Episode 1 Part 1: Adventure is in the Mind of the Child

In the premiere episode of Playwork we sit down with American playworker Alex Cote to discuss what playwork is all about. We suggest easy changes you can implement today to make way for more play and Alex recommends a pet accessory that's perfect for the playground. Plus Jill Wood answers the question, “how do you start an adventure playground?” 

Erin, Morgan and Maayan are play advocates, collaborators and friends. Each episode of Playwork features their candid interviews with playworkers, teachers, play theorists, parents, and more doing the (literally) dirty work of creating spaces for play. More at PlayworkPodcast.com

Transcript

spk_0:   0:03
Hello, I'm Erin. I directed a documentary film called The Land Aboutthe Land Adventure Playground in the UK I'm Morgan. I'm a play worker and one of the founders of Pop of Adventure play a resource for folks interested in adventure, play and play. With that, I'm former playground designer ish turned into, ah, play work enthusiast and all around generally curious person. And this is play work, the podcast for people who love time thinking, getting into music. Welcome to play with the podcast. This is Morgan, and if you're listening to this, you've probably heard of adventure playgrounds. Maybe you've been toe one. Or maybe seeing images online of these, like wild, junk filled places where kids can light fires and jump from high places and generally do things that are pretty bananas. The public conversation around this kind of recently started or restarted anyhow, with an article in the Atlantic in 2015 called The Overprotected Kid. And ever since then, every six months or so, there's another major news article about risky play or adventure play, and the coverage varies to say the least. Mostly, they're framed is places that can save, you know, the kids these days from the trappings of modern childhood, those horrors like iPads or helicopter parents. The best of this coverage explains the benefits of play and how much Children need to play for their, you know, physical and social development, their emotional wellness. It links like Children's chances to play with their mood and self regulation and in self confidence, even their academics, what whatever adults seem to care about at the moment, play can help, and that's all true. But that conversation is usually missing one really important detail about adventure playgrounds, the thing that really makes these places work. And that's play work the adults involved and the play work approach that they take to make these places thrive. Yeah, if you look closely in the edges of any photo about Adventure Playground, there's usually an adult there somewhere kind of standing or sitting quietly off to the side. And that person is the play worker. I mean, play work is a complete and rich full field of study. You could get a PhD in play work. There are conferences and publications, you know. People make a living as play workers, and now there's a pot well sort of radio. They're out There is what I'm saying. They're out there. They're reading, they're writing, they're doing stuff. And now there's a podcast about all the things that they're doing. Let's talk about the podcast. Yeah, let's talk about the podcast. It's been

spk_3:   3:03
a long time coming. We've all been thinking about it for a really long time, and we hope that it's a really useful resource for anyone and everybody who cares about play.

spk_0:   3:12
We're gonna be sharing theory about play and talking with practitioners from all around the world. We're gonna ask them the questions that we get asked all the time. Like what about when somebody gets hurt? Yeah, I hear that a lot.

spk_3:   3:24
How do these playgrounds wrong? Where is the funding coming from?

spk_0:   3:27
What about when kids fight and where does all this stuff come from? I mean, whenever I show my film, people come up to me afterwards and just say, This is awesome. How can I start an adventure playground? And the answer is not to give every child in your backyard to your school a box of nails and a hammer. So, um, those questions, they're gonna be a jumping off point for us to feature a lot of stories from practitioners on goes. That's gonna be the basis for much larger conversations about risk and freedom and meaning and lots of other mushy kinds of things. Today. On this very episode, you'll hear from two people who are doing play work in schools. One of them's working during recess and the other one established and leads the best after school program You've never heard of great. Let's get to our guest. Alec's Coat has been a play worker since 2012. She's currently the lead play worker at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. Before that, she was at the Hands on Nature Anarchy Zone at Ithaca Children's Garden and then Eureka Villa, an adventure playground project of Santa Clarita Valley Adventure play in California. So lots of words to describe different eventually grounds basically the Anarchy Zone and Eureka Villa, and she's now at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. We talked to Alex about some of the risks that she's taken as a play worker and how she's making it happen inside the school, and we talked to her before we settled on a name for the show. Here's our interview with Alex. Curt. Let's just say welcome, Alex. Alex is an amazing play worker. She's worked in a lot

spk_2:   5:17
of really important places. And you've done the dirty work. You've done it in a public space. You worked in a camp setting. You work in a private school, you work at events you work in recess. Um, and I can't even begin to imagine how complicated is to juggle all of the different settings and sort of navigate the different settings. Um, but welcome to yet to be named podcasts. Thank you. Aaron Davis.

