Overturning the Rules
and Creating Amiable Classrooms

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  To give an idea of the tone at the centers during their rule-governed regimes, here is a partial list of what children could and could not do. One center discovered they had 26 rules for outdoor play, including this sampling:

No swinging from the slide.
No crashing riding toys.
Only run in one direction.
No sitting on balls.
No using big brooms.
No banging on shed.
No licking the door.

Another center found that it had many indoor rules, including such specifics as the order for eating lunch and other rules such as

No blowing on food.
No other toys used with playdough.
No toys traveling around the room from area to area.
Sit in the same seat for lunch every day.

When I asked the educators to define a rule in such practice,

Melita said, “Something necessary to keep control.”

“And control is conceived as?”
Several teachers responded, “Children obeying, children doing as they are told.”

Brenda added, “It was a comfort for teachers to know there was a rule in place and everything would run smoothly.”

“Ah, you believed that this control would in fact work! [chorus of yeses] But in fact it didn’t, because people were policing all the time!”

The amount of energy teachers spent on enforcing the rules to govern the children was immense and highly stressful. Laurie said, “The energy the staff were expending on policing the center, redirecting children, and giving time-out was just so draining.” She described the block area at her center:

Children would go in, and things would start flying, blocks would get knocked over, kids would get pushed, and there would be yelling and screaming. Half the time you would not want the block center open because you couldn’t deal with it. It was so loud. That whole half of the room would get really crazy. The noise level would go up, and then children would start bouncing off each other and teachers would start pulling out their hair. You could make a comedy movie of it.

 

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