
Julie Cunningham (22:07):
Yeah, I think that's really nicely said. We've
had some of some similarconversations in being back from
Iceland about how refreshingthat was, how the children were
treated, and not just in oneplace. I mean, we noticed it
right in all of the schools, bya large number of adults, by
just across the board. So wecompletely agree with you, That
(22:32):
was refreshing. And yeah, whyisn't it that we all do that
with children? Yeah,right.
Ashley O'Neil (22:39):
It seems less exhaustive and just more never,
but like, it's one of thosethings we talk a lot like, well,
what will happen if? Andsometimes I think practitioners
be like, Well, what will happenif we just don't busy them and
they just are standing therewaiting, and we should reframe
it to be like, well, what couldhappen? It could be really good,
right? Rather than this panickysense of, I have to fill every
(23:00):
moment of the day because anydowntime is detrimental and
they'll all lose it. It couldjust be really good
Lara Lloyd (23:08):
or it could be really bad, but do you know
what? Sometimes things arereally bad, and that's okay, you
know? That's all right. That'sall part of it, isn't it, you
know? And then we say, alright,I, or you, made this decision to
do this, and it didn't reallywork out so well. But you know
what? We're all still here, andwe're all still friends, so
(23:29):
that's great, too. You know, weneed, you know, safe failure,
don't we safely make a different
Julie Cunningham (23:34):
- make a different decision.
Ashley O'Neil (23:37):
Yeah, yeah, and we can talk about it, and I
agree, like talking to them asfull people, like a full human.
I hear that when you talk aboutyour setting and your kids, and
I did when we were in Iceland,and we saw that too, and it's
just it makes such a difference.
Julie Cunningham (23:54):
Laura, you mentioned not spending the
majority of your resources onthings, so to speak, right? And
I know that since having talkedwith you in Iceland, that since
your students are outdoors, thatyou often don't take along
wagons full, wagon loads full ofenrichment materials, right? And
(24:16):
so I think sometimes it's reallytempting for adults, along with
doing a lot of talking, is tothrow a lot of to keep kids
busy, right, to not let kidshang about and to throw a lot of
things at them. Well, if you'rebored with this, how about if
you try this and so on. And so Iwonder if you could maybe just
talk about what that looks likein your program a little bit.
(24:41):
But then also, what do youthink, sort of like when kids
get to decide what it is andwhen they have to use their
imagination for the things thatthey're playing with? Like, how
does that fit into sort of ourconversation?
Lara Lloyd (24:55):
Okay, so stuff, I suppose, is the general umbrella
topic here. So I would say a fewthings. One is that even we as
practitioners have to reassureourselves quite a lot of the
time that they don't need morestuff or busying or us to plan
(25:16):
something. So we go throughcycles of this between us as a
team all the time where wethink, Oh, actually, do you
know, what? Should we be doingmore? Should we be doing more?
Should we be providing more? Andthen we just then we kind of
say, no, no, that's not ourphilosophy. And we we become
grounded again. So that'ssomething. Another thing is
that, and I think a thing thatspurs that is that you see all
(25:39):
these beautiful sort ofprovocation, invitation, things
online, and you'll have, youknow, like a penguin and ice
blocks, or, you know, a rainbowand all of this kind of thing.
Yeah, that is not, that is notus. That's not what we're doing
at all, even though all of thatis really pretty. But do you
know what we were talking about?
We were saying that all of thatkind of thing is actually adults
(26:01):
play. It's adults having a greattime. And if I had a student
that came and wanted to do allthat kind of thing, wanted to
set the dinosaurs in the jellyand then invite the children to
play with it, wanted to,I don'tknow that's so far removed I am
from it, but wanted to makestars from twigs and glitter and
(26:25):
things, I'd say, Yeah, you, youknow, you go for it. Nothing's
wrong. We're not purists in thefact that anything is in
particularly wrong. But justknow that you are the one
getting the joy from this. Youare the one that's enjoying it.
And if a child comes along andthey enjoy it too, that's great,
but they will most likely learnmore from a puddle than they
(26:48):
will do from what you're tryingto provide. But if you want to
role model the kind of play thatyou like to engage in, then
that's great. And we, I alwaysencourage that with the team. I
always say, you know, you know,if you want to do painting, then
you say, I think I intend to goand do some painting actually.
(27:08):
And I'm really fancy. I'm usingpurple today, and it's not an
act. I want it. Don't want it tobe inventing things
authentically. If you fancydoing painting, then go off and
on you go, because modeling thatsort of enjoyment is really
great for children. Andsimilarly, if they invite you to
enjoy in their play with them,and you've had enough, then it's
(27:31):
okay to say, Do you know what?
I've had enough of that now, andI'm gonna, I'll see you later.
You know, because that's normal,isn't it? Just because you're
and that goes back to what we'resaying before. Just because
you're taking care of themdoesn't mean that you're the
puppet. You know, You're yourown person. We need to model
that in relationships. Back tostuff, our forest school for
(27:54):
some other forest schoolsettings, they would come in and
they would absolutely they wouldrip us to shreds. We've got
Barbie dolls hanging aroundbecause people have given us
some Barbie dolls. We've got acanoe that is full of water.
We've got we've got all sorts ofnon natural, odd things that
hang about in our forest for alittle while. And if they
(28:18):
deliver some play value to thechildren, and there give a
little hint to their imaginarygames, and that's great. If
there's been a while where theyhaven't sparked anything for the
children, then they'll probablybe on their way out. But yes,
some people would have kittensif they saw the things we've got
in there, you know.
Ashley O'Neil (28:35):
So Laura, what specifically about learning or
play, or learning through playin nature. Do you think is
agentic?
Lara Lloyd (28:44):
Um, I think there's just such a lot to talk about
with nature in itself. And oneof my bugbears at the moment is
this kind of language aroundgetting out into nature, whereas
in reality, we're human animals,and we're meant to be outside.
So it shouldn't be this, thisbig difference that we're going
(29:04):
outside. It should actually bewhat we're doing as a baseline.
I think the benefits,particularly in nature, for me,
are that it is restores us to aplace where the visual noise is
greatly decreased, andstimulation is reduced, and then
(29:27):
we haven't got all these otherthings competing for our
attention. I can't believe stillthe amount of visual noise in
early years classrooms in theUK, and even there's a lot of
settings now whereby they aretrying to make their indoors
very, very natural, but it'sstill full of stuff, you know?
(29:47):
And I'm just like, you don'tneed to do that. Just go
outside. And it's still often inindoor settings, it's very
sterile. And that's anotherthing about it outdoors, is.
That it is unpredictable andmessy and changing, and I
suppose in that way, it hasagency over itself, doesn't it?
(30:13):
We don't have agency overnature. We have in this country
this week, we have had huge,excessive rainfall and floods.
We have had snow last week,which caused the floods. We have
had winds over the weekend. Wecannot control it unless and
less in our lives. Can any of usdo that? And so we need to
accept it, and we need to beresilient towards it. And I
(30:37):
suppose all of that combinesinto one aspect to why nature is
a great place to teach itchildren with agency, but also
it's the fact that it's thisever changing canvas of the
seasons, and that you can'ttruly learn about something by
someone telling you you can'tLearn about autumn by someone
(31:00):
telling you you've got toexperience it and then
experience it again, and there'sthis huge time difference in
between the first time and thesecond time and the next time,
whereby you're taking it in inyour own way, and your knowledge
is Building in your own speed.