spk_0:   5:41
Happy Episode one. Alex. How do you

spk_2:   5:47
define play work? Uh, this is great, cause I was writing some notes while you all were talking. I think the way that I think about it is, um, in terms of creating space for play and just making sure that it is ableto happen in all of the ways that you can think of that phrase, whether it is in creating a physical space or extending down to like if a child is struggling to access play in any sort of way, maybe if they have a particular diagnosis or they live in a place where they can't get to play. The play worker's role is to deconstruct the barriers, whatever they happen to be. I can make sure Child is more easily able to access play by things less little of us like the way I hold my body, the things I put out, the way I speak or decide not to speak. Oh my gosh, there's so much there. Yeah, I mean, because you have to You're talking about deconstructing barriers in like, a micro in the moment, but then also even like getting a permit to having an Event City. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all of it. My journey to play work was like circuitous and that I I was interested in playground design and like urban planning first. And then I was introduced to the concept of adventure playgrounds, and I think I saw a picture of like Children jumping off a high place on your mattress, and that was just astounded. But the thing that really drew me to play work as a concept was that it was so much less about the design of a place and so much more about Children's rights and Children as people in their selfhood and agency. Can you maybe tell us like a just a concrete example from your play work experience where the kids were involved in something that was a challenge for you? I don't know. Just for you, because of who you are. Whatever. That would be. Something that was Yeah. For you had to serve a lie on your, like, play work approach. Sure. Um, the first thing that comes to mind is a story from back at the Anarchy Zone. It was early on in my learning about play work, and it was a time of great discovery. And also, like, great discomfort. Uh huh. But there is, ah, child at the garden. And this was in like a summer camp context where the week of summer camp day camp at the Children's garden was spent, the morning was spent doing more programmed activities on. And then the afternoon was spent in the Anarchy Zone just playing. And there was a child who often would throw dirt at usually, like girls trying to play house. Quit like, hang on. Yeah, I was a boy trying, like, just disrupting uh, like, play that was going on other Children's play and what I had been learning about was, like, playful ways to intervene. And because I hadn't had a lot of experience yet, I sort of just had to trust, try and experimented, See, like if this thing was really Riel. Eso What? Yeah. What? I had what I had been like taught to do, but bye. Morgan, who taught me a lot of what I know about play work was that one possibility was like, see through to like, what? This child was trying to get out of the play and respond to that. So I I, you know, picked up some dirt clods myself and just like, you know, I don't think I should use this kid's name, but, um, Bob Sure, Sam, I don't know any Children in e s. Okay. Like like, you know, um, I don't remember whether I said this out loud or not, but this scenario was like, Sam, I can't let you throw dirt at those girls, but like, I'm here and I'm willing to have a dirt fight. Um, and I may have just said that through my body language of like, holding up dirt and like looking at him and throwing some stuff and, you know, immediately we just had this amazing dirt war and the girls went on with their play and and other kids joined our game in it. It allowed the play to go on in a way that was acceptable for everybody, and it was really beautiful. But it's also exhausting. And, um, you know, it's not like not an easy thing to do every day because he wanted the to do this every day. And I I used that story a couple of times in with some of my first training's when I was teaching people about this work, and one of their questions was like, Isn't that teaching them that child? Isn't that teaching Sam that the way to get his way is to, like, throw dirt it, girls? And it caught me off guard the first time cause I was like, Wait, is that what that's doing? But what what got me out of that spiral of thinking was the one time later on, after we had built up that relationship and we've been doing that for a while. Was one day when he came over to being a just asked me like, Can we have a dirt fight today? Because he knew that that was something I could offer him. And he didn't. He didn't need to do what he was doing before to make that play happen anymore. He knew he could get it for me in a different way. Um, and that was really, really powerful for me in my practice.

