September 17, 2025 • 33 mins
Ashley and Julie are hear talking about what Risky Play has to do with Curiosity in the classroom. They highlight the need for educators to shift from replication to genuine learning, valuing respectful relationships and deeper skills. Ashley reflects on her experience with a homeschool group, noting the challenge of balancing student agency with personal expectations.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ashley O'Neil (00:01):
The themes in today's episode are curiosity,
agency and sustainability. Andyou may be thinking, Whoa,
agency. You spent all lastsemester talking about this, and
here it is again. Why? Well,honestly, it might be time to
rename this podcast, because themore we dig into teaching
practices and work, the morethis keeps coming back as both
attention and an opportunity. Somuch of student behavior, not
(00:24):
all of it, but a decent amount,comes back to them craving this
or not knowing what to do whenit's thrown at them suddenly, or
the tension for who gets toexercise their autonomy. We had
an interaction with anindividual this summer, and that
we had this task that was prettyopen ended, and it was personal,
and we provided people with timeand space to do some reflections
and create something meaningful,but we didn't put a more
(00:45):
specific container around it onpurpose. And several folks
response was, man, I really wishyou would just tell me the right
answer. Give me an A plusexample that someone did yet
last year, and unlike and then Icould copy it, their discomfort
was palpitable. First, that'sreally honest. And second, we
need to be honest about whatthat is. It's replication. It's
not learning. And in this timeand place, when it feels like
(01:07):
there's less time and more tocover, and there's all these
hacks and tips and tricks outthere about maximizing your time
to get everything done, we haveto stop and consider what is the
cost of that pace and that race.
So we stay here in alignmentwith our values and what we know
to work for kids, and it'srooted in building respectful
relationships, which takes time,and it's rooted in working with
(01:29):
kids develop to develop thesedeeper skills that are built at
a much slower and less easilytracked and monitored way. So
today we're bringing up anarticle written by a researcher
we met on our trip to Iceland.
It's about risky play, and somuch of this podcast episode is
at the intersection of riskyplay, which brings up curiosity
and agency, all words we'vetalked about a lot this
(01:51):
semester. We're also bringingour episodes back to the
observation and reflection toolthat teachers drafted for us
this summer. If you remember, inour first episode, we laid out
the work our educator Instituteis doing to help prepare our
future teachers in our STEMeducation Scholar Program, the
teachers and our scholars aretesting out this tool so we
couldn't miss out either. Inthis episode, we close by having
(02:12):
me talk a bit about myexperience teaching my first day
this fall our four to seven yearold group and using this tool to
reflect on my time.
Introduction (02:20):
Okay, now we're recording so welcome to teach
Welcome to teach wonder, apodcast hosted by Ashley O'Neil
wonder. Yes.
and Julie Cunningham.
Julie Cunningham (02:48):
Are you recording?
Ashley O'Neil (02:50):
I just started.
That's probably a good idea. Incase. We say, right? In case,
yeah. As we work through some ofthis, there might be some
nuggets in here. I mean, thatalmost seems like, or at least
the why for that is the, almostthe easiest place to start,
right? Like for me, because,okay, if I think about
(03:11):
curiosity, whether it's informalor formal education or play
like, if we don't allow studentsto have curiosity and not even
just allow but if we don'tsupport that scaffold, it expect
it from students, I feel like weare not creating problem
(03:33):
solvers. We are not creating weare creating students who are
going to isolate themselves inthe future because they haven't
learned how to ask questions.
They haven't learned that theycan interact with the world
around them. They haven'tlearned that they can problem
solve. They haven't learned thatthey can fix things, that they
are that they have agency inthis world if we don't teach
(03:56):
them and expect them to becurious.
Julie Cunningham (04:02):
So if for me, curiosity seems like the
simplest place to begin and notterribly difficult to have it be
actionable. I mean, and that Ithink adults mostly just need to
step back again and encouragestudents children asking
(04:23):
questions or reward. Maybethat's a really great question.
Let's figure it out together. Orit doesn't take a lot of like,
oh my gosh, I have to plan forthis in my day, or a ton of
time, or just more of like, arecognition that students are
doing something reallyinteresting or that before
(04:44):
solving it for a student ask aquestion back, or expect them to
ask a question, or expect themto ask a question of their
peers, or expect them tointeract with something in a
different way. So it seems likenow I'm not saying there's not
time involved, but I'm sayingthat i. Uh, it doesn't seem in
my head like this extra thingyou have to do so much as you
(05:07):
have to take the time as anadult to think about the
decision you're going to makeand how you interact with the
situation.
Ashley O'Neil (05:20):
Yeah, I think it does come with a bit of a shift
or intentionality in all thesubversive or quiet ways that we
reward behavior or encouragesomething in our classroom, just
by a way of celebrating it,acknowledging it, ignoring it,
right, making room for that typeof thing. I remember in my
(05:43):
undergrad, there was a lot oflike, like encouragement that
you'd thank the child who wasdoing the thing that you wanted
them to do, or you wouldacknowledge the child that was
doing the thing that you werehoping you know would happen in
the classroom. And from thatbehavior standpoint, which you
can have a lot of complicatedfeelings about. But I think
(06:04):
we've been we've grown we growup like it's the tea, it's the
stew that the soup that we're inis that behaviorist model a
little bit. And so I thinkinherently, we're all kind of
whether or not we realize it ornot, we are encouraging or kind
of diminishing certain things inour classroom, just by way of,
like, the language that we usein the board for like, what's
(06:25):
the leaderboard for, what is thegold star of those student for
like, what, what monthly like,behavior tenants or character
tenants are we kind ofencouraging for students, and
what messages did those send?
And so I think for me, yes,like, what you said? Like,
that's a great question. Let'sgo investigate. That is a really
great example of acknowledging astudent's curiosity. But then,
(06:47):
like, it would be interestingfor a teacher to sit and kind of
catalog what are the ways that Ilike, with my actions, with my
face, with my gestures, with mywords, kind of like, modeled
that behavior that I was lookingfor, and was it rooted in
clients? Was it rooted inwhatever? Like, where did it
come from? I think that would beinteresting.
Julie Cunningham (07:10):
It also feels to me like one of the places in
which, again, this comes withstepping back right, like, Oh,
tell me more or what. What leadsyou to think that, or what leads
you to believe that? Or howcould we, you know, it doesn't
even always have to lead to aninvestigation or another
question. But just like, insteadof just fixing and solving but
(07:33):
asking questions back, andexpecting students to do that
with their peers and with you,rather than just accepting
something as status quo, right?
And I'm sure that you have topick and choose your times that
you do that. But if that wasyour default, instead of fixing
something for a child, it seemsto me that would have an awful
(07:54):
big payoff, yeah, like for apretty small non costly change.
We're really talking about time,right? Not that anyone has an
infinite amount of time, butwe're not talking about a new
curriculum. We're not talkingabout a really huge shift in
pedagogy,
Ashley O'Neil (08:20):
a new Yeah, like, like, we need to spend an extra
amount of time on science, orELA or whatever.