And I think that that's one ofthe reasons why learning in
(31:23):
nature is particularly helpful.
Love
Ashley O'Neil (31:29):
that because you think about, we talk a lot about
the third classroom and how likeor the third teacher, and how
the space is really a teacherand as an educator, and when you
have this natural outside space,it teaches kids to be responsive
to something that's soauthentic, right? Like we
contrive these problems andthese puzzles and these things
(31:51):
for kids to work their waythrough, to respond to. But when
we're outside, that just is, itis what it is. And that log has
always been there, but now thatlog is rotten. So if you walk on
it right, it's going to go yourfoot's going to go through. And
so teaching them to beresponsive, but something that's
completely authentic and notmade up at all is just
beautiful. I also just love whatyou said about the time in
(32:12):
between the seasons and how theyexperience it, and then there's
time that goes by, and then theysee it again. And from that
clinical science, and I don'tmean science is clinical, but we
often make it seem clinical andsterile, right? We try to have
these ongoing investigationswhere we get kids to engage in
science over a long period oftime. But you're right, they go
(32:34):
outside and they're engaging inan ecosystem over a long period
of time and observing thechanges that are happening
inside of it.
Lara Lloyd (32:42):
And that's I guess, if we were set in our I guess if
we were explaining ourcurriculum, we would talk about
universal truths. So we wouldsay, right, so you're out in
nature. That's the best place tobe, because it's where your body
(33:03):
wants you to be, so where youcan concentrate the best. And
then you when you're there andyou're in the present, you're
not in your head. You're goingto see wet and dry. You're going
to see hot and cold. You'regoing to see decay. You're going
to see rebirth. You're going tosee all the actual essential
universal concepts that make upour world so and that is not so
(33:27):
that when you get into highschool science, you can ace your
grades and do really well.
That's so that you can be areally useful human, you know,
and in as much as you know,understanding how to do laundry
with your partner for yourchildren, or, you know,
reversing climate change, butyou cannot possibly have a hope
(33:48):
in understanding any of that ifyou haven't put Your foot
through that rotten log,
Ashley O'Neil (34:01):
Was it you I saw that you had, like, look after
yourself, looked after eachother, look after nature. Are
those your three rules? Yeah.
And then why do you put them inthe order, on purpose? And why?
Yeah,
Lara Lloyd (34:11):
Mm, hmm, yeah. So a lot of the time that rules
associated with a setting aredon't do this, don't do that. So
we definitely wanted to havesomething that was positive
action rather than preventativeaction. And we looked around,
particularly at the time ofCOVID. We listened to all the
(34:32):
noise to do with mental health,and we thought, right, we've got
to we've got to ensure that weare starting with a generation
of children who look afterthemselves first and truly
believe that as well not justsay it or and don't do it like a
(34:54):
lot of maybe my generation, wordor not do it in spite of other
people. People, perhaps, likemaybe another separate
generation would, but whoactually believe that is the
most important thing for them?
So we think that being out innature teaches you to look after
yourself in a really tangibleway, because you really are
(35:15):
cold, sometimes you really arehot. You might sting yourself on
a nettle. You burn a lot offuel, and you get hungry, and
then you get grumpy, you know?
So we tend to think it's areally easy way of the children
seeing when they and theirfriends need to cover their
(35:41):
needs really, and we talk a lotabout needs, and have we met all
your needs? This is a point inour day where we might have a
little audit of whether we'vechecked in out all of our needs,
and getting that vocabulary inthere really early. And I guess
it's all based kind of onMaslow's hierarchy of needs,
whereby, how can we possiblyexpect children to reach the top
(36:03):
of that pyramid and the selfactualization, which is
creativity and mastery thatcomes in their play, if they are
hungry, if they are thirsty, ifthey need a rest, you know? And
so can't possibly ask them to dothat. Can we? We need to satisfy
the needs first, and they can'tdepend on other people for that.
(36:23):
You need to do that forthemselves.
Ashley O'Neil (36:26):
And that, I think, circles back to earlier
in our conversation. You respectkids. No, it sounds like you
just respect kids now, if theydon't want to participate, if
that doesn't sound good to them,if they're not hungry yet, if
they would prefer to not playthat game or read that book, you
would respect their no and Ithink that's so powerful,
(36:48):
because how do we teach childrento trust their intuition and
their internal body cues ifsomeone else is already always
externally telling them we'redoing this, this is what you
want to do. This is fun, right?
This is what we have to do. Acost of that is that we teach
kids to kind of downplay withour own needs. So I love that
you are really teaching them tobe in tune with their own body
and the story their body istelling themselves. And that
(37:13):
comes from the adults saying wehear your no and that that has
value. So that's amazing, yeah,
Lara Lloyd (37:20):
and it's not a problem. You'll know is not a
problem. I think that's powerfultoo well,
Julie Cunningham (37:26):
When? When? Do you know when? Or maybe you know
from your own children? I don'tknow, but do you know when the
students leave you and this andthey go to a more traditional
school setting, like, do theyget to continue that feeling
that way about or, or is it justall over the place? And there's
no way to really tell, right?
Because this seems like reallymagical, and you'd want for that
(37:47):
to continue as they went throughmore traditional schooling after
five years old,
Lara Lloyd (37:57):
yeah, so, um, our setting will have. I mean, it's
quite small. I don't knowwhether I really said that, but
we might only have maybe 16 to20 children in the year, and
then they may go then to 16 or20 different schools. So they
often don't go together, becausethey carefully selected us from
(38:17):
all the other settings around sothat they will then spread back
out again. It's our hope, and wehave seen with with other
children that we've stayed intouch with that because they've
been with us. They are ratherthan as I think, that their
carers fear, they will then bewild and difficult to tame and
(38:38):
not fit into systems. They areextremely content young people
who understand why there have tobe systems, and when they get to
their formal schooling, and theyunderstand the nature of
belonging to a community anddoing things at the same time as
the rest of their community. Andso rather than kind of
(39:00):
nurturing, sort of prima donnasthat say I only do what I want
to do when I want to do it. Ithink because you've given them
that time and space and agencyat an important period, they
then are usually at a pointwhere they're like, Well, I'm
I'm going to go along with thisbecause I can see it makes
sense. Yeah, because I'm a goodcitizen, but not because I'm a
(39:24):
people pleaser, but you know,and we kind of got a balanced
outlook towards it, because, umYeah, listening to adults we we
tend to find and we hope that,because they've mixed with
adults who generally only talkwhen they got something really
worthwhile to say. The adultsthat they've met with love them
(39:46):
and have treated them withrespect that they're going to
come into contact with newadults that are the same, and so
they tend to really like theirteachers when they get to formal
schooling and listen carefullyto what they've got to say. So
yeah. Seems
Ashley O'Neil (40:00):
like you've given them some of the language to
articulate their own needs. AndI think that is such a powerful
gift, right? I remember when Iwas in the classroom teaching,
it makes a difference whenyou're an overwhelmed new first
grade teacher, and you have achild who can say, I'm really
tired today, or I had a toughday, or a tough morning with
whatever or I'm really hungryand a child is in tune enough to
(40:23):
tell you what their needs are.