spk_3:   11:30
Can I ask a follow up question about that story and just broadly about play work? Um, I feel like often when, when, like that question of like, but isn't that teaching him such and such and such and such? The question I have is like Toe. What extent is is it in the play workers mind like, What am I teaching like, What is the behavior that I'm reinforcing? And what is the behavior that I want? And what is the behavior that etcetera? Because I feel like a lot of how people adults think about Children is that they need to be trained. You know, adults often will impose arbitrary rules on kids like just in orderto teach them to follow rules or or or though you know, they'll say certain things like in order to teach the kids a lesson about such and such. And I feel like my understanding of play work is that it? There's almost this this way in which play work and creates a bubble where that doesn't come in where they it's actually not about teaching the kids anything. It's about making one space for these kids where they can just do their thing, and they don't have to be, like, infused with some other motive of how we're going to teach them how to be adults.

spk_2:   12:48
Yeah, I would probably actually say that I do think about what I am teaching Children in a way, Um, but I don't like actively teach. But every time you interact with another person, you are showing them like what you think of them on what you value. And I hope that I am teaching Children that I think that there, you know, valuable human beings, individuals with important needs that whether I understand or not, are worth meeting. And I could be that for them, and I think that there is, you know, a lesson in that somewhere. But it's not teaching.

spk_0:   13:28
I think that a

spk_2:   13:29
lot of adults are really worried about us teaching Children on DDE. Then there's a couple of yet there's a couple of different things with that, I think that the first is a lot of a lot of adults have, ah, an image of Children as either like blank or like somehow nefarious like this, this idea that, like, if we're not, if we're not making sure to teach them how to be them like who knows what they'll become, you know. And at its heart, play work really operates from a faith in Children. I would also add that like, um, it's helpful to remember that, like, this isn't the child's entire I hire 24 hours a day life. This is their play time, right? So they've been in school all day, presumably or in some kind of structured environment where they are being introduced to lessons and values and behavior, standards and all of these sorts of things. And this is the time when they're like, off duty, like off the clock.

spk_0:   14:29
Yeah, totally. I think that there's a really good argument to make

spk_2:   14:32
for the playground. Whatever that ground is as like Children's third place, you know, so like they have home, they have work, and then they have, like, hopefully, this other place where they

spk_1:   14:42
can just be so.

spk_0:   14:50
One of the great things about play work is

spk_2:   14:52
that I say about play work and you can push back if you disagree. But that's like there are things like after spending time at the land, I felt like I went home totally different, and there were things that I never did again. You know what I mean? They're like, for example, talking. I just stopped talking so damn much when I was with kids. That was maybe one of the biggest, most obvious changes. So, for example, what what I'm saying is, when you and learning about play work, think about people listening to this. There are some things that you can like start doing to day, and then there are things that, like are just at the art of it. You know, like there are these nuances that you pick up on and skills that you develop. Um, I wonder if what are some of the like, very practical things that someone could look for, like when they go to school tomorrow or when they're with their kids tomorrow to start making different kinds of decisions about supporting play. I mean, we talk a lot about a Morgan and I have talked a lot about body language lately, and I think is the biggest one to start with is that, um, adults often have a way of holding themselves that whether they think they do or not, like scream. I'm not someone you want to be involved yourself with to a child, and it's the like standing rigid arms folded up at the top of a hill. The only interaction I have with you is to scream like Don't do that. Um and it was so much more clear to me how different my approach is coming into a school and being very uncomfortable because I was the only one, like sitting on the ground or like climbing onto the monkey bars or like just being there, Um, and especially getting to know new Children. That's really great things just like make eye contact and smile and like no feeling a cock my head a lot like a questioning way, like I see what you're doing and I'm curious about it, but I don't need to be involved just like Hi. Yeah, but without saying any of that out lab, Um, doing things with my body that adults don't always do is a great signal to a child that this is a different kind of adult and that I'm open for other things. Body language. It

spk_0:   17:07
almost sounds like it sounds like you're so mindful of when you say any words. Do you have, like,

spk_2:   17:13
criteria around when you say words out loud? It's really interesting

spk_0:   17:18
question. And then I feel self conscious. You have to use words really existential podcast. Maybe getting ahead. We can see you concerned. At what level stuff or address that. No, I think like all of the off the place to start things I think are in ourselves, right? So it's like body language. You and I have talked about, like breathing first a lot before you freak out.