Julie Cunningham (08:25):
It just feels like, like, no matter the
content area, that it just wouldreally have a big shift in
classroom dynamics, in howstudents encountered the world
around them, in how they gotthrough second grade and moved
to third grade, and how theyinteracted with their peers and
(08:46):
how they did informal play onthe playground, right? If they
had this curiosity that wasnurtured rather than what we
tend to do, which is solvethings for kids,
Ashley O'Neil (08:59):
for sure. So we read an article, we did this,
and just to give you a littlebit of context, when we went to
Iceland, we met a lot ofinteresting folks, and one of
the individuals that we met isthe author of this article. She
is a researcher who works a lotwith early childhood and kind of
(09:22):
the the intersection of earlychildhood outdoors. And so she
talked a lot about risky playwith us in Iceland, but then she
wrote an article that we bothfound and have read. So I guess
one of my questions for you islinking, yes, yes, we'll
absolutely link it in the shownotes for you, you should
absolutely check it out. Checkout her stuff. It's very
(09:43):
interesting. Why did we bring uprisky play? Or how do we see
risky play as relating to in aclassroom curiosity, when
inherently I think risky play,we think of outside we think of
maybe early childhood, and we'retalking to K 12 educators.
Julie Cunningham (09:59):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. And I
even if we just left the playoffof that statement, even if we
just said that, like life shouldhave some amount of calculated
risk that that we shouldn'tagain, bubble wrap kids and
solve everything for them, Ithink even if we left that word
(10:21):
play off, which does tend toprobably speak to shouldn't only
speak to early childhoodeducators, but probably does
speak more to early childhoodeducators. I think, when we
don't have some sort of risk orvulnerability, or even perhaps
(10:44):
like failure built in, right? Ifeverything just always goes well
for children, and there's nothey don't know what to do when
they have failure, right? Theydon't know what to do with
iteration. They don't want knowhow to problem solve if they
haven't encountered any sort oflike calculated risk, any sort
(11:08):
of their ability to trysomething, and we're not saying
don't keep kids safe. That's notwhat we mean by risk, but the
ability to try something forthemselves in a safe
environment, which presumably aclassroom is right, safe for
failure, safe for beingvulnerable, then they don't
(11:31):
learn how to do that as they gothrough life. And again, life is
going to throw things at peopleright that could be hard or
could involve more risk thanthey're comfortable with, and
then that's going to lead toanxiety. And I think one other
thing to consider is aseducators, is that learning
(11:56):
something new involves someamount of risk. It involves
being vulnerable to a certainextent. So if you can't do that,
or you can't allow children todo that, it's pretty hard for
them to learn and grow. And sowhile Nikki's article was more
about play outside and youngchildren's play outside and the
(12:18):
value in allowing them risk intheir play. I think it does
translate directly and it, Ithink it goes a little farther
than just having children becurious, but I think it does tie
directly to the curiosity.
Ashley O'Neil (12:36):
Yeah, I think I felt similarly, and I thought, I
thought that risky play was agood way for us to talk about
what happens for us as teacherswhen we get in situations with
students, when we're a littleuncomfortable and we're not
totally in control, like if Ihave a young child climbing a
tree, or a young child kind ofbalancing on, you know, a
(12:57):
concrete barricade And walking,and there's a fall on either
end, right? And I think abouthow my body would want to go
react, to be within arm's reach,I'd want to say, be careful,
right? I think we can think thatwhen it comes to risky play, we
have them practice so they canlearn to trust their body. They
can learn both theproprioceptive right and the
(13:19):
vestibular input that they'regetting is so valuable, but
they're stretching their ownlimits. They learn to rely on
themselves. They learn like, Howhigh do they feel comfortable
going? They learn like, how topay attention, to get themselves
up and down. And those are thesame skills that we want to see
from students in schools, right?
We want them to learn theirlimits, to know how to push
themselves just a little bit tostretch themselves, to rely on
(13:41):
themselves, to trust theirbrain, to trust their body,
right? All of those thingstranslate into the classroom.
And I think sometimes teachers,or we as teachers, can have a
similar gut reaction when we seethose moments that feel a little
bit out of control, when we wantto, like, do the Be careful, or
the school version of becareful, right? Or don't go that
high. And if we keep everyonekind of in these safe, confined
(14:03):
spaces, and we can control allthe variables, right? And we
think we know where kids aregoing, I mean, the cost of that
is that they're doing morereplication and mimicry than
they are true learning, right?
And so to me, I see thattranslation, like risky play, is
the physical manifestation ofwhat learning in the classroom
(14:23):
is, and when we want thatcuriosity and agency, it's going
to be the cognitive equivalentof risky play.
Julie Cunningham (14:30):
And I his laugh that I went to a
conference once, and I was ahigh school science teacher, so
it was for you know, I went to aconference that had to do with
high school science teaching,and somebody once told me that
they purposely built in failureto their high school science
labs. And I was like, I'm sorry,what? You don't have failure
that just happens. You have tocontrol this lab. Are you
(14:52):
working in here? Because, bynature of collecting data and
doing some sort of research andinvestigating. In a question. I
don't know how you couldn't havesome sort of failure built in,
right? But if all you do is aworksheet lab that everybody
gets the same answer, and yousort of prove that that's the
answer, right? That you alreadyreally knew was the answer
(15:16):
because your textbook told youit was the answer, then yeah,
you probably have to manufacturesome failure, like so that
there's some risk, so thatstudents understand that science
might potentially come with notalways having the correct
answer, and your data doesn'talways work out nice. But if
you're in a classroom, whetherit's science or not, and you're
(15:39):
investigating some questionwhere there isn't necessarily
only one right way to get to theanswer. It feels like risk is
inherently built into that, andthat if your students can't get
past that frustration level,right that comes with maybe
(16:00):
having to do it again, or maybehaving to share data, or maybe
having to look at what wentwrong, or maybe not having the
perfect outcome, then feels likeyou're not setting them up for
success in either the classroomor later in life, which is what
Nikki's article was getting atwith In terms of the risky play
(16:21):
outside. And I think she alsohad some research that
suggested, probably notsuggested, but they made a
correlation between children'sanxiety levels and not being
able to determine for themselveshow they could get through
whatever risk it is that they'retaking.
Ashley O'Neil (16:41):
Yeah, and I think it comes back with that, like,
all the time in school, do yousee the like, the Grow
mentality, or like we're workingtoward right, like, flexible
thinking and like the the powerof yet we see all of those kind
of phrases in schools, growthmindset, thank you. That's the
one I was looking for. But howmuch of our work actually
(17:04):
practices that with children?
Because the language itself is alittle meaningless. If
everything else is very outcomeoriented, is very like, follow
these rules to get to this rightanswer and like, that's how we
know you'll be fine. How much ofthis is metrics oriented, where
everything has a value assignedto it. Because if they're living
in the space where everything isthat way, it doesn't matter if
(17:25):
we say like, we believe in thepower of yet we believe in our
growth mindset, if we're doingsome sort of like, if we're not
practicing that for them andundermining it really, yeah,
yeah. And we talk all the timeabout the things that students
remember are these kind ofvisceral, emotional experiences
from school, like they rememberthe big field trips, they
remember the experientiallearning. They don't
particularly remember unit two,Lesson five, you know, chapter
(17:46):
one, whatever it is, theyremember those big ideas, and
this is that big idea for them.
