Explore, then Play, and add Rigor

I have been reading Unschooling Rules 
by Clark Aldrich, and find it great to return to it again and again to reread the ideas.  If you are an educator, these ideas will sink in deeply.  I am always questioning what students learn and the nature of learning, and this book makes me reflect on how I teach.

As in my previous post (here), I stated there were a few rules that really stuck with me, and today the rule is

Explore, then Play, and add Rigor

Aldrich looks at the way a child learns to swim:  we want the new swimmer to enter the water, move around in the new world. Once the child is comfortable in the water, they start to play, and begin inventing small games.  Then, these games start off casually and then become more structured and complex. Finally, the children begin to test themselves through increasingly rigorous rules and specific challenges.  

Aldrich states that all three need to happen:  explore, play, and adding rigor.  

He states:  "Imagine how stunted and crippled and punitive the learning process would be without the exploration and play phases. "   

Aldrich then talks about state run industrial schools that  use tests and metrics to show student learning and teacher and student accountability (we are lucky in Vancouver in that our testing practices are not as rigorous as in the United States - but testing is an entirely different area that I could talk for hours about).  

Finally, he states that the "greatest challenge for all instructors and coaches is to create situations and learning environments that allow for not one or two but for all three phases to happen.

These ideas then lead into the next rule, which is "The ideal class size isn't thirty, or even fifteen, but more like five".

Wow.  I love this idea.  I usually work with groups of  10-14  students.  It is a remarkable experience.  The students get to talk with each other in meaningful ways, I get to talk to them in meaningful ways.  They get to explore and walk around.  We have great discussions.  And, most profoundly, I know that if I had to work with a group of 26 or more students, that my teaching would have to change.  I would have to return to teaching where I controlled and managed everything.  There would not be explore, play and add rigor, but there would be lots of deskwork, lining up, and making sure 26 or 27 students get something out of the lesson.

Finally, I run the challenge centre in the explore, play, add rigor way!  We look at what we know about concepts, we get our feet wet, we gently ease into the learning, and then we add rigor, and we get deeply into our topics.  I think that "explore, play, add rigor" is how we intuitively learn.  It is how we begin to master a topic or area.  It leads into apprenticeship and mentorship, and in a way, is about developing talent. It is authentic learning. It is not about "testing" but it is about "doing" and being an active participant in the learning. 

This leaves me thinking about many questions in how we organize learning and in what we teach.  Today, I am left thinking about:  "How can we build more explore, play and rigor into our classrooms at all levels and subject areas?".