That's a huge tool that extendsno matter where they end up and
what relationships or whatadults they come across, because
the ability for them to explainand express what their needs
are, versus having some sort ofbig feeling or maintain just
being grumpy all day becausethey can't pinpoint what the
(40:44):
thing is, that's a huge gift forthose kids, no matter where they
Lara Lloyd (40:54):
go. Okay, so we've got this funny thing where,
yeah, we don't really fit inwith school teachers and other
settings that work with littlechildren in the UK, because
you'll be talking to them aboutlove and nurture and belonging
(41:15):
in your setting, or givingchildren agency, or letting them
to take risks, and they'll allnod along with you and sort of
say, Oh yeah, I hear what yousay. I hear what you say. But
then they'll kind and kind ofturn around and sort of start
talking about, you know, thethemes they're going to cover
this term, or how they're goingto decorate their classroom, or,
(41:36):
like, how they're struggling toget all the children to write
their own names before they goto school and all the
preparation they need to makefor them. And you're thinking,
oh, right, we don't fit in withyou, because you've nodded along
with everything I've said, Butyou You don't really believe it.
And then you'll go and kind ofhang out with the Forest School
guys, or maybe this applies alittle bit to the home ed
(41:57):
community as well, and they'llbe kind of like, you know, Oh,
nothing, academic matters. Let'sall just kind of like howl at
the moon and, you know, dance inthe Twilight and all of that
kind of thing. Which, you know,I love all of that, obviously,
but I'm, I kind of find myselfin this kind of desolate, lonely
(42:18):
middle ground whereby I, yeah, Iwant to, you know, wade through
a stream, and think that'sreally important. But I also
think that giving childrenagency over their learning and
letting them jump in a puddle orbalance on a wobbly log, or or
all of the wonderful experienceswe like to do, I think they're
(42:41):
the best preparation foracademic learning? I don't think
they're instead of I think thatthey are the best preparation.
And actually, Julie, this leadsme to something that we
experienced in Iceland, wherebywe saw children climbing trees.
And lots of children climb treesin my setting, I climb trees in
(43:02):
my setting. And we got back, andwe reported back to the group
about how we'd seen childrenclimbing trees, and then one of
the members of the group kind ofsaid, and that's so great,
because they've let them climbtrees, and now they're going to
have really strong hands andwrists, and then that means
they're going to be a reallygreat writer. And I'm like, I
(43:24):
really took objection to that,because I said no, they let them
climb trees because they wantedto climb trees. Um, yes, that
child might be a really greatwriter, but not because their
hands are strong enough for themechanics of writing, but
because they are curious enoughto seek out their very own
unique viewpoint, and one daythey'll want to write that down,
(43:47):
because they've got something tosay.
Ashley O'Neil (43:49):
And it's so true, I feel like the moment we say
that we do do something for thesake of a future academic goal,
it just is like taking a needknitting needle to the balloon.
That is the magic of theoriginal thing, right? Like, if
suddenly these teachers go,Okay, I'm gonna take my kids
outside to climb trees, and thensuddenly their their fine motor
(44:10):
skills are going to betremendous, and then they're
mandating that kids areoutgoing. And it just becomes
one more thing that an adult ledan adult driven experience.
Yeah, it's kind of missing thepoint of what it was in the
first place.
Unknown (44:23):
Absolutely, yeah, I love that analogy. Yeah, the
balloon like, oh,
Ashley O'Neil (44:36):
every day it's not fun. I'm
Lara Lloyd (44:38):
gonna go and do a big page of math.
Julie Cunningham (44:44):
To climb trees, to be better writers. Now
go climb that tree, because weneed your writing. We need your
hand to be strong for writinglike that would be a you'd be
like, what why we
Ashley O'Neil (44:54):
do? We make it so much harder on ourselves and
like we kind of just can't letit be its own thing. For the
sake of itself, right? Like,it's just really fun to do all
of these things, and havingstrong hands is great for
opening jars, and it's greatfor, you know, like turning on
faucets. It's great for openingthe door, to go inside, to do
all these other things, buthandwriting, that's what we're
(45:15):
going to put out to our focusand
Lara Lloyd (45:18):
and sometimes we get talking about kind of resilience
and looking after yourself. Andit sounds like, you know, I'm
wanting all three year olds tobe like, mega survivalists or
something like that. I feel likepeople are looking at me like,
Oh, this is a little bit cruel.
And I'm like, Well, no, becauseif, if we did take away all of
academic world and themanufactured human world, you
(45:41):
know, we'd be brought back to,you know, are you dry when it's
wet? Are you warm when it'scold? These are the important
things, you know. And that's thekind of person I want to be
around if something disastroushappens. Is someone who can sort
it out with their strong hands,you know, absolutely.
Ashley O'Neil (46:02):
So I feel like we've covered this. But if we
were to ask you, why do you feellike agency is important to
children? Is there anything elsethat you wanted to say? Well,
written
Lara Lloyd (46:12):
in my notes, I have written, well, why is agency
important to people in general?
And I suppose that is exactlywhat we've covered. Yeah, agency
is important to children becauseit's important to humans,
because, you know, withoutgetting like, do political or
historical, without agency, whoare we? You know, it really is
(46:32):
the greatest necessity andluxury that we can we can have
agency and freedom, isn't it? SoI think largely, when we're
thinking about the children thatwe're trying to shepherd and
look after, we're thinking abouttheir well being as time goes on
and we're thinking, Well, if wetrust them, respect them, and
(46:57):
show them that they have agencyover their choices, then they're
going to understandconsequences, and they're going
that is going to give them areally secure foundation, and
that is going to let them intothe world feeling that they've
got something to give, somethingTo offer, and we're hopefully
(47:18):
not going to have this anotherkind of generation of children
who who feel that they are notgood enough, or they're not
heard, or that they are havebeen damaged by the world in
Some way, I suppose. Yeah.
Ashley O'Neil (47:41):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
teach wonder. The show isbrought to you by the Center for
Excellence in STEM education.
You.
We don't know whether, if it's what
(00:02):
connections and links a child ismaking in their brain about
dandelions, just while we happento be talking about magpies, you
know, just let them get on withit, because that's what's
important to them right now, andthat's what's going to stick
with
Introduction (00:17):
So now we'rerecording the so welcometo
Teach Wonder. Yes, welcome toTeach Wonder, a podcast hosted
by Ashley O'Neill and JulieCunningham.
Ashley O'Neil (00:42):
Today is the day.
This conversation is one thatI've been thinking about for
weeks, and I'm so excited tofinally share. Our guest is
Laura Floyd. When we were inIceland, we met a ton of lovely
practitioners, and Laura is oneof them. We bonded over the last
bite of gluten free cake walksthrough town and pedagogical
debriefs, joy and clevernessradiate off of her, and that
(01:03):
energy comes across in thisconversation. We typically edit
our interview interviews just abit for length and clarity, but
we did not want you to miss amoment with Laura, so this
episode runs a little longerthan our usual. It's worth the
Listen, though, Lara has thisway of saying things that just
stick with you. I've beenthinking about this conversation
since we had a few weeks ago,and many of the ideas that Julie
(01:25):
and I brought back with us camefrom the external processing we
did with Laura and the rest ofour group. Laura will tell you a
bit more about herself, butwe've also linked her for school
profiles in our show notes. Inthis episode, you'll hear
Laura's philosophies aboutchildren, agency and nature, and
she draws on her experience in away that brings new and unique
perspectives to topics we'vebeen covering this season. We
(01:46):
hope you enjoy this conversationwith Laura as much as we enjoyed
talking with her.