And so not to get too far intothe weeds, but with that
anxiousness, right? If you see,students are anxious about these
ill constructed tasks because ofthe open ended stuff or the
process oriented thing, it'stime for us to take a beat and
(18:08):
say, Okay, what are we missinghere? How can we provide
supports to make themsuccessful, and not just go,
Well, my kids can't do thisbecause then we're just one more
voice saying, Nope, you'reright. You can't do these
difficult things, which is thenconfirming their own anxious
thought.
Julie Cunningham (18:27):
So if we get back to actionable ways to work
on this, you're saying scaffoldthe experiences for students so
that they can be successful.
Start with something that'smaybe not quite as risky or not
quite as apt to fail and workyour way towards yeah and then
yeah, perhaps we always saycelebrate failures, which maybe
isn't really the right way tosay it, but just don't undermine
(18:49):
the idea that
Ashley O'Neil (18:55):
acknowledge the thought, acknowledge the
curiosity, acknowledge thestretching, acknowledge the
pause that They took. And Ithink also, if we think about
capacity for kids, if we canmake portions of it a known
quantity, like, if they knowwhen it's starting when it's
ending, if they know thematerials they'll have
available, if you can reveal or,like, make portions of it
(19:16):
explicit so that the learningpart is ambiguous. But some of
those other things are takenaway, then you've increased
their capacity to kind of flexin that area. Because, you know,
sometimes I think we want tothrow kids into this place where
we say, okay, we're doing to dothis open ended thing. And I'm
just encourage you along theway, and we've left a lot
unknown. And I think if we canbe really strategic to say this
(19:40):
is where we're leaving placesunknown. This is where I'm
giving explicit supports forkids, because I know this is new
for them. Right in earlychildhood, there is a little bit
more of that universal, likethey've only been on the planet
for three years, and so they'veonly had three years of data in
their heads. By the time we have1112, 13 year olds, they have a
lot more experiences. In theirbodies, in their heads that
(20:01):
we're competing against when itcomes to doing some of this
stuff that is more agentic, thatdoes expect them to be more
curious. If that makes sense.
Julie Cunningham (20:11):
It does make sense. And I think you bring up
another good point about kidsstart out very curious about the
natural world. All we reallyhave to do is support that and
not take that away from them,for them to continue to be
curious about the natural world.
And then I think maybe this goeswithout saying, but in a
classroom, getting back to thisidea of if everybody can get to
(20:33):
the answer without there being aright answer, right? Then the
assessment can't be based on theright answer. So, because that's
another stressful thing, right?
Like, well, if my lab failed, soto speak, and I'm using air
quotes for failed, right, thenit can't be that I don't get my
(21:00):
full complement of points basedon whatever that failure was,
right? It needs the theassessment needs to be based on
my understanding of whathappened and my understanding of
how it could be differently if Ichange some parameter of it,
rather than,
Ashley O'Neil (21:17):
yeah. Otherwise, you're just sending those mixed
messages again, of like, no, no.
We want failure. We wantfailure. You'll get a C, but we
want failure like, that's that'snot really, that's not setting
the students up for successeither. Oh, there was one.
Julie Cunningham (21:30):
Well, that kind of gets back to even why we
ended up in this space, ininformal education, space going
away from the fastest car or thetallest structure or whatever
the engineering challenge iswhere there's somebody who's
going to win, right? Becausethat is not how we want to be,
how we want to define success.
Ashley O'Neil (21:49):
And I know I can hear it, that there are people,
and myself included, who say,well, like, there are like,
deadlines, there are things likeat work. And I'll say, yeah,
that's totally fair. That'sreally valid. And like, there is
enough of that in school anyway,right? Like, we're not saying
throw everything and I'm saying,if we talk about this and
encourage you to do this, wemight get 10% of your school
(22:10):
week this way. So fear not, theywill still have plenty of
practice living in that kind ofexpectation coded world, like
it's the soup that we're all in.
For sure, we're not just like,we're not getting out of that,
but this is an alternativeopportunity to build some of
these other school skills. Theother thing that I was thinking
about is it can be really easyfor us to, you know, say, like,
it's okay. We like failure. It'sokay. This is perfect. And like,
(22:32):
when we talk about studentsbeing anxious, which just
article also brings up animportant aspect of that is to
acknowledge the feeling thatthat child is having right to
say, like, I recognize this isdifficult. You're right. I can
see that you're feeling anxious.
This is really tricky. Let mereassure you or remind you of
what our goal is, but you'reright. This is going to feel a
(22:53):
little uncomfortable. I'm alittle uncomfortable too, and
just kind of sitting in thatwith students is a really
important SEL character skillbuilding. Thing also right, to
not diminish and say, no, no, wedon't care. It's a good this.
Everything's great. Everything'sgreat. This is perfect. Because
then, once again, you're kind ofconfusing students to say, like,
what they're feeling inside,like it doesn't match what
(23:15):
they're supposed
Julie Cunningham (23:16):
to be. The risk they're taking, right, is,
like, overwhelming, and that'stoo much risk for them, and
you're downplaying the idea thatthey're taking a risk, yeah? And
we build instead of analogythat, yeah, sure, you are being
vulnerable, you are taking arisk, and that can feel
uncomfortable. And then, I mean,you couldn't probably say this
to really young kids, but that'swhere the learning happens, is
(23:37):
in that being
Ashley O'Neil (23:37):
uncomfortable, yes, yes, they should feel like
that, acknowledging, like, yeah,this does feel like my belly is
feeling a little bit nervous.
Also, that's totally real,because stretching yourself
requires that part. But if weteach students to fear that,
because it shouldn't be there,like, no, no, this is fine, then
it's confusing, because they arefeeling this anxiousness, and
we're saying, no, no, this isthe point, right? And so to
acknowledge that that's part ofthe deal helps you kind of face
(23:58):
that part, I think. And thatreally translates to when kids
are outside, because we don'twant them freaking out at the
top of a tree. No, we want themcalm and problem solving and
Julie Cunningham (24:09):
knowing how to get themselves down, because
they got themselves up there.
And the only pushback I wouldgive on the for people who would
say, well, we need schools tohave these structures for
deadlines in the way that reallife is, we all get plenty of
real life practice withdeadlines and schedules and
pain, bills and all the otherthings. Right? What we don't get
practice at in life, in regularlife, that I think what we don't
(24:32):
often give ourselves theopportunity to practice is doing
hard things, and life can behard. So if we don't acknowledge
that, and I'm not saying that,like go back to school and make
everything hard for kids, but ifwe don't acknowledge that life
can be hard, and that youpractice how to problem solve
through the hard you practicewhat to do with those risks and
(24:55):
that vulnerability, then whenyou get. There because you're
1819, 20 and going off tocollege, or you're 2526 27
graduating from college andlooking for your first job, you
don't know what to do with that,because life isn't always going
to be easy. So yes, sure,there's things like deadlines
(25:16):
and schedules and group work andcommunication and all those
things that are unlikely to goaway. But can't we also practice
this? Let's have some I don'tlike, safe risk, I
Ashley O'Neil (25:33):
don't know, and position ourselves like next to
instead of in front of, like,going we know all the answers,
or behind them, shoving theminto the great unknown. Of like,
come on this. You got to trythis. You got to learn how to be
an adult. This is what it means,like, like, there is a coming
alongside them to say, like,Hey, we're right here with you.
