1. Re-visit your recollections of your own experiences with play in school. What was the level of the teacher’s involvement? Did the teacher assume an approach to play that fits with any of those described in Chapter Four? Referring to the dialogue on page ---, what are your thoughts on this tension as experienced by teachers?

2. Read the descriptions of a similar play episode taking place in the classrooms of three different teachers. Explain which of Frost et al’s (2012) approaches you feel the teacher is assuming—trust-in-play, facilitate-play, or learn-and-teach. Think about how the children’s learning is different in each classroom.

Scenario J: The children in the kindergarten class have transformed one area of the classroom into a post office. They have painted a cardboard box and cut a mail slot near the top. Some of the children write letters to put in their envelopes. Attuned to their interests, their teacher equips the writing centre with envelopes, stationary, writing materials, and stamps. He makes himself available when children ask him for help writing their letters. Keeping the curriculum in mind, he answers their questions about how to write, assists them in identifying the name of a particular child, and guides the children in writing names on their envelopes. He adds mail carrier bags to the dramatic play props, and boxes about going to the post office to their class library. He also takes them on a field trip to a local post office to allow them to see the process. The children begin to assume roles (mail carrier, customer, etc.) as they engage in writing letters, bringing them to the post office, buying stamps, and mailing them. A designated ‘mail carrier’ takes the letters and delivers them to the children in the class.

Scenario K: The children in the kindergarten class have transformed one area of the classroom into a post office. They have painted a cardboard box and cut a mail slot near the top. Some of the children write letters to put in their envelopes. Their teacher observes them as they place envelopes in the slot and a designated ‘mail carrier’ takes them out and delivers them to the children in the class. Building on their interests, she begins to read stories about letters, mail carriers, and the post office to the class. She shows them sample letters and envelopes and talks about how you write a letter and address an envelope. She equips the writing centre with envelopes, stationary, writing materials, and stamps. She positions herself in this area and guides the children in locating the names of their classmates on a chart and writing them on the letters. She gives each child some opportunities to dictate a short letter to her and she says each letter aloud as she writes it down and talks about the words.

Scenario L: The children in the kindergarten class have transformed one area of the classroom into a post office. They have painted a cardboard box and cut a mail slot near the top. Some of the children write letters to put in their envelopes. Their teacher observes them as they place envelopes in the slot and a designated ‘mail carrier’ takes them out and delivers them to the children in the class. The children enact various play themes including writing, mailing, and delivering letters to members of the class. The teacher equips them with materials, but otherwise simply watches them as they play.

3. Read the vignette that follows (a description of a play episode in a Misak Indigenous community in southeastern Colombia). What does this vignette suggest to you about diverse socialization goals and the role of play in this cultural context? What might Elkonin say about this play?

The Kasuko (teacher assistant), Juan Pablo, and four of the children are crouched in a circle on the back steps to the house, with the children picking up pebbles from a crack in between the steps and carefully placing them on the step, seemingly making a pattern. I ask what they are making, and Pedro smiles up at me and says “a house.” Juan Pedro is crouched down on the ground beside them, and offers some gentle encouragement. Maria Cristina holds two sticks together (looks like a tipi) and hits the tops with a stick as though it is hammer. She runs away and brings back a bow. Pedro says, “This is for the dog, this is for the dog, this is where the dogs eat” as he indicates a small metal pot. Ana has placed a pot on top of a circle of stones. They explain that they have decided to make a fogon (fire pit) instead of a house. . . . Ana is crouched down on the ground and seems to be watching as Pedro places large stones in a ring around the edge of the dog dish. Maria Cristina is holding a stick in her left hand and a rock in her right and uses the rock to hammer the stick into the ground. . . . Pedro takes the dish. “I’m going to put the rocks here,” he says, as Maria Cristina resumes hammering. Miguel is now beginning to meticulously pick up little stones one by one with his thumb and forefinger and place them inside the dog dish. Juan Pablo hands sticks one by one to Lucia and encourages her to place them under the dish for the fire. “That’s it,” he says repeatedly. Juan Pablo moves away from the pot. . . . Pedro and Miguel are standing and scraping up rocks from inside a long flower bed. Lucia continues carefully inserting sticks under the pot. Miguel is now taking rocks from the bed and putting them in the pot while Pedro has climbed into the bed in order to look down at the fogon from above. Maria Cristina is also adding stones to the pot. I ask what they are making, and Miguel tells me they are making stew.

Source:
Prochner, L., A. Cleghorn, A. Kirova, and C. Massing (2016), Teacher Education in Diverse Settings: Making Space for Intersecting Worldviews, Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.