Heather Bernt-Santy: I just think your image of the child will determine whether schema play is something that I plan and lead an activity for so that they meet my curriculum goal, or whether it is something that we provide for children because we know they deserve it and we can trust them. We can trust that that process has meaning.
Whether we. Completely understand it or not.
Rusty Keeler: Hi, this is Rusty Keeler and you’re listening to the Play Nature Podcast where we talk about play nature, playing in nature, and the nature of play. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a listen. Hi, Heather.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Hi Rusty.
Rusty Keeler: How you doing?
Heather Bernt-Santy: I’m good. How are you?
Rusty Keeler: Good. Good to see your smiling face.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yay. I’m so excited. Yay.
Rusty Keeler: So I’m excited to dive into things, but we’ll start with your, your bio. I’m feeling a little bashful because I’m just beginning a podcast and you were like the podcast master early childhood nerd.
Heather Bernt-Santy: That’s so funny because I literally just record a Zoom conversation. Put it out there. Like, I don’t, I don’t do anything fancy.
Rusty Keeler: But I mean, you’ve been doing it for how long now?
Heather Bernt-Santy: Nine years. In August. August, it was nine years.
Rusty Keeler: That’s incredible.
Heather Bernt-Santy: It’s nuts. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: And, and like how many episodes?
Heather Bernt-Santy: Um, I think this week was like 376 or something like that. Oh my gosh. That so
Rusty Keeler: that is incredible. It’s a lot. Yeah. It’s
Heather Bernt-Santy: really wild to think that it’s that many in that long.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. What gave you that idea? What, oh yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I love this story. I’m so glad you asked. I was listening early in 2016. I was listening actually, to an episode of the Childcare Bar and Grill, the podcast that Jeff Johnson and Lisa Murphy used to do.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And I messaged Jeff and just said, have you ever thought about covering this?
Topic, whatever it was. Oh, it was how we misuse research to push down academics. And he said, we haven’t done that episode, but if you want to come talk about it with us, that’d be great. And I hadn’t met either of ’em, you know, and they’re huge. You know, Lisa Murphy especially. So I recorded an episode with them and I loved it so much and I was messaging with Jeff A.
Little later and I told him that I wanted to write a book and he said, oh, don’t write books, nobody reads, but if you wanna do a podcast, I’ll help you get the podcast started. But I had, after we recorded I immensely, I was like, okay, I’m gonna cultivate this relationship for like a year, and then I’ll pitch a podcast.
And this was all like within two months. And then I was recording. My
Rusty Keeler: first episodes You were doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: It was really fun.
Rusty Keeler: Oh, that’s great. Well, you’ve had so many incredible conversations with so many amazing people. Yeah. And yeah, kind of just thinking things through.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. I joke that I started the podcast to trick people into talking to me.
That’s good. People I look up to so they can have a reason.
Rusty Keeler: Uh, it’s so good. Um, I know for me, I just, I felt like a point in my life where I like, I just wanna keep talking about this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: And playing around and diving into it and, and learning and yeah. Hearing all the different angles and aspects of,
Heather Bernt-Santy: yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah,
Heather Bernt-Santy: and I think I’m so glad you started a podcast. I think for me it’s the conversations that I have on the podcast, but then also knowing that other people are listening to that and it gives me such deep hope for work that is not always hopeful or does not always feel hopeful. Ah-huh. Um, to know that we have all these passionate thinkers and doers out there working for children.
Rusty Keeler: That’s right, that’s right. And then you got it going through the airwaves, so it’s Yeah, it’s out there. It’s out there. So, okay, well let me read your bio here, Uhhuh so people can learn more about you and then we can dive into some of the, some of your favorite stuff. Uh, Heather Burnt Santi, ma ED, also known as that early childhood nerd, has been working with children, their families, and their caregivers for over 35 years and has loved.
Very nearly almost every minute. I love that. Yes. Yeah. Truth, truth. In advertising, she’s a believer in children’s right to play and in the science that tells us play is right. I like that. Right to play. Play is right. Thank you. Thank you. Ah, yes. As that early childhood nerd, she offers consulting and webinars and hosts a podcast by the same name.