We're providing support. Youknow, talk to us. We're with you
(25:53):
in this, but we're not going totell you the right answer,
because there may not be one.
There's a cost to this. Allthese decisions, right? They're
all kind of sticky. And I yeah,I think giving students enough
of that, like just the criticalthought and the time and the
space to work through some ofthose things with a supportive
adult is not going to fix it ordemean them.
Julie Cunningham (26:13):
Is huge, and it's almost like safe failure, I
guess, right, like we're notgoing to let you fall all the
way, but yeah, maybe just enoughto experience again
uncomfortable
Ashley O'Neil (26:27):
yeah and yeah, being that reassured,
reassuring, sturdy adult, Ithink is important. Can we talk
about my observation tool as ourfinal closeout? Sure. Okay, so
this semester, we talked aboutit in our first episode that we
are working with our educatorInstitute. We've created, and
interrupt me if I'm getting someof this wrong, we created an
(26:48):
observation tool, the purpose ofwhich is for our STEM education
scholars, our undergrads at CMUwho are training to be teachers,
to kind of have a way to thinkthrough the observations that
they're doing in our MakerSpace,one of the bonuses of being a
STEM education scholar is theyget this time doing informal
(27:09):
education activities in ourspace with all of us staff kind
of leading the events, butgiving them some intentional
ways to ask themselves questionsspecifically about interactions
that they're observing, with thehope that that then kind of
helps them train their languagein their own head for how to
think about their classroom inthe future. And to that end, our
practicing classroom teachersfrom our educator Institute are
(27:32):
using this tool also and kind offinessing it and refining it.
And then we in the makerspaceare also using it with our
students, and we have studentprograms in here, just for the
purpose of reflecting ourselvesand practicing that. So this
past Monday,
Julie Cunningham (27:50):
I would just add that we were really
intentional to have a lens ofequity when in our conversations
for creating the tool in theprofessional learning community,
and additionally, that like notnecessarily driven just by us,
the conversation of, how can webe curious about the students
(28:14):
that we interact with as wethink about our reflections? So
we chose a lens of both a,equity and then B, curiosity,
Ashley O'Neil (28:24):
perfect, perfect.
So for our sorry, last Monday,yes, yeah, homeschool group, I
have the four to seven year oldstudents, and we, I chose to do
this that day. I reflected usingthe observation tool, and it's
basically four differentquestions. You don't always do
all of them, depending what theinteraction was. So for the
(28:45):
purposes of this, my first thefirst question, asks for a
description of the interactionthat I had with the student. And
so for me, we have thisinteresting mix of students.
Some are have been here with usbefore, and some are brand new,
and some of the siblings that Ihad last year have now graduated
to the older group, so there'sjust a different dynamic. And
(29:06):
sometimes they're seeing theirfriends or their siblings kind
of go to this other group, andthen they're staying with me in
the younger group. And I noticedthis, maybe reticence, this kind
of, I'm too cool for school,dynamic change that happened
with a couple of the studentsbecause they'd been here before.
I think they noticed some oftheir friends were in a
different group, and they hadthis like deep sense of comfort
(29:26):
from the space, like they knewwhere things were. They knew
where the sink was. They kind ofknew how to move through the
space, and
Julie Cunningham (29:34):
so they knew what your expectations were at
some level.
Ashley O'Neil (29:37):
They knew my expectations were at some level.
But they also kind of knew,like, hey, like, yes, we're
supposed to do this act openingactivity here. But like, I also
know the fort boards are overhere. And like, if things are
out, we're allowed to use it.
And technically, that's out, somaybe I can try to use it. Like,
there just was this interestingre establishing of relationships
that had to have, had to happenfor them. And. So I just noticed
(29:58):
myself like wanting to go overand redirect them a lot, which
is something I'm trying not todo so much without a pause in
between. But there were twoother adults in the room with
me. I had these new studentsthat I kind of wanted to set the
rhythm for and also make surethat they had the space. And so
(30:19):
it challenged my expectations,because my outcome of kind of
engaging with them and talkingwith them and playing with them
was not an increasedparticipation in the activity,
right? And so yes, I builtrelationships with them and we
did some special things, butlike I realized that my personal
goal was still to have them comecomply and come back and do the
(30:40):
activity with me, and theybecame more engaged and started
doing something that wasmeaningful to them, for sure,
but it helped me. It challengedmyself. Because while I went
into it saying, Yeah, this isabout me being open and I'm
building a relationship, when itdidn't result in them coming
back to the group, I had to go,oh no, you really did hope that
this would, like, secretly, makethem want to come and join you
(31:02):
and make this a little easierfor you. Um, so I thought that
was that was an interestingreflection for me that I would
not have realized had I not satand, like gone through these
questions.
Julie Cunningham (31:14):
That's interesting. Do you know which
question specifically allowedyou to realize that? Or, or,
yeah, just a combination.
Ashley O'Neil (31:21):
So the third question says, what about this
interaction met yourexpectations, and then what did
not meet your expectations? Andthat's not a question I would
typically ask myself. What Iwould typically go is like, what
was happening, right? Whathappened next? I would do some
sort of like, FBA, antecedent,behavior, outcome thing, but I
wouldn't think about, like, mypersonal expectations, I would
(31:42):
think about, like, theclassroom's expectations. And
oftentimes, there is nothinginherently wrong with what a
child is doing, but it ischallenging something for me
personally, and so recognizinglike, Oh, I'm disappointed that
they didn't find this activitysuper fun and interesting, like
I hoped they would, and it'sokay that they're doing
something else. Took me a beat
Julie Cunningham (32:07):
Interesting, yeah, and not necessarily an
easy part of the reflectionright to ask to think about your
own sort of whether explicit orimplicit, goals.
Ashley O'Neil (32:19):
That also just makes me think about when you
have all these different thingsgoing on, you kind of have to
flit a little right, like if allthese students are doing these
different things. And so how doyou keep your pace the way you
like, slow things back downagain when all the kids are
happening at different speeds,and the temptation can be to
(32:40):
match their energy and taste,and then you get really
frenetic. How can you kind ofkeep things slow and steady when
you have a lot of student agencyin a room? That's kind of our
goal for this homeschool group.
But the cost of that isnoticing, like an art project, a
building project, a scienceobservation, a messy play
something else, right? Allhappening in a not very large
(33:02):
room with pretty young kids,with quite young children who
have mixed comfort levels orfamiliarity with the physical
room that they're
Julie Cunningham (33:11):
in that day, right? Nothing easy about that.
No. Thank you. Thanks forsharing that, yeah, and for
testing out the observationtool.
Ashley O'Neil (33:19):
Any final thoughts for us today,
Unknown (33:23):
go, be curious.
Perfect.
