Overturning the Rules
and Creating Amiable Classrooms

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Consequences of changes in pedagogy for the children

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  The biggest effect of rule reduction was that settings became quieter and calmer with less fuss about enforcing minor rules. With less monitoring to do and calmer children, staff could participate more fully, engaging with children in their activities. The teachers developed greater interest in following the children’s lead, such as permitting them to interact fully and vigorously with a mud puddle in springtime.

  Brenda made a videotape showing children deeply engaged in block play, woodworking, playing with Legos, and dramatic play in the loft. Half an hour into the video, children are still playing in the same areas. Laurie commented, “When children made their own choices, the time spent at activities increased.” Concentration spans for self-initiated activity became long and sustained.

  The children began to generate their own rules and to involve themselves in self-governing, a process Vygotsky long ago showed as necessary to the development of will power (1976; [1930–1935] 1978). For example, at Bobbie-Jo’s center a group of boys made a space for hockey on the small playground, with rules about how to swing the hockey stick (“Not off the ground”). They made a net and demarcated their area with pylons. Such opportunities to generate rules for group activities make people feel they belong to the social group. Feelings of belonging are essential to any notion of community, and to the commitment of members to that community.

From rule-driven, clock-driven practice to values-based, responsive pedagogy

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  The teachers felt several things happened simultaneously. As they let go and gave more control to the children, the children learned that the adults thought of them as capable. By reorganizing the environments into more expansive spaces and reducing the number of rules, staff began to see new possibilities for practice. Several teachers joked about their previous focus on time and efficiency: “I remember always looking at the clock, thinking, ‘OK, let’s go, let’s go’ [laughing]; how many kids can you get to pee in five minutes?”

  Previously, children were lucky if they had 15 or 20 minutes in an area. It was often 20 minutes of play, 5 minutes of tidying up, 5 minutes of transition, and then play in a new area. A teacher noted, “Time was a rule.” Time was a rule that could not be broken. Time as a production schedule, and teachers as keepers of the schedule (Wien 1995), produced policing to maintain the schedule. With the changes in stance, practice was more relaxed, less clock driven.

  Callaghan saw teachers taking ownership of their practice. They wondered, “What do I like?” and “What’s driving me crazy?” and saw possibilities for changing to practices that they preferred, chose, and assessed for themselves. We might say the teachers removed themselves from the established scripts for institutional routine and were inventing practice to fit their own contexts.

  All the teachers found that the changes reduced stress. The energy of policing, correcting, and giving time-out was exhausting for teachers; it created negative energy, tearing at the emotional well-being of staff and children. Laurie said, “That energy is now turned into facilitating social interaction among children, exploring their interests, and actually talking to children.” With staff chatting with and observing children more, the children are receiving more positive attention and, according to the teachers, “there are fewer behavior problems to deal with.”

  The teachers have noticed increased calm among the children and a sense of emotional satisfaction. For example, after the vigorous mud-puddle play, the wet and dirty children had to be cleaned up and their clothes washed and dried before parents arrived. Melita said, “It was the calmest, most easygoing change and cleanup ever. I couldn’t believe it. They sat and helped each other. It was amazing, and we noticed that, as we were right in the middle of it.”

 

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