The (Fun) Work of Transformational Play: Shifting Mindsets one Family at a Time
In our work with Quest Atlantis here in Singapore, my colleague Doreen and I repeatedly confront the pragmatic ambitions of a well-run, centrally-organized education system. It is therefore a pleasure for us when the things that kids say as they contribute to QA make us to step back for a moment. In this post, we share one such episode that occurred recently in the home of a not atypical local family. The video is not particularly long, but we think it highlights QA’s influence on the mindsets of both Singapore children and their parents. Before rolling the film, however, we think it is also important to share some of the tensions that QA must navigate in Singapore’s “schooling straits” and so we begin by setting up the video with a bit of background information.
It is safe to say that Singapore schools do not just work; they work quite well in accomplishing their stated objectives. While some people may recall that Singapore students perform well on international comparison studies in math and science, few are aware of the local efforts to improve not only conventional test scores but also the fundamental experience of learning. Singapore is perhaps most impressive not when you consider where its education system was or is, but when you consider how consistent the pace of change has been and how determined it is to continue. Of course, these accolades may lead you to believe that I am drinking the local water but, deferring to the long view, education leaders here are quick to acknowledge that the envisioned evolution of learning will not occur in a year or through a policy but rather by means of persistent, incremental shifts in education. They are not the first to think this way. For example, in his book The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Michael Tomasello offers a kind of parallel idea about cultural shifts, be they in learning, business, art, or anything else. Tomasello characterizes change in terms of a “ratchet effect” and ratcheting up entails a blend of both continuity in some existing ways of doing things and transformations to other ways. In other words, rapid, wholesale change is a rare thing, it would seem. And so, it may be that educational shifts in Singapore are similarly envisioned to ratchet up over time.
But for an outsider like me, who arrived only two years ago, it feels sometimes that these shifts cannot happen fast enough. The profound and pervasive emphasis on testing often runs the risk of reducing the most complex of topics to a constellation of facts and figures. And it is this kind of approach that has led to distinctions between subject matter factoids that students memorize to get high scores and disciplinary practices that learners master in order to conceptualize and solve problems. By the same token, for some insiders here, people who might recall the birth of this relatively young nation, these shifts have perhaps been too fast. But, either way, it seems that everyone would agree that shifts in education are persistent and incremental. Singapore is moving, step by step, away from subject matter and towards disciplines. In fact, an appealing local mantra happens to be “teach less, learn more.” This clever turn of phrase (already engrained as TLLM) succinctly captures an aspiration; equally important, it also alludes to the kinds of self-directed and collaborative learning often observed as students use QA
What is most interesting to us in all of this background info, though, is the number of Singapore citizens who assume that it is the very central role that their government plays that propels and will continue to propel shifts in education. On one level, we agree. It is routinely the Singapore Ministry of Education that drives change through carefully crafted policy initiatives. At the same time, as kids voices in the video below reminded us, everyday moments of interaction in families plays an important role too. We think this episode highlights one way in which these shifts are propelled by Singapore students and, in other instances, by teachers too. And so, finally, now consider the brief exchange that this brother-sister duo have with their parents around whether or not QA is actually work.
My children are in Primary 5 and Secondary 1 from reputable schools. Unfortunately, ‘teach less learn more’ is just ‘lip service.’ How do you bring our children brains out of the box if it’s always close by the demands of A* grades? As my Sec 1 son puts it ‘Learning is a joy while studying is a pain’. With lots of joy, he managed 4As in his PSLE.
Education in Singapore is about shifting the mindsets of school principals and parents. If only teachers know how to teach what to teach, than our kids will have fun learning. And, if principals are less competitive and appreciates the values of learning and growing, sadly, many of our children brains will be left in the box.
I think this is an interesting observation, Steve, made all the more interesting when comparing children’s use of QA in other countries. We’ve noted an interesting shift from some U.S. children who, when they begin QA say they think it’s “play,” but after using QA for some time, change their description, sharing that they feel it is “work” but work they enjoy doing. Anna Arici’s research using the Taiga Unit often yielded interesting comments such as these. In both cases, their exploration of the game has allowed some transformation or recontextualizing of the experience (of both learning and of playing) that have meaningful consequences for our learners and for education as a whole.