Ashley O'Neil (33:30):
This has been another episode of teach wonder,
and we're really glad you'rehere. If you like this episode
and are new to us, you can findmore episodes and never miss
another one by following ourshow. Teach wonder, wherever you
get your podcasts. You.
The themes in today's episode are curiosity,
agency and sustainability. Andyou may be thinking, Whoa,
agency. You spent all lastsemester talking about this, and
here it is again. Why? Well,honestly, it might be time to
rename this podcast, because themore we dig into teaching
practices and work, the morethis keeps coming back as both
attention and an opportunity. Somuch of student behavior, not
(00:24):
all of it, but a decent amount,comes back to them craving this
or not knowing what to do whenit's thrown at them suddenly, or
the tension for who gets toexercise their autonomy. We had
an interaction with anindividual this summer, and that
we had this task that was prettyopen ended, and it was personal,
and we provided people with timeand space to do some reflections
and create something meaningful,but we didn't put a more
(00:45):
specific container around it onpurpose. And several folks
response was, man, I really wishyou would just tell me the right
answer. Give me an A plusexample that someone did yet
last year, and unlike and then Icould copy it, their discomfort
was palpitable. First, that'sreally honest. And second, we
need to be honest about whatthat is. It's replication. It's
not learning. And in this timeand place, when it feels like
(01:07):
there's less time and more tocover, and there's all these
hacks and tips and tricks outthere about maximizing your time
to get everything done, we haveto stop and consider what is the
cost of that pace and that race.
So we stay here in alignmentwith our values and what we know
to work for kids, and it'srooted in building respectful
relationships, which takes time,and it's rooted in working with
(01:29):
kids develop to develop thesedeeper skills that are built at
a much slower and less easilytracked and monitored way. So
today we're bringing up anarticle written by a researcher
we met on our trip to Iceland.
It's about risky play, and somuch of this podcast episode is
at the intersection of riskyplay, which brings up curiosity
and agency, all words we'vetalked about a lot this
(01:51):
semester. We're also bringingour episodes back to the
observation and reflection toolthat teachers drafted for us
this summer. If you remember, inour first episode, we laid out
the work our educator Instituteis doing to help prepare our
future teachers in our STEMeducation Scholar Program, the
teachers and our scholars aretesting out this tool so we
couldn't miss out either. Inthis episode, we close by having
(02:12):
me talk a bit about myexperience teaching my first day
this fall our four to seven yearold group and using this tool to
reflect on my time.
Introduction (02:20):
Okay, now we're recording so welcome to teach
Welcome to teach wonder, apodcast hosted by Ashley O'Neil
wonder. Yes.
and Julie Cunningham.
Julie Cunningham (02:48):
Are you recording?
Ashley O'Neil (02:50):
I just started.
That's probably a good idea. Incase. We say, right? In case,
yeah. As we work through some ofthis, there might be some
nuggets in here. I mean, thatalmost seems like, or at least
the why for that is the, almostthe easiest place to start,
right? Like for me, because,okay, if I think about
(03:11):
curiosity, whether it's informalor formal education or play
like, if we don't allow studentsto have curiosity and not even
just allow but if we don'tsupport that scaffold, it expect
it from students, I feel like weare not creating problem
(03:33):
solvers. We are not creating weare creating students who are
going to isolate themselves inthe future because they haven't
learned how to ask questions.
They haven't learned that theycan interact with the world
around them. They haven'tlearned that they can problem
solve. They haven't learned thatthey can fix things, that they
are that they have agency inthis world if we don't teach
(03:56):
them and expect them to becurious.
Julie Cunningham (04:02):
So if for me, curiosity seems like the
simplest place to begin and notterribly difficult to have it be
actionable. I mean, and that Ithink adults mostly just need to
step back again and encouragestudents children asking
(04:23):
questions or reward. Maybethat's a really great question.
Let's figure it out together. Orit doesn't take a lot of like,
oh my gosh, I have to plan forthis in my day, or a ton of
time, or just more of like, arecognition that students are
doing something reallyinteresting or that before
(04:44):
solving it for a student ask aquestion back, or expect them to
ask a question, or expect themto ask a question of their
peers, or expect them tointeract with something in a
different way. So it seems likenow I'm not saying there's not
time involved, but I'm sayingthat i. Uh, it doesn't seem in
my head like this extra thingyou have to do so much as you
(05:07):
have to take the time as anadult to think about the
decision you're going to makeand how you interact with the
situation.
Ashley O'Neil (05:20):
Yeah, I think it does come with a bit of a shift
or intentionality in all thesubversive or quiet ways that we
reward behavior or encouragesomething in our classroom, just
by a way of celebrating it,acknowledging it, ignoring it,
right, making room for that typeof thing. I remember in my
(05:43):
undergrad, there was a lot oflike, like encouragement that
you'd thank the child who wasdoing the thing that you wanted
them to do, or you wouldacknowledge the child that was
doing the thing that you werehoping you know would happen in
the classroom. And from thatbehavior standpoint, which you
can have a lot of complicatedfeelings about. But I think
(06:04):
we've been we've grown we growup like it's the tea, it's the
stew that the soup that we're inis that behaviorist model a
little bit. And so I thinkinherently, we're all kind of
whether or not we realize it ornot, we are encouraging or kind
of diminishing certain things inour classroom, just by way of,
like, the language that we usein the board for like, what's
(06:25):
the leaderboard for, what is thegold star of those student for
like, what, what monthly like,behavior tenants or character
tenants are we kind ofencouraging for students, and
what messages did those send?
And so I think for me, yes,like, what you said? Like,
that's a great question. Let'sgo investigate. That is a really
great example of acknowledging astudent's curiosity. But then,
(06:47):
like, it would be interestingfor a teacher to sit and kind of
catalog what are the ways that Ilike, with my actions, with my
face, with my gestures, with mywords, kind of like, modeled
that behavior that I was lookingfor, and was it rooted in
clients? Was it rooted inwhatever? Like, where did it
come from? I think that would beinteresting.
Julie Cunningham (07:10):
It also feels to me like one of the places in
which, again, this comes withstepping back right, like, Oh,
tell me more or what. What leadsyou to think that, or what leads
you to believe that? Or howcould we, you know, it doesn't
even always have to lead to aninvestigation or another
question. But just like, insteadof just fixing and solving but
(07:33):
asking questions back, andexpecting students to do that
with their peers and with you,rather than just accepting
something as status quo, right?
And I'm sure that you have topick and choose your times that
you do that. But if that wasyour default, instead of fixing
something for a child, it seemsto me that would have an awful
(07:54):
big payoff, yeah, like for apretty small non costly change.
We're really talking about time,right? Not that anyone has an
infinite amount of time, butwe're not talking about a new
curriculum. We're not talkingabout a really huge shift in
pedagogy,
Ashley O'Neil (08:20):
a new Yeah, like, like, we need to spend an extra
amount of time on science, orELA or whatever.