She’s the author of the book using Schema Play Theory to Advocate for Free Play in Early Childhood. I know that that book is fresh off the presses.
Heather Bernt-Santy: It’s coming. It’s still pre-order when we’re talking by the time this comes out, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be available then, but Oh, it’s so wild. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Yes, yes.
Well, uh, well, tell us about that. The book writing, I mean, that’s a, that’s a huge thing. And what, and then we can dive into the, what it’s about.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. So I mean. I’ve, I’ve wanted to write a book since I was 11, since I read Little Women, and Joe March was a writer, and I was like, yeah, I wanna do that. And I think the, the podcast starting the podcast actually, I think took some of that urgency away.
Like, I had this other outlet
Speaker 3: for
Heather Bernt-Santy: getting thoughts out there or for contributing. But about four, four or five-ish years ago, a publisher or an editor approached me. She was listening to the podcast during the pandemic and she said, I think you should write a book. And so we started work on it. Then I got a cancer diagnosis and spent the next couple of years dealing with that.
And when that was done, she reached out again and she said, Hey, I’m with Teachers College Press now. Would you like to go back to this book project?
Speaker 3: Ah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I was like. Is the Pope Catholic? Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes. I
Heather Bernt-Santy: want to get back to this book, idea
Speaker 3: Uhhuh,
Heather Bernt-Santy: and you know, teachers College Press has been great to work with and Sarah is the editor.
She’s been great. I didn’t, I don’t know. There were times when I thought thought, Hmm, I’ve been talking about this for two years and I don’t think I can really do it. But then I did it.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. It was very exciting. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. It is very exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: So well play schema. Let’s just dive into that.
Yeah. And you know, so I’m coming at it as a lover and supporter of play, designed for play, knowing that there’s. Patterns and connections and children are drawn and they’re, you know, there’s instinct and there’s all this stuff. Mm-hmm. But this is, this is, so, this is, it’s kind of new thinking and terminology for me and a lot of listeners, people.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s
Heather Bernt-Santy: really common and has been used a lot in like the UK and Australia and Canada, but in the States not as much. There’s been, you know, Deb Curtis and Nadia Habanera had a great book about it come out a few years ago. So essentially my friend Tiffany Pearsall, who’s been on on that early childhood nerd a lot years ago, sent me stuff about schema play, and I ignored it because I thought, oh, here we go again.
Another buzzword, another trend, you know, it’s, we’re regio inspired because we have baskets in the classic, you know, I just, I really poo-pooed it and put it away. And then when I, um, was working on my master’s degree a few years later and had to come up with some kind of research project that was unique, I thought, okay, I’ll, I’ll revisit it.
And it’s built on the work of Chris Athe, who was an English college lecturer. She did this. From 73 to 1978, this project called the Foal Early Education Project, where they were observing children from two to five years old over the course of those five years, six years, whatever it was, I can’t do math.
Really wondering what they could learn about how children think by watching their play. Mm-hmm. And what came out of it was this recognition that there are repeated patterns in children’s play that can be labeled and then wondered about. And, and, you know, looked for and wondered about, she had over 40.
We tend to now, you know, subsequent work has kind of reframed it as these eight or 10 categories of repeated patterns. And it, it just, it made so much sense to me when I started thinking about, so one is like transporting kids just wanna carry things around and dump things out and carry them back and put things in their pockets to walk around with and drive things around in trucks and all that and trajectory.
I’m not gonna be able to remember ’em all now, even though I just wrote a whole book about ’em. Connecting and disconnecting orientation and perspective, like all these, all these patterns that suddenly made some of the weird stuff that kids do when they choose their play make more sense. And a lot of that kind of stuff we, we label as aimlessness or flitting around or not knowing how to play as we hear so often now I’m hearing so often now suddenly made a lot of sense.
Here was this new framework to look at it through, and I found with college students, with parents that I’m working with, with colleagues, I have seen more kind of light bulb ahas coming on their faces into their faces when I talk about schema play than any other thing. That I’ve talked to them about.
It’s like suddenly all this weird stuff makes, makes sense.
Rusty Keeler: Uh, ’cause they can be like, oh yeah, he’s always ca my son is always carrying things from da, da, da. Or he is always putting things in little Yeah. Piles or,
Heather Bernt-Santy: yeah. Yeah. You know, we think, oh, it’s just a weird thing. Like, I think about Freddy, who, his real name is Freddy in the book.