Lara Lloyd (02:01):
Okay,
Julie Cunningham (02:02):
it's so good to see you and to hear your
voice. Um,but, can you - notBut. And Lara, can you tell us
your setting is really uniquefor us and for our listeners? I
think we don't haveanythingquite like what you have and
quite like how you work withchildren that we would be
(02:24):
familiar with here. So can youexplain what yourwhat your
setting is like for us?
Lara Lloyd (02:31):
Absolutely okay.
Sowe run a program, an outdoorprogram, that is all year round,
five days a week for children,kind of largely aged two to
five. And then also we have, ona Friday, we have what we call
Freedom Friday, which is a homeEd session for children who've
(02:52):
been coming to us since theywere kind of two or three. And
then they've continued theirhome Ed journey. They just find
that the one thing they can'tkind of capture in a lot of
their other work is that feelingof being dropped off by their
carers and being part of acommunity that's for them,
(03:12):
that's their own. And so we kindof give them that on a Friday,
and also some children who havemade the transition to school,
but kind of just want to keepone foot in what we do. That's
their Friday session as well. Sowe often hope that when our
program starts off with afamily, when the children are
(03:32):
two, that we can kind of keepthem with us one way or another
for a long time, whether that'sbecause siblings attend or
whether that's because they keepcoming to us for their care and
vacations like day camps, orbecause they're going to have
part of their education with us.
(03:53):
Yeah, so. We're set on a farm.
It's not a real farm. It's afarm that's kind of open to the
public at various times of theyear. So there are lots of
animals. There are sometimesthere's things growing, but not
in great quantities. There'sdefinitely tractors around
during the day, and kind ofgrumpy, ill tempered farmers, as
(04:18):
well as jolly, happy farmersaround during the day, some of
the animals, the children willknow by name, and they will
greet in the morning, andthey'll be like, Hi Rosemary
pig, hi Susie pig. And they'llkind of develop links with and
they'll want to check in withevery day. And we've had piglets
born recently. So it's beenreally interesting for them to
(04:41):
see those getting older andbigger, and then obviously,
sometimes the other end of thatscale, whereby we've got older
animals that aren't there all ofa sudden one morning. So that's
something to talk about as well.
So the farm forms part of whatwe do was. More than mine, and
(05:02):
also it has some fun facilitiesthat we can use as well. Because
much as we love to embrace theweather, sometimes it's quite
nice to have a little tripinside where they have got a
huge sand pit and kind of slidesand things like that that we can
also use. So that's really nice.
So that's kind of our setting.
(05:25):
An ideal dream day for us wouldbe would see the children kind
of off on their adventures, fromwhen their parents dropped them
off to they would choose theroute where we were going to go
and meander all morning, andthen they would, they would kind
(05:46):
of dictate what was going tohappen next. They would ask if
they wanted some of our input.
They would ignore us if wesuggested something that we
didn't really want. They wouldset the tempest at the pace. We
would kind of shepherd them andand maybe draw attention to
things. Maybe, if they hadneglected their needs a little
bit, we could give them thatnudge, you know, and then we
(06:08):
would end up in our forest,which is kind of fenced all
around. It's like our base camp,where they're very, very
familiar. And then they wouldroam about, and we would be
completely redundant while theydid all the things that they
want to do. So yeah, that's asuccessful day for us when we
are standing maybe nursing a cupof coffee, looking around
(06:30):
thinking, wow, these childrenare incredible at doing
everything they want to do, andthey don't need us at all.
That's amazing. And you'veposted a couple of fabulous
pictures lately online of yourrecent snowfall. So just a
reminder, like for ourlisteners, that you and the
children are outside in yearround, in all different kinds of
(06:53):
weather. I know you mentionedit's nice to be able to go
inside, of course, once in awhile, into the farm, but for
largely, you are outsidedressed, yeah, dressed in race,
dressed in whatever, yeah. Sothe other morning I got there,
and it was minus six when I gotthere, which is not commonly
what we would expect aroundhere, necessarily. But it was a
(07:15):
beautiful, clear day, and thesun was out. There was snow on
the ground. And it's momentslike that that, as a
practitioner, you just think, ohmy goodness, I would be missing
this. Because even we wake upsome mornings and think, oh my
God, why am I doing this? Butyou it's a bit like exercise. I
guess once you start doing it,once you're out there, you
(07:36):
think, wow, how lucky am I thatI have to come out and
experience this. And withinmoments, really, you realize how
special it is. Yeah, sun shiningsnow on the ground. When you've
got all the right layers onyou're okay, yeah, and we supply
all our kits to the children,and it is, it is a big part of
it, but also teaching them toeither sit with being a little
(07:59):
bit chilly for a little while,you know, you're going to warm
up. You're going to go back toyour lovely warm home, you know.
So it's okay to be a bit chillyfor a while, and also that
you've got it the children, andwe have got it within ourselves
to kind of reverse that and getthe body heat going and warm up.
And you've got this, you knowyou have so, yeah, I guess that
(08:20):
all plays into your kind oftheme at the moment of agency,
doesn't it?
Julie Cunningham (08:28):
It does.
Ashley O'Neil (08:30):
So speaking of agency, I know you mentioned, I
mean, your dream day, I thinkincorporates that. But we're
really big on being explicithere and talking about, like,
the why and the what that we doand then the intentional what we
don't do. So can you talk alittle bit about how you provide
agency for the children thatyou're setting over their
(08:51):
learning?
Lara Lloyd (08:53):
I think that is really interesting, yeah,
because that's intentionallyproviding agency. So it's like
you say, it's stripping it backand sometimes looking at what
you're doing naturally, andsaying, but why are we doing
that? Why do we feel that that'sthe way we want to go? And just
checking in with what you saidthere, Ashley, I would say often
(09:15):
it's not doing thingsintentionally. Not doing things
is how we ensure the childrenare kind of, yeah, are embracing
the agency that we so want themto seek. So we will talk less.