Julie Cunningham (08:25):
It just feels like, like, no matter the
content area, that it just wouldreally have a big shift in
classroom dynamics, in howstudents encountered the world
around them, in how they gotthrough second grade and moved
to third grade, and how theyinteracted with their peers and
(08:46):
how they did informal play onthe playground, right? If they
had this curiosity that wasnurtured rather than what we
tend to do, which is solvethings for kids,
Ashley O'Neil (08:59):
for sure. So we read an article, we did this,
and just to give you a littlebit of context, when we went to
Iceland, we met a lot ofinteresting folks, and one of
the individuals that we met isthe author of this article. She
is a researcher who works a lotwith early childhood and kind of
(09:22):
the the intersection of earlychildhood outdoors. And so she
talked a lot about risky playwith us in Iceland, but then she
wrote an article that we bothfound and have read. So I guess
one of my questions for you islinking, yes, yes, we'll
absolutely link it in the shownotes for you, you should
absolutely check it out. Checkout her stuff. It's very
(09:43):
interesting. Why did we bring uprisky play? Or how do we see
risky play as relating to in aclassroom curiosity, when
inherently I think risky play,we think of outside we think of
maybe early childhood, and we'retalking to K 12 educators.
Julie Cunningham (09:59):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. And I
even if we just left the playoffof that statement, even if we
just said that, like life shouldhave some amount of calculated
risk that that we shouldn'tagain, bubble wrap kids and
solve everything for them, Ithink even if we left that word
(10:21):
play off, which does tend toprobably speak to shouldn't only
speak to early childhoodeducators, but probably does
speak more to early childhoodeducators. I think, when we
don't have some sort of risk orvulnerability, or even perhaps
(10:44):
like failure built in, right? Ifeverything just always goes well
for children, and there's nothey don't know what to do when
they have failure, right? Theydon't know what to do with
iteration. They don't want knowhow to problem solve if they
haven't encountered any sort oflike calculated risk, any sort
(11:08):
of their ability to trysomething, and we're not saying
don't keep kids safe. That's notwhat we mean by risk, but the
ability to try something forthemselves in a safe
environment, which presumably aclassroom is right, safe for
failure, safe for beingvulnerable, then they don't
(11:31):
learn how to do that as they gothrough life. And again, life is
going to throw things at peopleright that could be hard or
could involve more risk thanthey're comfortable with, and
then that's going to lead toanxiety. And I think one other
thing to consider is aseducators, is that learning
(11:56):
something new involves someamount of risk. It involves
being vulnerable to a certainextent. So if you can't do that,
or you can't allow children todo that, it's pretty hard for
them to learn and grow. And sowhile Nikki's article was more
about play outside and youngchildren's play outside and the
(12:18):
value in allowing them risk intheir play. I think it does
translate directly and it, Ithink it goes a little farther
than just having children becurious, but I think it does tie
directly to the curiosity.
Ashley O'Neil (12:36):
Yeah, I think I felt similarly, and I thought, I
thought that risky play was agood way for us to talk about
what happens for us as teacherswhen we get in situations with
students, when we're a littleuncomfortable and we're not
totally in control, like if Ihave a young child climbing a
tree, or a young child kind ofbalancing on, you know, a
(12:57):
concrete barricade And walking,and there's a fall on either
end, right? And I think abouthow my body would want to go
react, to be within arm's reach,I'd want to say, be careful,
right? I think we can think thatwhen it comes to risky play, we
have them practice so they canlearn to trust their body. They
can learn both theproprioceptive right and the
(13:19):
vestibular input that they'regetting is so valuable, but
they're stretching their ownlimits. They learn to rely on
themselves. They learn like, Howhigh do they feel comfortable
going? They learn like, how topay attention, to get themselves
up and down. And those are thesame skills that we want to see
from students in schools, right?
We want them to learn theirlimits, to know how to push
themselves just a little bit tostretch themselves, to rely on
(13:41):
themselves, to trust theirbrain, to trust their body,
right? All of those thingstranslate into the classroom.
And I think sometimes teachers,or we as teachers, can have a
similar gut reaction when we seethose moments that feel a little
bit out of control, when we wantto, like, do the Be careful, or
the school version of becareful, right? Or don't go that
high. And if we keep everyonekind of in these safe, confined
(14:03):
spaces, and we can control allthe variables, right? And we
think we know where kids aregoing, I mean, the cost of that
is that they're doing morereplication and mimicry than
they are true learning, right?
And so to me, I see thattranslation, like risky play, is
the physical manifestation ofwhat learning in the classroom
(14:23):
is, and when we want thatcuriosity and agency, it's going
to be the cognitive equivalentof risky play.
Julie Cunningham (14:30):
And I his laugh that I went to a
conference once, and I was ahigh school science teacher, so
it was for you know, I went to aconference that had to do with
high school science teaching,and somebody once told me that
they purposely built in failureto their high school science
labs. And I was like, I'm sorry,what? You don't have failure
that just happens. You have tocontrol this lab. Are you
(14:52):
working in here? Because, bynature of collecting data and
doing some sort of research andinvestigating. In a question. I
don't know how you couldn't havesome sort of failure built in,
right? But if all you do is aworksheet lab that everybody
gets the same answer, and yousort of prove that that's the
answer, right? That you alreadyreally knew was the answer
(15:16):
because your textbook told youit was the answer, then yeah,
you probably have to manufacturesome failure, like so that
there's some risk, so thatstudents understand that science
might potentially come with notalways having the correct
answer, and your data doesn'talways work out nice. But if
you're in a classroom, whetherit's science or not, and you're
(15:39):
investigating some questionwhere there isn't necessarily
only one right way to get to theanswer. It feels like risk is
inherently built into that, andthat if your students can't get
past that frustration level,right that comes with maybe
(16:00):
having to do it again, or maybehaving to share data, or maybe
having to look at what wentwrong, or maybe not having the
perfect outcome, then feels likeyou're not setting them up for
success in either the classroomor later in life, which is what
Nikki's article was getting atwith In terms of the risky play
(16:21):
outside. And I think she alsohad some research that
suggested, probably notsuggested, but they made a
correlation between children'sanxiety levels and not being
able to determine for themselveshow they could get through
whatever risk it is that they'retaking.
Ashley O'Neil (16:41):
Yeah, and I think it comes back with that, like,
all the time in school, do yousee the like, the Grow
mentality, or like we're workingtoward right, like, flexible
thinking and like the the powerof yet we see all of those kind
of phrases in schools, growthmindset, thank you. That's the
one I was looking for. But howmuch of our work actually
(17:04):
practices that with children?
Because the language itself is alittle meaningless. If
everything else is very outcomeoriented, is very like, follow
these rules to get to this rightanswer and like, that's how we
know you'll be fine. How much ofthis is metrics oriented, where
everything has a value assignedto it. Because if they're living
in the space where everything isthat way, it doesn't matter if
(17:25):
we say like, we believe in thepower of yet we believe in our
growth mindset, if we're doingsome sort of like, if we're not
practicing that for them andundermining it really, yeah,
yeah. And we talk all the timeabout the things that students
remember are these kind ofvisceral, emotional experiences
from school, like they rememberthe big field trips, they
remember the experientiallearning. They don't
particularly remember unit two,Lesson five, you know, chapter
(17:46):
one, whatever it is, theyremember those big ideas, and
this is that big idea for them.