spk_2:   17:49
Just just breathe for a sec or just, like, observe and see how much you could understand of what is actually happening versus like what you assume it's happening.

spk_0:   17:58
Yeah, thinking about like where you put your body in the space. Yeah, I mean, I've

spk_2:   18:02
joined so many play frames without any words at all. There is a kindergartner at school who was very shy, and I hadn't really had much interaction with her. Um, but I was I think I was sitting on the balance beam and watching something else happened, and I noticed that she was next to me and she was getting on the balance beam. So I started, got off and we just were looking at each other and obviously, like, trying to understand each other. That's what it felt like anyway. So she stepped on, and then I sort of stepped on, and it was I was doing the things that she was doing. Yuri. Yeah. I was doing the things that she was doing with her body with a lot of eye contact and, um, letting her move it the next step and then following along with what she was doing. And it just morphed into, like, this whole game where we're doing the balance beam. And, um Then she started talking to me later in it, and she knew that I was following along. So she gave me more instructions about what the rules were of the balance beam game. Um, and that that, like established a really close relationship From then on, like she knew I was one of the people that she could go to and even like within the next week, she was, you know, kindergartner. She was new to school, new to her teacher. Um, and she and I would do things together a lot. And at one point she sort of asked me if I could ask her teacher if her teacher wanted to see some things like I was her person, huh? And it was just from that body language mirroring. That's great. That's a simple thing. Think that builds an enormous amount of trust between you and the kids. Just don't like an animal level. Yeah, yeah, another simple thing that I wouldn't have thought of. Except now that I work at the school, I see that the way I do it is different than other people is when kids do you have, like a conflict or a problem that they're hoping they could get some adult help with often teachers will I call them over so they can all talk together. Whereas I often go over to where the problem is. I bring myself over to where it is in the kid's world. Rather than inviting the kids to come over into my adult world.

spk_3:   20:15
Something that I noticed is that a lot of adults have, like a different voice that they use when they talk to kids. And it's like, often very patronizing and very like belittling to those kids. And if you just like, use your normal voice like talk to them as if they're human, right? So, like there are certain topics that are may be hard to get into. Are there certain language that you may not want to use, but like overall, your tone and your cadence can be the same as when you talk to people?

spk_2:   20:45
I was thinking about tone of voice recently because I noticed in taking a lot of videos and my new work toe help show people some of the things that are going on and listening to myself in these videos that, um, depending on where I am in the relationship with a particular child, I will use a different voice at the beginning when I'm getting to know that I'm trying to make it clear to them that I am like a playful person within play, with them. I will sort of use like a play voice, and it's sort of like extra jokey and, um, sort of exaggeratedly characterise. Um, and then as the relationship gets established and it becomes clear to that child that I am a kind of adult that will join them, Um, my voice gets more and more like we're just buds you and I had. This is this is a normal thing. We do this every day because it can be. It could be hard at first because if I say something in my normal voice within play, they might think that I mean it as an adult. And my example that I was talking about was I was new on the playground, sort of, you know, Oh, the only adult who had ever built walked around on the playground before with all these kids, sort of giving me side eye and trying to figure out who I was, and I miss stepped a little bit in a The kids were playing on office type game, which it was sort of like mad men ask in that they had they were. They were also like smoking cigars in their cubicles and, like, discussing business. Um, and I made a joke that I was like Like who? You know, like smoking isn't allowed on the playground. Um, and the I think the kid thought that I was being adult, an adult who and the adults often try toe, forbid certain themes in play. And honestly, smoking is one of them. Sometimes I think he thought I was serious and saying, You're not allowed to pretend to smoke on the playground. Um, and that was not what I meant. So I try to be very clear. It first. Like I'm really joking. Um, And then later on, now that I know this kid, he and I have an understanding. And if I were to say that now he would know I was joking. Just for being really thorough for beginner folks,

spk_0:   23:02
Shouldn't we say you shouldn't smoke? It's so bad for you. It's so unhealthy. Like, shouldn't we say that because we're the adults there Or is there like, one line to say about it? Yeah.