That is a massive one. I thinkthat's a huge recommendation
(09:35):
that could go out to so manyadults. And I love to talk. You
know, I would talk endlessly, ifI could about anything, but we
tried to talk less at decisionmaking points in particular. So
just give them a beat, you know,give them that bit of time. You
don't want anyone to bebewildered. But say we've
(09:56):
meandered up the track where wealways go. We're underneath the
oak tree where we. Always makethe decisions. Give them that
bit of time. You don't need torush it. We're not going
anywhere. We got another, youknow, five and a half hours of
the session. So just give them abeep. Stand back and see what
decisions come. See whatsuggestions come. So think,
(10:17):
yeah, what we don't do? I thinkwe within that we are
deliberately a little bit obtuseat times. So possibly when
children are struggling withsomething like putting on a
mitten or adjusting theirclothing or something, I think
it's all too regular that yousee people rushing in, adults
(10:40):
rushing in and trying to curesomething and try, oh, I don't
want any struggle. I don't wantthe children to have any
struggle at all. But actually,we will deliberately leave them
a little while, and we willdeliberately leave children who
are having a disagreement, youknow, and that's something that
when I've had students workingwith me, we will, you know,
literally, I have before, and Isort of extended an arm. No,
(11:05):
we're standing back. It's notthat we haven't noticed. We are
leaving them because we want tosee what they're doing. Because
if they don't experience anykind of confrontation, they
don't experience any kind ofdiscomfort in their
relationships, then it's goingto be a really big shock one
day, isn't it? And so muchbetter that they experience that
(11:25):
here and now in our lovingenvironment, where they feel
real security and belonging,than some later stage where
everything's new and they're thenew kid or Yeah. So I think
yeah, often the things we don'tdo are very, very powerful. We
also don't enforce that childrendo things we and I think this
(11:49):
word invitations gets bandedaround a lot in in education, in
early years education at themoment, but we very much don't
enforce things. We will say, Oh,well, I was thinking that I
might go and do so and so, andeveryone's welcome. Or I think I
might, you know, feel a bithungry actually, and I might
(12:10):
have my lunch. What about you?
How are you feeling? Oh, okay,well, I'll see you in a little
while. Or I'm going to read thisstory, because I really feel
like I enjoyed it yesterday, andyou can join me if you want to,
yes, so a lot of that, and ifyou know that child is not
interested in that, then that'sperfectly fine. You know, they
know what they're interested in,and we don't know whether, if
(12:31):
what connections and links achild is making in their brain
about dandelions, just while wehappen to be talking about
magpies, you know, just let themget on with it, because that's
what's important to them rightnow, and that's what's going to
stick with them. Yeah, I alsoheard you, even just when you
were describing your ideal day,you talked a lot about agency,
(12:55):
right? You said the studentschoose the path on how you're
going to get somewhere, like, anis, I mean, it sounds like they
all kind of need to go together,but nonetheless, they have
choice in the pack, and then youare choice in the path. And then
you also said, and then we mightsay, Oh, do you notice this? But
they can ignore us if they want,right? Like, yeah. I mean, the
(13:17):
adults are talking, but maybewhat we have to say isn't really
all that important. Carry on.
When I was training to be ateacher, my eldest son was
three, and we had me and myparents had really researched
the daycare we wanted to go himto go to. He didn't really even
need to go. We thought we bettersocialize him, you know. And
(13:41):
we've been to all thesedifferent ones, and which ones
did the most activities. Andthis one, the one we chose, you
know, did gardening, and it didbaking, and it did French. And
so my dad went to pick him upone day, and he said, All right,
so you've done French today. Andmy three year old son looked at
him like, well, she did French.
I didn't. And that just stuckwith me so much at this
(14:06):
massively early stage in myteaching career where I hadn't
even probably been let loose onother people's children yet. And
I was like, oh, right, okay, soto the children you are standing
up there. You could be sayinganything you like, but they are
on their own path, and they aredoing their own thing. So don't
think that you are so importantthat they're listening to you,
(14:28):
because they're not. And even athree year old recognized that
and could tell you that, right?
Like it was fantastic, yeah. Andyou never did get along with
school, actually. Sothat's beensomething that's been that
stayed with me a lot. Yeah,yeah, well, and it does sound a
little bit dreamy as well, goingback to our setting, where we
(14:49):
saying they choose the path andthen we follow them along. But
that's not to say that we bendto their every whim. We discuss
with them the practicality.Ofthat, you know. So if we did all
need to stay together in agroup, then we would discuss it,
and we'd say, well, do you knowwhat little Felix, his little
(15:12):
legs probably aren't going tomake it round that particular
pathway. So I think we betterchoose something that's more
suitable for our youngestmembers of the team, orsomething
like that, and we discuss thatwith them, because, again,
that's part of theresponsibility of agency. You're
giving them agency, but you'renot giving them entitlement.
(15:34):
You're giving them theresponsibility as well, that the
choices that they make haveconsequences. We are very lucky
because we don't spend a lot ofthe money that we generate, or
we're given through funding onresourcing. We spend it on our
team, and that's what we investin. And so we generally always
(15:55):
have at least one, sometimes twomore members of the team than
other nurseries in our county,because we feel that that's what
our children benefit frommost,even if they're not doing
noticeably, doing anything, evenif they are deliberately
stepping back. They are there ifneeded, and they are there to
(16:18):
facilitate someone wants to gothat way, and someone wants to
go that way, you know? Yeah,that's I was just thinking so
you can honor more of thechildren's wishes because you
have the staff members to do so,yeah, that's a really great
perspective on that. And it'sboth a luxury and a necessity. I
guess it's a necessity for theway we want to do it. Other
(16:39):
people would see it as a luxury,but I would say, Cut away other
costs that are just notimportant, and they are not
impacting directly on what thechildren want to do in the
present moment.
Ashley O'Neil (16:54):
You said, I love what you said about involving
them in the decision makingprocess, and it reminds me of
when we were all havingconversations together,
something I just was, I keptbeing struck by, is there's a
deep honor in you and respectfor the child like you. Respect
that they deserve to have a seatat the table when it comes to
all of the decision making, andthat comes along with respect in
(17:17):
them, enough to say, you know,this is why we can't do that and
informing of them of yourdecisions. Do you feel like that
intrinsic respect you have foryour students is universal, is
that something you work on a lotwith your staff,because I see
(17:39):
that varying a lot amongstpractitioners that we work with
and see andstudents that we havewho are going to be teachers
someday. So how do you capturethat with your your team, so
that they really get that that'sthe point. That's the thing.
Lara Lloyd (17:56):
Um, I think a lot of that comes through knowing the
children really, really well.
And when I say that, I thinkthat then become that sounds
like a bit of a disappointinganswer, but if you do think
about the fact that, like I say,we make the spend on team, so we
might have September new intakeof children, 11 children, four
(18:17):
adults. So you can't help butknow all of those children
really, really well. And withknowing them,come, you know,
comes a love for them and anaffection for them. And with
that comes, you know, trust andyeah, this idea that you want to
(18:38):
lift them up, and you want themto realize all their potential,
and you wouldn't dream, youwouldn't dream of doing
something which didn't honorthat. Now, within that, there's
also the idea of that, and Idon't know whether this is
helped by our particular thenature of our work that we are
(19:00):
all outside together, fightingthe elements together, but we
are of a tribe, I suppose. Andwe are not the adults, and they
are the children, necessarily.
When we count, we will count allof us to make sure no one gets
left behind. We will count, youknow, the full range and so. And
(19:23):
they will look around and theywill say, you know, well,
where's Lara gone? You know,we're all over one and so it
just becomes natural then thatwe would listen to everybody,
our youngest members, oursmallest members, our slowest
members, just the same as wewould listen to our oldest or
(19:44):
the tallest members, youknow.And I do think that this
kind of links into something Iwas thinking about from Iceland,
something we noticed from thepractitioners was that they
didn't. Treat children as analien species. They were not
(20:05):
treating them as if they were acompletely different, I think, a
completely different creature.
They were treating as an if theywere younger humans, you know
which they are. And so we don'tneed to think carefully and kind
of choreograph how we're goingto speak to them or act in front
(20:27):
of them, because they're peopletoo. We just need to be normal.