And so not to get too far intothe weeds, but with that
anxiousness, right? If you see,students are anxious about these
ill constructed tasks because ofthe open ended stuff or the
process oriented thing, it'stime for us to take a beat and
(18:08):
say, Okay, what are we missinghere? How can we provide
supports to make themsuccessful, and not just go,
Well, my kids can't do thisbecause then we're just one more
voice saying, Nope, you'reright. You can't do these
difficult things, which is thenconfirming their own anxious
thought.
Julie Cunningham (18:27):
So if we get back to actionable ways to work
on this, you're saying scaffoldthe experiences for students so
that they can be successful.
Start with something that'smaybe not quite as risky or not
quite as apt to fail and workyour way towards yeah and then
yeah, perhaps we always saycelebrate failures, which maybe
isn't really the right way tosay it, but just don't undermine
(18:49):
the idea that
Ashley O'Neil (18:55):
acknowledge the thought, acknowledge the
curiosity, acknowledge thestretching, acknowledge the
pause that They took. And Ithink also, if we think about
capacity for kids, if we canmake portions of it a known
quantity, like, if they knowwhen it's starting when it's
ending, if they know thematerials they'll have
available, if you can reveal or,like, make portions of it
(19:16):
explicit so that the learningpart is ambiguous. But some of
those other things are takenaway, then you've increased
their capacity to kind of flexin that area. Because, you know,
sometimes I think we want tothrow kids into this place where
we say, okay, we're doing to dothis open ended thing. And I'm
just encourage you along theway, and we've left a lot
unknown. And I think if we canbe really strategic to say this
(19:40):
is where we're leaving placesunknown. This is where I'm
giving explicit supports forkids, because I know this is new
for them. Right in earlychildhood, there is a little bit
more of that universal, likethey've only been on the planet
for three years, and so they'veonly had three years of data in
their heads. By the time we have1112, 13 year olds, they have a
lot more experiences. In theirbodies, in their heads that
(20:01):
we're competing against when itcomes to doing some of this
stuff that is more agentic, thatdoes expect them to be more
curious. If that makes sense.
Julie Cunningham (20:11):
It does make sense. And I think you bring up
another good point about kidsstart out very curious about the
natural world. All we reallyhave to do is support that and
not take that away from them,for them to continue to be
curious about the natural world.
And then I think maybe this goeswithout saying, but in a
classroom, getting back to thisidea of if everybody can get to
(20:33):
the answer without there being aright answer, right? Then the
assessment can't be based on theright answer. So, because that's
another stressful thing, right?
Like, well, if my lab failed, soto speak, and I'm using air
quotes for failed, right, thenit can't be that I don't get my
(21:00):
full complement of points basedon whatever that failure was,
right? It needs the theassessment needs to be based on
my understanding of whathappened and my understanding of
how it could be differently if Ichange some parameter of it,
rather than,
Ashley O'Neil (21:17):
yeah. Otherwise, you're just sending those mixed
messages again, of like, no, no.
We want failure. We wantfailure. You'll get a C, but we
want failure like, that's that'snot really, that's not setting
the students up for successeither. Oh, there was one.
Julie Cunningham (21:30):
Well, that kind of gets back to even why we
ended up in this space, ininformal education, space going
away from the fastest car or thetallest structure or whatever
the engineering challenge iswhere there's somebody who's
going to win, right? Becausethat is not how we want to be,
how we want to define success.
Ashley O'Neil (21:49):
And I know I can hear it, that there are people,
and myself included, who say,well, like, there are like,
deadlines, there are things likeat work. And I'll say, yeah,
that's totally fair. That'sreally valid. And like, there is
enough of that in school anyway,right? Like, we're not saying
throw everything and I'm saying,if we talk about this and
encourage you to do this, wemight get 10% of your school
(22:10):
week this way. So fear not, theywill still have plenty of
practice living in that kind ofexpectation coded world, like
it's the soup that we're all in.
For sure, we're not just like,we're not getting out of that,
but this is an alternativeopportunity to build some of
these other school skills. Theother thing that I was thinking
about is it can be really easyfor us to, you know, say, like,
it's okay. We like failure. It'sokay. This is perfect. And like,
(22:32):
when we talk about studentsbeing anxious, which just
article also brings up animportant aspect of that is to
acknowledge the feeling thatthat child is having right to
say, like, I recognize this isdifficult. You're right. I can
see that you're feeling anxious.
This is really tricky. Let mereassure you or remind you of
what our goal is, but you'reright. This is going to feel a
(22:53):
little uncomfortable. I'm alittle uncomfortable too, and
just kind of sitting in thatwith students is a really
important SEL character skillbuilding. Thing also right, to
not diminish and say, no, no, wedon't care. It's a good this.
Everything's great. Everything'sgreat. This is perfect. Because
then, once again, you're kind ofconfusing students to say, like,
what they're feeling inside,like it doesn't match what
(23:15):
they're supposed
Julie Cunningham (23:16):
to be. The risk they're taking, right, is,
like, overwhelming, and that'stoo much risk for them, and
you're downplaying the idea thatthey're taking a risk, yeah? And
we build instead of analogythat, yeah, sure, you are being
vulnerable, you are taking arisk, and that can feel
uncomfortable. And then, I mean,you couldn't probably say this
to really young kids, but that'swhere the learning happens, is
(23:37):
in that being
Ashley O'Neil (23:37):
uncomfortable, yes, yes, they should feel like
that, acknowledging, like, yeah,this does feel like my belly is
feeling a little bit nervous.
Also, that's totally real,because stretching yourself
requires that part. But if weteach students to fear that,
because it shouldn't be there,like, no, no, this is fine, then
it's confusing, because they arefeeling this anxiousness, and
we're saying, no, no, this isthe point, right? And so to
acknowledge that that's part ofthe deal helps you kind of face
(23:58):
that part, I think. And thatreally translates to when kids
are outside, because we don'twant them freaking out at the
top of a tree. No, we want themcalm and problem solving and
Julie Cunningham (24:09):
knowing how to get themselves down, because
they got themselves up there.
And the only pushback I wouldgive on the for people who would
say, well, we need schools tohave these structures for
deadlines in the way that reallife is, we all get plenty of
real life practice withdeadlines and schedules and
pain, bills and all the otherthings. Right? What we don't get
practice at in life, in regularlife, that I think what we don't
(24:32):
often give ourselves theopportunity to practice is doing
hard things, and life can behard. So if we don't acknowledge
that, and I'm not saying that,like go back to school and make
everything hard for kids, but ifwe don't acknowledge that life
can be hard, and that youpractice how to problem solve
through the hard you practicewhat to do with those risks and
(24:55):
that vulnerability, then whenyou get. There because you're
1819, 20 and going off tocollege, or you're 2526 27
graduating from college andlooking for your first job, you
don't know what to do with that,because life isn't always going
to be easy. So yes, sure,there's things like deadlines
(25:16):
and schedules and group work andcommunication and all those
things that are unlikely to goaway. But can't we also practice
this? Let's have some I don'tlike, safe risk, I
Ashley O'Neil (25:33):
don't know, and position ourselves like next to
instead of in front of, like,going we know all the answers,
or behind them, shoving theminto the great unknown. Of like,
come on this. You got to trythis. You got to learn how to be
an adult. This is what it means,like, like, there is a coming
alongside them to say, like,Hey, we're right here with you.