spk_2:   23:11
I mean, my my line would be like the Children already know. They're just

spk_0:   23:15
pretending, and it's funny.

spk_1:   23:21
Cool. I

spk_3:   23:28
definitely had definitely encountered that we were all like, like, really intensely accept whatever framed the kids are doing, whatever game the kids are like, immediately sort of slide in and assume that it's just really and, like, act as if whatever they're saying Israel, Israel and the kids get get weirded out by that. Sometimes they're like, they're like, what? You know, this is just pretend right? Like we're just Blake

spk_0:   23:50
okay? Yeah, Yeah, like, I'm not really e it that like this conversation like, are we just pretending there's your actual birthday like there's no actual earthquake. You can calm down, Thio. I think one of the things I love about Alex is that when you think about play work like when you sort of approach it for the first time, you expect someone to be really wild and zany and like, crazy and out, going to be a play worker. But Alex is so thoughtful and patient and reflective and that that really comes through for me. Um, in her interview, really like hearing that, Yeah, yeah,

spk_3:   24:57
I don't know Alex that well, but I feel like she's just She's just like a play working ninja. She's like a silent and she knows exactly how to position herself has this amazing intention about it all. And this, like awareness of everything that's going on.

spk_0:   25:14
Mmm. Yeah, Morgan, you trained Alex. What's it like to see your grass hopper thrive? I was lucky enough to meet her right at the beginning. And she's always just been this like like, absolutely scrupulous, thoughtful, like, deliberate play worker. Um, like a lot of people when like when I've met people in play work like a lot of folks have, like an intuitive touch for it. Sometimes, you know, and that's an amazing place to start. Really, That can't be the whole thing. And she's just really over the years, been this incredible example for me of how you start with that intuitive sense of, like, the emotional content, maybe of what's happening in Children's play. But then you really build in that like professional rigor. And she's just kept doing that all the way along, like kept being really dedicated to improving her practice, which is just amazing to see. And especially now that she's like that, she's having the chance to really communicate that stuff to other people and to share what she loves about it. And like the nuance of what she really sees Children doing, a lot of it gets missed. What do you mean, A lot of what gets missed? Um, the nuance. I think a lot of the depth of what's happening when Children are playing gets missed by adults, you know, either because they're like, physically, very far away, as she was talking about. Or they're just not really tuned in like she is absolutely tuned in and present for other kids. Yeah, but she's also off. She's also, like, very delicate and how she gets involved. It doesn't get involved. I remember at the Anarchy Zone when I was there once, um, like a subsequent, You're doing stuff training And she she was She was already, like a very well established member of the team. I don't know she was head yet there, but anyway, and one of the new students was watching her and she and was very confused and came up to me and was like, Are we supposed to do what she's doing? Because it looks like she's not doing very much like, Oh, that's that's because she's really airlines. Me, too, of a conversation, I had with Dave at the land, who's a play worker at the land adventure playground in Wales. And he said just very simply, you know, this is their world, and it's a privilege to be inside of it. And really, he thought of himself, Yeah, as being inside of their world. And that is like something to take seriously. And Alex takes it seriously. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, she really does. And she also like she doesn't need to be a part of it. And I think that there's something very powerful for Children in that you know, in in having adults who will say, like, we'll protect your right to this time in the space even if you don't want us involved It's amazing what Alex is doing in a school, Um, which makes me think of another practitioner who we admire, school librarian Jill would. So Jill is another play worker that we adore, and Jill founded an adventure playground at the parish school in Houston, Texas, in 2008 which is 10 years ago now, so that's pretty, pretty well established. 10 years. That's a whole generation of Children, absolutely. Uh, the place has really evolved beautifully over time into this wonky and beloved a hammer and nails dreamland that you imagine when you hear the words junk play. So I got a chance to talk to Jill, and I asked her the question that everyone wants to know which is How do you start an adventure playground? And this is what she said.