And so at times when we werekind of maybe hanging about,
waiting for a couple of childrento get their outdoor clothes on.
You know, there wasn't thissense of theater like I would
notice this, maybe in a Britishschool, whereby the children
(20:47):
would be kept busy and thechildren would be kept
entertained and the childrenwould be kept controlled. There
was just hanging about, becausesometimes in life, you gotta
hang about. You gotta wait for abus. You gotta wait for the
train, you've delayed intraffic, and you've gotta hang
about, and you might look at abird, or you might look at a
raindrop on a window, or youmight look at your shoe, or you
(21:08):
might think about something thathappened this morning, and that
space is really, reallyimportant and natural, and it's
natural for Children, the sameway it might be natural for you
after you've had a day at workand you just want to drink a cup
of coffee and no one talk to youfor a little while, because
children are the same as us. AndI think maybe that's something
(21:31):
we've talked about as a team,and maybe that's just something
that when, yeah, you're allsharing that experience of being
outside in the rain or the snowor the sunshine and that joint
sometimes not torture, buteither expedition and sometimes
this marvel of nature, it kindof it's impossible to not feel
(21:55):
that they're people just likeyou, And because they teach you
so many things that you just go,Oh, wow. Yeah, I hadn't thought
of it like that. Thank you.
Julie Cunningham (22:07):
Yeah, I think that's really nicely said. We've
had some of some similarconversations in being back from
Iceland about how refreshingthat was, how the children were
treated, and not just in oneplace. I mean, we noticed it
right in all of the schools, bya large number of adults, by
just across the board. So wecompletely agree with you, That
(22:32):
was refreshing. And yeah, whyisn't it that we all do that
with children? Yeah,right.
Ashley O'Neil (22:39):
It seems less exhaustive and just more never,
but like, it's one of thosethings we talk a lot like, well,
what will happen if? Andsometimes I think practitioners
be like, Well, what will happenif we just don't busy them and
they just are standing therewaiting, and we should reframe
it to be like, well, what couldhappen? It could be really good,
right? Rather than this panickysense of, I have to fill every
(23:00):
moment of the day because anydowntime is detrimental and
they'll all lose it. It couldjust be really good
Lara Lloyd (23:08):
or it could be really bad, but do you know
what? Sometimes things arereally bad, and that's okay, you
know? That's all right. That'sall part of it, isn't it, you
know? And then we say, alright,I, or you, made this decision to
do this, and it didn't reallywork out so well. But you know
what? We're all still here, andwe're all still friends, so
(23:29):
that's great, too. You know, weneed, you know, safe failure,
don't we safely make a different
Julie Cunningham (23:34):
- make a different decision.
Ashley O'Neil (23:37):
Yeah, yeah, and we can talk about it, and I
agree, like talking to them asfull people, like a full human.
I hear that when you talk aboutyour setting and your kids, and
I did when we were in Iceland,and we saw that too, and it's
just it makes such a difference.
Julie Cunningham (23:54):
Laura, you mentioned not spending the
majority of your resources onthings, so to speak, right? And
I know that since having talkedwith you in Iceland, that since
your students are outdoors, thatyou often don't take along
wagons full, wagon loads full ofenrichment materials, right? And
(24:16):
so I think sometimes it's reallytempting for adults, along with
doing a lot of talking, is tothrow a lot of to keep kids
busy, right, to not let kidshang about and to throw a lot of
things at them. Well, if you'rebored with this, how about if
you try this and so on. And so Iwonder if you could maybe just
talk about what that looks likein your program a little bit.
(24:41):
But then also, what do youthink, sort of like when kids
get to decide what it is andwhen they have to use their
imagination for the things thatthey're playing with? Like, how
does that fit into sort of ourconversation?
Lara Lloyd (24:55):
Okay, so stuff, I suppose, is the general umbrella
topic here. So I would say a fewthings. One is that even we as
practitioners have to reassureourselves quite a lot of the
time that they don't need morestuff or busying or us to plan
(25:16):
something. So we go throughcycles of this between us as a
team all the time where wethink, Oh, actually, do you
know, what? Should we be doingmore? Should we be doing more?
Should we be providing more? Andthen we just then we kind of
say, no, no, that's not ourphilosophy. And we we become
grounded again. So that'ssomething. Another thing is
that, and I think a thing thatspurs that is that you see all
(25:39):
these beautiful sort ofprovocation, invitation, things
online, and you'll have, youknow, like a penguin and ice
blocks, or, you know, a rainbowand all of this kind of thing.
Yeah, that is not, that is notus. That's not what we're doing
at all, even though all of thatis really pretty. But do you
know what we were talking about?
We were saying that all of thatkind of thing is actually adults
(26:01):
play. It's adults having a greattime. And if I had a student
that came and wanted to do allthat kind of thing, wanted to
set the dinosaurs in the jellyand then invite the children to
play with it, wanted to,I don'tknow that's so far removed I am
from it, but wanted to makestars from twigs and glitter and
(26:25):
things, I'd say, Yeah, you, youknow, you go for it. Nothing's
wrong. We're not purists in thefact that anything is in
particularly wrong. But justknow that you are the one
getting the joy from this. Youare the one that's enjoying it.
And if a child comes along andthey enjoy it too, that's great,
but they will most likely learnmore from a puddle than they
(26:48):
will do from what you're tryingto provide. But if you want to
role model the kind of play thatyou like to engage in, then
that's great. And we, I alwaysencourage that with the team. I
always say, you know, you know,if you want to do painting, then
you say, I think I intend to goand do some painting actually.
(27:08):
And I'm really fancy. I'm usingpurple today, and it's not an
act. I want it. Don't want it tobe inventing things
authentically. If you fancydoing painting, then go off and
on you go, because modeling thatsort of enjoyment is really
great for children. Andsimilarly, if they invite you to
enjoy in their play with them,and you've had enough, then it's
(27:31):
okay to say, Do you know what?
I've had enough of that now, andI'm gonna, I'll see you later.
You know, because that's normal,isn't it? Just because you're
and that goes back to what we'resaying before. Just because
you're taking care of themdoesn't mean that you're the
puppet. You know, You're yourown person. We need to model
that in relationships. Back tostuff, our forest school for
(27:54):
some other forest schoolsettings, they would come in and
they would absolutely they wouldrip us to shreds. We've got
Barbie dolls hanging aroundbecause people have given us
some Barbie dolls. We've got acanoe that is full of water.
We've got we've got all sorts ofnon natural, odd things that
hang about in our forest for alittle while. And if they
(28:18):
deliver some play value to thechildren, and there give a
little hint to their imaginarygames, and that's great. If
there's been a while where theyhaven't sparked anything for the
children, then they'll probablybe on their way out. But yes,
some people would have kittensif they saw the things we've got
in there, you know.
Ashley O'Neil (28:35):
So Laura, what specifically about learning or
play, or learning through playin nature. Do you think is
agentic?
Lara Lloyd (28:44):
Um, I think there's just such a lot to talk about
with nature in itself. And oneof my bugbears at the moment is
this kind of language aroundgetting out into nature, whereas
in reality, we're human animals,and we're meant to be outside.
So it shouldn't be this, thisbig difference that we're going
(29:04):
outside. It should actually bewhat we're doing as a baseline.
