The path through the snow...

Waking early, I could hear Brahms the Robin singing outside my bedroom window. His chirping and chirruping sounded different today and opening the curtains, I saw why: snow had arrived. Not the thick-set, knee-deep snow of my East Midlands childhood, but a sprinkling and one that needed exploration if nothing else - time for some adventures with Bonnie and Eppie...

Pathways are central to my concept of co-play. The idea that education can be done with children, not to them is key to creating education-as-adventure. I often think that phonics teaching typifies the 'to children' approach, a zombie apocalypse of letter sounds, sound blending, comprehension, tricky words, book band books and do-this... As we followed the path through the woods, Eppie couldn't help think that there might be another way to teach phonics. Bonnie and I looked at one another and winked because we both know that there is one and that it's coming...

As the traces of snow became more apparent, Eppie couldn't help but play in it. It's because play is in her DNA, as it is in children's too - the impulse to explore and discover, not out of triviality, but out of the need to make sense of the world. Eppie's play drew Bonnie in, a reminder that play is a solidarity, a coming together of energies - an inter-play... When they'd finished, Bonnie and Eppie got to thinking about how the Adult World breaks the Natural Order of childhood by constructing High Ability, Low Ability, intervention groups and Red Table/Blue Table/Green Table. I wondered how many children begin their school lives on Red Table and then spent the next seven years there....?

Bonnie decided to have a sniff about to see what she could see. While she did that, Eppie was really quiet and just took it all in. We both got to thinking about how the Adult World always seems to have the expectation for children to prove they are being busy and yet fails to see how quiet reflection is equally part of the magic of children. Eppie knew that this reflected the inability of the Adult World to value the mystery of childhood... We got chatting about the idea of children writing a TripAdvisor review of their educational experiences and wondered what they might say, especially if those days are dominated by 'do-this-do-that'....

Previous to the snow, a hard rain had fallen and filled up the giant dips in the woodland ground. Some of the pools were waist high and reminded me of those in the Wood Between The Worlds in the Narnia tales. Eppie began to story dream about which world she would like to adventure in. She thought she'd love to go to a world with Bonnie, and together they could sniff for bones and just be happy. I like the idea of a World of Good Things. I wonder what you'd find there and who you'd go with. Bonnie reminded me that the World of Good Things is coming in 2021 and with that all three of us smiled because we instantly knew who is in that world and who isn't...

When we got home, Bonnie immediately fell asleep. And she dreamed of a place where childhood is truly valued, where children have choice and can collaborate, where their creativity is 'seen' and where their day is defined by them, not by the Adult World. I wonder if she was dreaming about your setting? I hope so, because Bonnie was actually dreaming of the World of Good Things.

We hope to see you there...