spk_1:   28:57
There's a lot of interest in adventure playgrounds, and I think that sometimes when people are wanting to start a program, they have an idea of what an adventure playground looks like. And a lot of times, let's it's not gonna be suitable for their environment. It's not gonna be something that people respond. Thio, Really. The key pieces are play work, time and space. And if you have those parts, then I think the rest follows. It's a lot easier than then people might think if you have those three things, those three things are really hard to come by sometimes, and so secure those first and then and the rest will follow

spk_0:   29:47
two. She's so good.

spk_3:   29:54
Can we just repeat the feat? 33 things

spk_2:   29:57
play work, time and space. I love that I love that and partly for what it is because I think it's like true and beautiful and respectful and practical and all of those things that Jill is like to her soul, but also because of what it's not like. It's not about stuff, necessarily, it's not. You know that most of the people who come to us with that question want, like, a shopping list of like, Oh, for an adventure playground, you need 100 2 by fours and a box of nails. And then you give them this like, you know, paradigm shifting philosophy in return. And they look at you like but no, I've seen pictures.

spk_0:   30:40
And who did you have $1000 spent exactly in six

spk_2:   30:43
months. So, um and I can I think what Jill saying is so, like, so rooted in having done, like, some of the most beautiful play work I've ever seen for 11 years.

spk_3:   30:58
We were talking about metaphors earlier, and something just came to me that, like, if somebody asked you how, um how can I make ah flower? You wouldn't say like, Oh, yeah, So you go get a stem and some pedals and, like, put them together in this orientation, and then you have a flower you say here. This is like a seed that, like has in it all the information. If you just like water it and it follows the DNA of the seed and then it will become a flower and it may look different from other flowers, but it's a flower.

spk_2:   31:37
I've never heard anyone say that before, and that's pretty much exactly that's true and beautiful. You have it

spk_3:   31:44
because really, because really, it's it's like it's an evolutionary process, right? It's not. It's that people see the end of the stage And I got caught in this at the beginning, also, that people get like you said, people get, see the end product and they think I want that right now. I want it to look like that. I want to do fire. I want to do you know, band saws and whatever else with the kids. But like I want that because I want that And making an adventure playground for the kids is about taking that step down and saying I need to do that for myself. A different

spk_0:   32:15
space, Yeah, but you can start something that may, you know, grow into the kind of adventure playground that you've seen pictures

spk_3:   32:22
up with that you

spk_0:   32:22
imagine. But it could just be a mud pit for two years because the kids haven't had a mud pit before. Man, I also like about that metaphor that, like someone, could see an adventure playground and decide, just like clock that down in a place. But if you if you take some flowers and plant them and then never take care of them again, they're not going to do very well like that needs to be like ongoing, I mean ongoing training, ongoing, reflective practice and, like so much thought and everything put into the place to make it work, there's a lovely quote by on early player for called Timothy Break. It talks about the adventure being in the mind of a child. E. I think that really applies. That's what needs to keep guiding us. Thank

spk_3:   33:32
you all for listening to our very first episode First. This very conversation with Alex continues in Part two, when we talk to Alex about how she has been making play at school, more

spk_0:   33:47
adventurous, what she's introduced, what she's taken away and

spk_3:   33:51
why she spends so much time on the monkey bars. You hear that? And Mawr, in part two of our first episode of play work the podcast.

spk_0:   33:59
We have links to all the important stuff on our website. Play work podcast dot com. You find the play work primer and pictures from the Parish School AP and Riverdale Country School Playground as well. And don't forget to subscribe on apple podcasts While you're there, you can raid us and leave Review, which we would love. That would be good. Yeah, I mean rules if you want, if if you know if you want and if it's complimentary. But whatever your opinion, you are welcome to email us at the Hello at play work podcast dot com, or to tweet us questions and thoughts about play worker adventure play or out of no sandwiches, whatever it might be at play work podcast and will probably answer them on the show. Yeah, we'd love to hear what you want to know where your questions are so that we can, you know, be a resource. Let's get the conversation going. Yeah, let's get it going. I'm Erin. I'm Morgan, a Mayan, and this has been play work the podcast. Thanks for listening