I think the benefits,particularly in nature, for me,
are that it is restores us to aplace where the visual noise is
greatly decreased, andstimulation is reduced, and then
(29:27):
we haven't got all these otherthings competing for our
attention. I can't believe stillthe amount of visual noise in
early years classrooms in theUK, and even there's a lot of
settings now whereby they aretrying to make their indoors
very, very natural, but it'sstill full of stuff, you know?
(29:47):
And I'm just like, you don'tneed to do that. Just go
outside. And it's still often inindoor settings, it's very
sterile. And that's anotherthing about it outdoors, is.
That it is unpredictable andmessy and changing, and I
suppose in that way, it hasagency over itself, doesn't it?
(30:13):
We don't have agency overnature. We have in this country
this week, we have had huge,excessive rainfall and floods.
We have had snow last week,which caused the floods. We have
had winds over the weekend. Wecannot control it unless and
less in our lives. Can any of usdo that? And so we need to
accept it, and we need to beresilient towards it. And I
(30:37):
suppose all of that combinesinto one aspect to why nature is
a great place to teach itchildren with agency, but also
it's the fact that it's thisever changing canvas of the
seasons, and that you can'ttruly learn about something by
someone telling you you can'tLearn about autumn by someone
(31:00):
telling you you've got toexperience it and then
experience it again, and there'sthis huge time difference in
between the first time and thesecond time and the next time,
whereby you're taking it in inyour own way, and your knowledge
is Building in your own speed.
And I think that that's one ofthe reasons why learning in
(31:23):
nature is particularly helpful.
Love
Ashley O'Neil (31:29):
that because you think about, we talk a lot about
the third classroom and how likeor the third teacher, and how
the space is really a teacherand as an educator, and when you
have this natural outside space,it teaches kids to be responsive
to something that's soauthentic, right? Like we
contrive these problems andthese puzzles and these things
(31:51):
for kids to work their waythrough, to respond to. But when
we're outside, that just is, itis what it is. And that log has
always been there, but now thatlog is rotten. So if you walk on
it right, it's going to go yourfoot's going to go through. And
so teaching them to beresponsive, but something that's
completely authentic and notmade up at all is just
beautiful. I also just love whatyou said about the time in
(32:12):
between the seasons and how theyexperience it, and then there's
time that goes by, and then theysee it again. And from that
clinical science, and I don'tmean science is clinical, but we
often make it seem clinical andsterile, right? We try to have
these ongoing investigationswhere we get kids to engage in
science over a long period oftime. But you're right, they go
(32:34):
outside and they're engaging inan ecosystem over a long period
of time and observing thechanges that are happening
inside of it.
Lara Lloyd (32:42):
And that's I guess, if we were set in our I guess if
we were explaining ourcurriculum, we would talk about
universal truths. So we wouldsay, right, so you're out in
nature. That's the best place tobe, because it's where your body
(33:03):
wants you to be, so where youcan concentrate the best. And
then you when you're there andyou're in the present, you're
not in your head. You're goingto see wet and dry. You're going
to see hot and cold. You'regoing to see decay. You're going
to see rebirth. You're going tosee all the actual essential
universal concepts that make upour world so and that is not so
(33:27):
that when you get into highschool science, you can ace your
grades and do really well.
That's so that you can be areally useful human, you know,
and in as much as you know,understanding how to do laundry
with your partner for yourchildren, or, you know,
reversing climate change, butyou cannot possibly have a hope
(33:48):
in understanding any of that ifyou haven't put Your foot
through that rotten log,
Ashley O'Neil (34:01):
Was it you I saw that you had, like, look after
yourself, looked after eachother, look after nature. Are
those your three rules? Yeah.
And then why do you put them inthe order, on purpose? And why?
Yeah,
Lara Lloyd (34:11):
Mm, hmm, yeah. So a lot of the time that rules
associated with a setting aredon't do this, don't do that. So
we definitely wanted to havesomething that was positive
action rather than preventativeaction. And we looked around,
particularly at the time ofCOVID. We listened to all the
(34:32):
noise to do with mental health,and we thought, right, we've got
to we've got to ensure that weare starting with a generation
of children who look afterthemselves first and truly
believe that as well not justsay it or and don't do it like a
(34:54):
lot of maybe my generation, wordor not do it in spite of other
people. People, perhaps, likemaybe another separate
generation would, but whoactually believe that is the
most important thing for them?
So we think that being out innature teaches you to look after
yourself in a really tangibleway, because you really are
(35:15):
cold, sometimes you really arehot. You might sting yourself on
a nettle. You burn a lot offuel, and you get hungry, and
then you get grumpy, you know?
So we tend to think it's areally easy way of the children
seeing when they and theirfriends need to cover their
(35:41):
needs really, and we talk a lotabout needs, and have we met all
your needs? This is a point inour day where we might have a
little audit of whether we'vechecked in out all of our needs,
and getting that vocabulary inthere really early. And I guess
it's all based kind of onMaslow's hierarchy of needs,
whereby, how can we possiblyexpect children to reach the top
(36:03):
of that pyramid and the selfactualization, which is
creativity and mastery thatcomes in their play, if they are
hungry, if they are thirsty, ifthey need a rest, you know? And
so can't possibly ask them to dothat. Can we? We need to satisfy
the needs first, and they can'tdepend on other people for that.
(36:23):
You need to do that forthemselves.
Ashley O'Neil (36:26):
And that, I think, circles back to earlier
in our conversation. You respectkids. No, it sounds like you
just respect kids now, if theydon't want to participate, if
that doesn't sound good to them,if they're not hungry yet, if
they would prefer to not playthat game or read that book, you
would respect their no and Ithink that's so powerful,
(36:48):
because how do we teach childrento trust their intuition and
their internal body cues ifsomeone else is already always
externally telling them we'redoing this, this is what you
want to do. This is fun, right?
This is what we have to do. Acost of that is that we teach
kids to kind of downplay withour own needs. So I love that
you are really teaching them tobe in tune with their own body
and the story their body istelling themselves. And that
(37:13):
comes from the adults saying wehear your no and that that has
value. So that's amazing, yeah,
Lara Lloyd (37:20):
and it's not a problem. You'll know is not a
problem. I think that's powerfultoo well,
Julie Cunningham (37:26):
When? When? Do you know when? Or maybe you know
from your own children? I don'tknow, but do you know when the
students leave you and this andthey go to a more traditional
school setting, like, do theyget to continue that feeling
that way about or, or is it justall over the place? And there's
no way to really tell, right?
