Deborah Moore

‘The teacher doesn't know what it is, but she knows where we are’: young children's secret places in early childhood outdoor environments

This paper presents a qualitative case study examining two early childhood outdoor play environments which illuminates the complex concept of childrens secret places and how they potentially conflict with adult constructions of outdoor spaces. While educators may be able to design outdoor environments based on sound pedagogical decisions within regulatory guidelines, what resonates with children is often a different sort of place. A childs ‘secret place’ is not only perceived as private and adult-free, but is uniquely constructed by children themselves. A version of the Mosaic Approach is used to invite childrens conversations about what they consider important in their outdoor places for play.

A Challenge for Early Childhood Environmental Education

This chapter orients the reader by introducing the underlying premise of the book, in addition to outlining the remaining six chapters. The book’s foundation lies squarely in an era in which environmental education has been described as one of the most pressing educational concerns of our time, leading to the critical need for further insights in understanding how best to approach the learning and teaching of environmental education in early childhood education. In this chapter and indeed this book more broadly we address this concern by identifying two principles for applying play-based learning in early childhood environmental education. The principles we identify are the result of research conducted with teachers and children using three different types of play-based learning, namely open-ended play, modelled-play and purposefully framed play. Such play types connect with the historical use of play-based learning in early childhood education as a basis for pedagogy.

Environmental Education and Pedagogical Play in Early Childhood Education

This chapter turns the reader to critical debates and typologies in the environmental education research and literature. Such debates are contextualised within early childhood education and play pedagogies in particular. The authors initially discuss the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability, leading to further critical discussion around the apparent tensions between environmental education and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)/Education for Sustainability (EFS). The authors challenge the dominant aligning of Education for Sustainability (EFS) and early childhood education, arguing that such alignment is grounded within traditional ideas about children’s play. Rather the authors focus upon situating environmental education within contemporary play-based pedagogies. The chapter explores how understanding play-based pedagogy in terms of the role of the teacher is helpful because it widens understandings of ‘play’ so that content and educator interactions are valued alongside children’s activities and interests. Such understandings are essential with respect to supporting children in developing ecocentric or biophilic dispositions.

Robyn: Worms Underground

This chapter presents Robyn’s (an early childhood teacher) and the children’s experiences. Robyn’s kindergarten was located in an outer suburban part of Melbourne, Australia. Robyn focused on worms and making a wormery (a worm farm) owing to the childrens interest in worms, and her goals were to provide children with greater understanding of worms and their habitats. Robyn’s play order was purposefully framed play, modelled play and open-ended play. Robyn brought in a large clod of soil rich in worms for the children to explore. She initiated purposefully framed play asking children in-depth questions about worms, used correct terminology and built a worm farm with the children. She used nonfiction books and scientific tools to enhance the children’s learning. During the modelled play children made their own worm farms under guidance from Robyn, and in the open-ended play they were given free rein to make their worm farm. This led to some of worms being drowned by the children using too much water, leading Robyn to step in to save the worms. Robyn identified that normally she would use all three strategies in the same play session rather than in isolation or separately. This articulation of the combined play types to environmental education is important for early childhood education as educators move in and out of teaching strategies depending on the children’s cues, their interests and the intent of teaching.

Josh: Small Is Beautiful

This chapter presents Josh’s (an early childhood teacher) and the children’s experiences at St. Kilda and Balaclava Kindergarten, Melbourne, Australia. The outdoor environment at the kindergarten provided opportunities for children to find and observe living things and explore their habitat. Josh orientated the implementation of his three play types on an investigation of macro-invertebrate habitats. Josh implemented the play-types in the following order: open-ended play, modelled play, and then purposefully framed play. In the open-ended play experience the children explored various habitats with Josh observing the children. During the modelled play Josh modelled finding macro-invertebrates in their habitats, citing their names and characteristics. Joshs purposefully-framed play session began with exploratory learning of the environment, and then matching photographs of the macro-invertebrates with pictures, name, characteristics and habitat. As the children participated in the play types the level of their biophobic expressions declined and they began to show more biophilic orientated dispositions. Josh was challenged by implementing an open-ended play approach only. He explained he would not normally teach in this manner, instead choosing to follow up the children’s emerging interests immediately. However, he reflected that he found value in listening to the childrens ideas initially without questioning and interacting with the children.