We're providing support. Youknow, talk to us. We're with you
(25:53):
in this, but we're not going totell you the right answer,
because there may not be one.
There's a cost to this. Allthese decisions, right? They're
all kind of sticky. And I yeah,I think giving students enough
of that, like just the criticalthought and the time and the
space to work through some ofthose things with a supportive
adult is not going to fix it ordemean them.
Julie Cunningham (26:13):
Is huge, and it's almost like safe failure, I
guess, right, like we're notgoing to let you fall all the
way, but yeah, maybe just enoughto experience again
uncomfortable
Ashley O'Neil (26:27):
yeah and yeah, being that reassured,
reassuring, sturdy adult, Ithink is important. Can we talk
about my observation tool as ourfinal closeout? Sure. Okay, so
this semester, we talked aboutit in our first episode that we
are working with our educatorInstitute. We've created, and
interrupt me if I'm getting someof this wrong, we created an
(26:48):
observation tool, the purpose ofwhich is for our STEM education
scholars, our undergrads at CMUwho are training to be teachers,
to kind of have a way to thinkthrough the observations that
they're doing in our MakerSpace,one of the bonuses of being a
STEM education scholar is theyget this time doing informal
(27:09):
education activities in ourspace with all of us staff kind
of leading the events, butgiving them some intentional
ways to ask themselves questionsspecifically about interactions
that they're observing, with thehope that that then kind of
helps them train their languagein their own head for how to
think about their classroom inthe future. And to that end, our
practicing classroom teachersfrom our educator Institute are
(27:32):
using this tool also and kind offinessing it and refining it.
And then we in the makerspaceare also using it with our
students, and we have studentprograms in here, just for the
purpose of reflecting ourselvesand practicing that. So this
past Monday,
Julie Cunningham (27:50):
I would just add that we were really
intentional to have a lens ofequity when in our conversations
for creating the tool in theprofessional learning community,
and additionally, that like notnecessarily driven just by us,
the conversation of, how can webe curious about the students
(28:14):
that we interact with as wethink about our reflections? So
we chose a lens of both a,equity and then B, curiosity,
Ashley O'Neil (28:24):
perfect, perfect.
So for our sorry, last Monday,yes, yeah, homeschool group, I
have the four to seven year oldstudents, and we, I chose to do
this that day. I reflected usingthe observation tool, and it's
basically four differentquestions. You don't always do
all of them, depending what theinteraction was. So for the
(28:45):
purposes of this, my first thefirst question, asks for a
description of the interactionthat I had with the student. And
so for me, we have thisinteresting mix of students.
Some are have been here with usbefore, and some are brand new,
and some of the siblings that Ihad last year have now graduated
to the older group, so there'sjust a different dynamic. And
(29:06):
sometimes they're seeing theirfriends or their siblings kind
of go to this other group, andthen they're staying with me in
the younger group. And I noticedthis, maybe reticence, this kind
of, I'm too cool for school,dynamic change that happened
with a couple of the studentsbecause they'd been here before.
I think they noticed some oftheir friends were in a
different group, and they hadthis like deep sense of comfort
(29:26):
from the space, like they knewwhere things were. They knew
where the sink was. They kind ofknew how to move through the
space, and
Julie Cunningham (29:34):
so they knew what your expectations were at
some level.
Ashley O'Neil (29:37):
They knew my expectations were at some level.
But they also kind of knew,like, hey, like, yes, we're
supposed to do this act openingactivity here. But like, I also
know the fort boards are overhere. And like, if things are
out, we're allowed to use it.
And technically, that's out, somaybe I can try to use it. Like,
there just was this interestingre establishing of relationships
that had to have, had to happenfor them. And. So I just noticed
(29:58):
myself like wanting to go overand redirect them a lot, which
is something I'm trying not todo so much without a pause in
between. But there were twoother adults in the room with
me. I had these new studentsthat I kind of wanted to set the
rhythm for and also make surethat they had the space. And so
(30:19):
it challenged my expectations,because my outcome of kind of
engaging with them and talkingwith them and playing with them
was not an increasedparticipation in the activity,
right? And so yes, I builtrelationships with them and we
did some special things, butlike I realized that my personal
goal was still to have them comecomply and come back and do the
(30:40):
activity with me, and theybecame more engaged and started
doing something that wasmeaningful to them, for sure,
but it helped me. It challengedmyself. Because while I went
into it saying, Yeah, this isabout me being open and I'm
building a relationship, when itdidn't result in them coming
back to the group, I had to go,oh no, you really did hope that
this would, like, secretly, makethem want to come and join you
(31:02):
and make this a little easierfor you. Um, so I thought that
was that was an interestingreflection for me that I would
not have realized had I not satand, like gone through these
questions.
Julie Cunningham (31:14):
That's interesting. Do you know which
question specifically allowedyou to realize that? Or, or,
yeah, just a combination.
Ashley O'Neil (31:21):
So the third question says, what about this
interaction met yourexpectations, and then what did
not meet your expectations? Andthat's not a question I would
typically ask myself. What Iwould typically go is like, what
was happening, right? Whathappened next? I would do some
sort of like, FBA, antecedent,behavior, outcome thing, but I
wouldn't think about, like, mypersonal expectations, I would
(31:42):
think about, like, theclassroom's expectations. And
oftentimes, there is nothinginherently wrong with what a
child is doing, but it ischallenging something for me
personally, and so recognizinglike, Oh, I'm disappointed that
they didn't find this activitysuper fun and interesting, like
I hoped they would, and it'sokay that they're doing
something else. Took me a beat
Julie Cunningham (32:07):
Interesting, yeah, and not necessarily an
easy part of the reflectionright to ask to think about your
own sort of whether explicit orimplicit, goals.
Ashley O'Neil (32:19):
That also just makes me think about when you
have all these different thingsgoing on, you kind of have to
flit a little right, like if allthese students are doing these
different things. And so how doyou keep your pace the way you
like, slow things back downagain when all the kids are
happening at different speeds,and the temptation can be to
(32:40):
match their energy and taste,and then you get really
frenetic. How can you kind ofkeep things slow and steady when
you have a lot of student agencyin a room? That's kind of our
goal for this homeschool group.
But the cost of that isnoticing, like an art project, a
building project, a scienceobservation, a messy play
something else, right? Allhappening in a not very large
(33:02):
room with pretty young kids,with quite young children who
have mixed comfort levels orfamiliarity with the physical
room that they're
Julie Cunningham (33:11):
in that day, right? Nothing easy about that.
No. Thank you. Thanks forsharing that, yeah, and for
testing out the observationtool.
Ashley O'Neil (33:19):
Any final thoughts for us today,
Unknown (33:23):
go, be curious.
Perfect.
Ashley O'Neil (33:30):
This has been another episode of teach wonder,
and we're really glad you'rehere. If you like this episode
and are new to us, you can findmore episodes and never miss
another one by following ourshow. Teach wonder, wherever you
get your podcasts. You.
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