Because this seems like reallymagical, and you'd want for that
(37:47):
to continue as they went throughmore traditional schooling after
five years old,
Lara Lloyd (37:57):
yeah, so, um, our setting will have. I mean, it's
quite small. I don't knowwhether I really said that, but
we might only have maybe 16 to20 children in the year, and
then they may go then to 16 or20 different schools. So they
often don't go together, becausethey carefully selected us from
(38:17):
all the other settings around sothat they will then spread back
out again. It's our hope, and wehave seen with with other
children that we've stayed intouch with that because they've
been with us. They are ratherthan as I think, that their
carers fear, they will then bewild and difficult to tame and
(38:38):
not fit into systems. They areextremely content young people
who understand why there have tobe systems, and when they get to
their formal schooling, and theyunderstand the nature of
belonging to a community anddoing things at the same time as
the rest of their community. Andso rather than kind of
(39:00):
nurturing, sort of prima donnasthat say I only do what I want
to do when I want to do it. Ithink because you've given them
that time and space and agencyat an important period, they
then are usually at a pointwhere they're like, Well, I'm
I'm going to go along with thisbecause I can see it makes
sense. Yeah, because I'm a goodcitizen, but not because I'm a
(39:24):
people pleaser, but you know,and we kind of got a balanced
outlook towards it, because, umYeah, listening to adults we we
tend to find and we hope that,because they've mixed with
adults who generally only talkwhen they got something really
worthwhile to say. The adultsthat they've met with love them
(39:46):
and have treated them withrespect that they're going to
come into contact with newadults that are the same, and so
they tend to really like theirteachers when they get to formal
schooling and listen carefullyto what they've got to say. So
yeah. Seems
Ashley O'Neil (40:00):
like you've given them some of the language to
articulate their own needs. AndI think that is such a powerful
gift, right? I remember when Iwas in the classroom teaching,
it makes a difference whenyou're an overwhelmed new first
grade teacher, and you have achild who can say, I'm really
tired today, or I had a toughday, or a tough morning with
whatever or I'm really hungryand a child is in tune enough to
(40:23):
tell you what their needs are.
That's a huge tool that extendsno matter where they end up and
what relationships or whatadults they come across, because
the ability for them to explainand express what their needs
are, versus having some sort ofbig feeling or maintain just
being grumpy all day becausethey can't pinpoint what the
(40:44):
thing is, that's a huge gift forthose kids, no matter where they
Lara Lloyd (40:54):
go. Okay, so we've got this funny thing where,
yeah, we don't really fit inwith school teachers and other
settings that work with littlechildren in the UK, because
you'll be talking to them aboutlove and nurture and belonging
(41:15):
in your setting, or givingchildren agency, or letting them
to take risks, and they'll allnod along with you and sort of
say, Oh yeah, I hear what yousay. I hear what you say. But
then they'll kind and kind ofturn around and sort of start
talking about, you know, thethemes they're going to cover
this term, or how they're goingto decorate their classroom, or,
(41:36):
like, how they're struggling toget all the children to write
their own names before they goto school and all the
preparation they need to makefor them. And you're thinking,
oh, right, we don't fit in withyou, because you've nodded along
with everything I've said, Butyou You don't really believe it.
And then you'll go and kind ofhang out with the Forest School
guys, or maybe this applies alittle bit to the home ed
(41:57):
community as well, and they'llbe kind of like, you know, Oh,
nothing, academic matters. Let'sall just kind of like howl at
the moon and, you know, dance inthe Twilight and all of that
kind of thing. Which, you know,I love all of that, obviously,
but I'm, I kind of find myselfin this kind of desolate, lonely
(42:18):
middle ground whereby I, yeah, Iwant to, you know, wade through
a stream, and think that'sreally important. But I also
think that giving childrenagency over their learning and
letting them jump in a puddle orbalance on a wobbly log, or or
all of the wonderful experienceswe like to do, I think they're
(42:41):
the best preparation foracademic learning? I don't think
they're instead of I think thatthey are the best preparation.
And actually, Julie, this leadsme to something that we
experienced in Iceland, wherebywe saw children climbing trees.
And lots of children climb treesin my setting, I climb trees in
(43:02):
my setting. And we got back, andwe reported back to the group
about how we'd seen childrenclimbing trees, and then one of
the members of the group kind ofsaid, and that's so great,
because they've let them climbtrees, and now they're going to
have really strong hands andwrists, and then that means
they're going to be a reallygreat writer. And I'm like, I
(43:24):
really took objection to that,because I said no, they let them
climb trees because they wantedto climb trees. Um, yes, that
child might be a really greatwriter, but not because their
hands are strong enough for themechanics of writing, but
because they are curious enoughto seek out their very own
unique viewpoint, and one daythey'll want to write that down,
(43:47):
because they've got something tosay.
Ashley O'Neil (43:49):
And it's so true, I feel like the moment we say
that we do do something for thesake of a future academic goal,
it just is like taking a needknitting needle to the balloon.
That is the magic of theoriginal thing, right? Like, if
suddenly these teachers go,Okay, I'm gonna take my kids
outside to climb trees, and thensuddenly their their fine motor
(44:10):
skills are going to betremendous, and then they're
mandating that kids areoutgoing. And it just becomes
one more thing that an adult ledan adult driven experience.
Yeah, it's kind of missing thepoint of what it was in the
first place.
Unknown (44:23):
Absolutely, yeah, I love that analogy. Yeah, the
balloon like, oh,
Ashley O'Neil (44:36):
every day it's not fun. I'm
Lara Lloyd (44:38):
gonna go and do a big page of math.
Julie Cunningham (44:44):
To climb trees, to be better writers. Now
go climb that tree, because weneed your writing. We need your
hand to be strong for writinglike that would be a you'd be
like, what why we
Ashley O'Neil (44:54):
do? We make it so much harder on ourselves and
like we kind of just can't letit be its own thing. For the
sake of itself, right? Like,it's just really fun to do all
of these things, and havingstrong hands is great for
opening jars, and it's greatfor, you know, like turning on
faucets. It's great for openingthe door, to go inside, to do
all these other things, buthandwriting, that's what we're
(45:15):
going to put out to our focusand
Lara Lloyd (45:18):
and sometimes we get talking about kind of resilience
and looking after yourself. Andit sounds like, you know, I'm
wanting all three year olds tobe like, mega survivalists or
something like that. I feel likepeople are looking at me like,
Oh, this is a little bit cruel.
And I'm like, Well, no, becauseif, if we did take away all of
academic world and themanufactured human world, you
(45:41):
know, we'd be brought back to,you know, are you dry when it's
wet? Are you warm when it'scold? These are the important
things, you know. And that's thekind of person I want to be
around if something disastroushappens. Is someone who can sort
it out with their strong hands,you know, absolutely.
Ashley O'Neil (46:02):
So I feel like we've covered this. But if we
were to ask you, why do you feellike agency is important to
children? Is there anything elsethat you wanted to say? Well,
written
Lara Lloyd (46:12):
in my notes, I have written, well, why is agency
important to people in general?
And I suppose that is exactlywhat we've covered. Yeah, agency
is important to children becauseit's important to humans,
because, you know, withoutgetting like, do political or
historical, without agency, whoare we? You know, it really is
(46:32):
the greatest necessity andluxury that we can we can have
agency and freedom, isn't it? SoI think largely, when we're
thinking about the children thatwe're trying to shepherd and
look after, we're thinking abouttheir well being as time goes on
and we're thinking, Well, if wetrust them, respect them, and
(46:57):
show them that they have agencyover their choices, then they're
going to understandconsequences, and they're going
that is going to give them areally secure foundation, and
that is going to let them intothe world feeling that they've
got something to give, somethingTo offer, and we're hopefully
(47:18):
not going to have this anotherkind of generation of children
who who feel that they are notgood enough, or they're not
heard, or that they are havebeen damaged by the world in
Some way, I suppose. Yeah.
Ashley O'Neil (47:41):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
teach wonder. The show isbrought to you by the Center for
Excellence in STEM education.
You.
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