Jeanette: Pond Life

This chapter presents Jeanette’s (an early childhood teacher) and the children’s experiences in implementing the three different play types at Cornish College Early Learning Centre, Melbourne, Australia. Using Jeanette’s knowledge of the childrens past interests she planned an adventure to the pond (also referred to as the lake) in the grounds of the College as a learning opportunity to teach environmental education. Jeanette chose to focus on investigating concepts of sustainability, biodiversity and animal habitats. She used the play-types in the order of open-ended play, modelled-play to raise questions with the children to stimulate their learning, and purposefully framed play to engage the children with content to build their understanding about biodiversity. The order of play-types suited Jeanette as it was consistent with her typical approach to teaching. Whilst the open-ended play experiences helped Jeanette ascertain the children’s existing knowledge base, for her it seemed to misconstrue what the children believed they would find in the pond (for example sharks and crocodiles). The later engagement of collecting the water and finding the creatures in the water in modelled-play and purposefully-framed play led the children to an understanding of the range of creatures that actually lived in the habitat. As such, purposefully framed play created a context for supporting children’s understanding of life and supported the development of their own biophilia dispositions alongside Jeanette’s disposition.

A Challenge Reconsidered: Play-Based Learning in Early Childhood Environmental Education

In this chapter, the authors discuss the two principles that emerged from this research project, and that can be applied for play-based learning in early childhood environmental education. These principles are (1) Valuing different play-types according to their pedagogical potential for engaging with aspects of environmental education; and (2) Creating combinations of play-types that support engagement with different aspects of environmental education. These two principles go beyond the traditional thinking of learning ‘naturally’ through play. This is because the principles allow educators to identify pedagogical value associated with a play type and to combine this with other play types to achieve environmental learning goals with children. Simply providing children with access to open-ended play in an outdoor setting is insufficient to support environmental learning. Environmental learning in the early years needs to provide children with opportunities for acquiring content knowledge that allow them to build understandings about their world and develop biophilic dispositions toward nature. This is a necessary basis for engaging children in discussion about the need for sustainability and sustainable actions in their own lives and communities.

‘My childhood was filled with secret places’: the importance of secret places to children

My father was a bank manager during the 1960s, and our family moved house constantly during my early years of life. Consequently, my childhood memories are enmeshed within an ever changing parade of places. For me, the most important places during my nomadic childhood were a collection of cubbies that I constructed in a multitude of hidden places amongst thick bush, along creek beds, under different houses and in assorted backyards. All of these special and usually secret places were mine to make, to hide in, and to protect from others. I can vividly remember the smell of the rich red mud I played in, and the ‘strong emotional attachment’ (Gahan, 2007, p. 10) to these places I called my own. Reflecting on my childhood, I realize now that in my attempt to cope with perpetually changing locations, I was literally putting down ‘roots’ to feel I belonged to a place, even if only for a short time. Price (2000) argues that ‘the primary law of childhood secret spaces... has less to do with a static and romantic state of being than with a dynamic search for constancy’ (p. 262). Price’s notion of ‘secret spaces’ confirms my own childhood experience of searching for ‘constancy’ when everything around me was in a state of flux. The only stable factor was my own secret place. One secret place I remember well was amongst the tangled tee-tree that grew along the back drain down the dirt road behind our bank property where we lived for a few years in the wide green undulations of dairy farming country. This particular place was constructed using teetree branches and grasses to make a warm and dry place to hide in, and to watch for approaching others. A few of the neighbouring children and I had collected a range of loose materials from old grain sheds bordering the back road to provide the artefacts of play for our cubby building. On one occasion my Grandma wandered down the back road to visit my place – I did not believe any adults knew where I was until Grandma dropped in that day. On noticing a receptacle I had been using to carry water for the necessary mud pies – which at that time was balancing precariously on a damp cardboard box –Grandma whisked it away saying, ‘I’ll look after that one!’And she did. For many years that ‘receptacle’ stood in pride of place in her crystal cabinet in her meticulously tidy art deco lounge room. It was not until I was an adult that I became aware that I had actually been using a very expensive Moorcroft vase with the signature stamp embossed underneath as a muddy cooking utensil. Clearly, the loose materials of play come in all shapes and sizes. When Grandma died, my Mum suggested I might like to ‘look after that one’ now. The vase now