Intentionality and spontaneity

I have been thinking a lot about intentionality and spontaneity and where they fit in an early childhood classroom.  Intentionality seems to carry a lot of gravity these days.  Teachers are suppose to be deliberate and purposeful in their teaching.  They are asked to know what they are teaching (think curriculum); how are they teaching it (think fidelity to the curriculum); and to test their students to see if they have learned it (think checklists). What does not seem to carry a lot of gravity in early education is spontaneity.  So much of what happens in an early ed classroom is directed by the teacher leaving little room for spontaneous ideas and actions to emerge from the children themselves.

I would like to give my thoughts context using an apparatus I built back in 2015 I called horizontal tubes in boxes.  This apparatus consisted of four long cardboard tubes embedded horizontally through two boxes.

I intentionally constructed this apparatus to offer children an opportunity to work on a horizontal plane.   My intention was to create a challenge for the children to move the wood fuel pellets through the long tubes.   (I also intentionally embedded the tubes on different levels.)

 

Since the tubes were so long, I intentionally offered different points of entry so the children could move the pellets inside the tubes with their hands.

In addition to multiple entry points, I also fabricated homemade plungers by attaching a metal jar lids on the end of a dowels.   And I intentionally made them different lengths... 

so children could explore how deeply they would have to reach into the tubes to move the pellets all the way through the tubes.

Finally, I intentionally handed the apparatus, along with the implements, over to the children so they could make it their own.  My intentions at this point went as far as setting up this classroom space for play and exploration.

What were the children to learn from their play and exploration?  I honestly did not and still do not know.   I do know that the children created numerous ways to move the the pellets and other things through the tubes horizontally.  And many of those trials included a good dose of spontaneity.  Below are just three examples.

The child in the video below pushed the plunger all the way through the cardboard tube.  The plunger got stuck on the lip of the tube on the other side.  The child, by looking in the mirror, could see how the plunger was stuck and he told the child on that end that he "needed it."  The child off to the left of the screen then lifted the plunger so it was no longer stuck.  The child seen in the video was then able to pull the plunger out.  After getting the plunger out, he reinserted the plunger and pushed it through the tube again.


Referencing his own actions from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

What made this child's actions so intriguing was that he completed his actions by looking in the mirror on the wall next to the sensory table.  He may have purposefully moved the pellets through the tube, but because he offhandedly saw himself in the mirror, he spontaneously referenced his actions in the mirror.

The child in the video below created a different mode of moving the pellets through the tube: he blasted them by thrusting the plunger with force and speed through the tube.  Some of the pellets moved into the tube, but many went flying.  At the end of his actions, he turned to me and basically said that it was funny how he "blasted it."


Blasting the pellets from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

This child was the only one who introduced speed and force to move the pellets with the plunger through the tube.  He used the word funny to characterize his actions that blasted the pellets.  However,  I think he was also surprised and delighted at the result of his spontaneous actions of jamming the plunger with force through the tube.  What surprised me was how he reversed his operation by pulling out the pellets from the tube, not with speed and force, but with measured speed and deliberation so the pellets dropped nicely into the bin below the tube without spillage on the floor.  Did he intentionally reverse his operation or was that spontaneous, too?

In the video below, the child on the left of the screen inserted a plunger into one of the cardboard tubes.  She turned to the camera and said: "I am pushing."  Her actions actually pushed a second plunger out the other end of the tube.  The child on the right of the screen squeals when that second plunger suddenly popped out of the tube on her end.  She used her hand and measuring cup to block the plunger from going any further out of the tube.  Then she pushed it as far as she could back into the tube.  The child on the left pulled her plunger back.  After a brief pause, she thrust her plunger back into the tube as far as she could.  As she did that, she looked through the hole in the top of the tube to see why she encountered resistance.  The reason, of course, was that the child on the other side was expecting the second plunger to come out of the tube again, but this time she was ready and she blocked it with her measuring cup again.


Pushing from both ends from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

These two children could not see each other but they were still able to create a spontaneous game of "push-of-war," the reverse of tug-of-war.

I have only scratched the surface of how the children made this space their own.  They may have been purposeful in the exploration and play, but the purposes they created were fueled by their ability to spontaneously interact with the setup, the materials and each other.   By intentionally offering them the space, the materials and the time to play, I was free to document their spontaneity---intentionally.