“You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole!” You’ve heard it before. I venture to say you can, given some wiggle room.
Four year-old Alec entered the mixed-age nursery/kindergarden classroom with his anxious, young mother. She came holding her son’s hand and high regard for Waldorf education along with hopes high that he would be a good fit for it. While he looked like any other beautiful, little boy his age his developmental differences were not like the others. How would he get along in the class?
Like all children, he needed time to observe his new surroundings and acquaint himself with it and the others. Through a consistent daily rhythm and routine each child was able to manage the day in a predictable way, feeling safe and secure in what would come next and knowing that a caring teacher would be present to guide and protect them. Without having to wonder, worry or question what might be ahead, the children were able to rest in the continuity they depended upon. This allowed them a measure of freedom to navigate into a slightly bigger world and task at hand…getting to know each other. How best to do that than in free play!
Giving wiggle room to children is like giving water to a thirsty bird. They absolutely need it! They will partake of it, given it or not. It is natural. To deny children space to move and confine them to desk and chair, screen, or pad at early ages is to deny movement of their limbs necessary for developing needed neurological pathways in their brains. There are not only physical/intellectual considerations for wiggle room but also social and emotional components.
Wiggle room allows children time and space to interact with each other, whether it be sitting beside each other in parallel play “alone” or playing cooperatively together. Exchanges evolve, ebb and flow. Conflicts arise; resolve is sought after. Sometimes teacher intervention is needed to redirect. Learning is always happening: imaginative role-playing, creative building, problem-solving and conflict resolution, developing relationships and redefining them. And all the while, finding our place in the scheme of things. Where do we fit and how?
We are social beings. We need each other. We need to feel part of the whole.
“No man is an island.” How do we connect with the other? Wiggle room allows us the opportunity to figure that out, no matter what our age.
In the mixed ages nursery/kindergarten, oftentimes the older children will be the nurturers, taking the younger children under their wings, being their brothers’ keepers so to speak. Their empathy manifests in their protectiveness of a younger child or in their relationships with a child having special needs. This was the case with Alec. The six year-old girls protected and adored him. He allowed their flaunting displays of “mothering” to play out but in time when his burgeoning competence and confidence grew he was able to resist this and stand on his own, much to their initial dismay.
This kind of learning can only be done in real time, in real settings with real people. It is not accomplished on screen-based “virtual” programs, no matter how real the effects. Fingers may wiggle virtual square pegs into round holes using keyboards or mouse pads at record-breaking speeds but it is among each other that the most important learning takes place…how we became understanding, tolerant, compassionate and empathetic human beings…our brothers’ keepers.