He’s George. I, I got permission from parents to tell the stories, but then the publisher said, no, you should still use pseudonyms. So I texted all the parents and I said, ask your kid what they want their name to be in my book. Oh,
Rusty Keeler: that’s funny.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And they had their name so fast. It was amazing. But anyway, um, Freddy would always, like, if we were playing with Play-Doh or slime or anything, he would get like little counting bears and little manipulative things, put it inside and then wrap it all around.
So it was like a ball around the thing. And he would like just wad paper up. And put it in a drawer and close it in a drawer. And he always wanted to be working under tables instead of at the tables. And um, when he painted at the easel, he would paint the whole outside border of the white, of the big paper and then fill it in with paint.
And that all just seemed like, well, Freddy’s a little weird until we had the schema framework. And I was like, oh, Freddy is enclosing and enveloping. Everywhere he goes. Oh, huh. And his, his his drive is to see how do all these new materials fit this? Schema that I have and it just, it makes it so much more interesting.
Rusty Keeler: Huh, huh.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And his mom loves that. And that was years ago. And she still, every now and again, will say, is he still the king of enclosure?
Rusty Keeler: Yep. Yep. He is. Nobody quite envelopes like Freddy? Nope.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Nope.
Rusty Keeler: Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I wonder if we could back up a little bit and first, yeah. Have you describe what is play itself, what is that?
And then to see like, okay, well then what is schema in that? Mm-hmm. But first, first, what is, what is the nature of play? What is, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. Good job. Slow me down. Start over. No, no, no. Um. So, I mean, I, I tend to kind of combine Stuart Brown and Peter Gray’s ideas about defining play and it ends up being, in my mind, play is something that’s fun that children choose, that they are motivated to do even when it.
We don’t understand the motivation, right? They can quit when they wanna quit. And, uh, you know, they make up their own rules about it, whether those rules are spoken or just acted out. But mostly it’s, it’s about choice and fun. Whose idea was it? And, uh, is that person having fun with it?
Rusty Keeler: And. Why play
Heather Bernt-Santy: well to, okay, so I, so here I like to go to the Lego Foundation’s work on brain development and learning through play.
Okay? And they have five characteristics of an experience that make it playful and benefit the brain and it’s experiences that are meaningful. To the child, socially, interactive, actively engaging, iterative, they can repeat it a lot and joyful. So in my mind, as I think about that, the only way that we can sort of ensure that something is meaningful to the child and joyful is to let them choose it.
Let them make the decisions about it. When I talk to my students sometimes and we talk about things being meaningful, they say, well, it is meaningful. It’s a standard I have to meet, or it’s meaningful, it’s in our curriculum goals, and that’s not what we’re talking about. It’s meaningful to the child.
Mm-hmm. And that’s, um, I think play is the way. To sort of get as close as we can to guaranteeing that an experience meets those characteristics that are good for their bodies and brains. You know, we also just have a lot of research that says this is the way children are wired to learn and live.
Rusty Keeler: Do you have any favorite research that points to your, to this?
Heather Bernt-Santy: Uh, I mean, I, I do really love that Lego Foundation work that does a good job of connecting all of the ways that. Meeting those five characteristics activate the parts of the brain that we’re kids are really working on birth to five, especially the the before school years. That’s a favorite. Stewart Stewart Brown’s book on play and all of that research.
I really rely heavily too on the American Academy of Pediatrics, uh, power of Play position paper that they put out several years ago, that 2019 I think, and Peter Gray’s, I think he first wrote about it in 2015 and then maybe last year a new piece. Follow up piece came out about the connection that might be made, uh, could possibly be made between a lack of play and independent choice and the rise in the psychopathology in teenagers and, and children.
Um, which is a scarier one, but still we need that sometimes, right?
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting to think about, you know, why play exists or, or to look at it. Humans. Mm-hmm. Or to look at it where people think, you know, playful learning, uh, like with, with Peter? Yeah. Yeah. Well, or Peter Gray saying self-directed learning.
And to think about if we talked before about like having to defend, play or, you know, you’re always kind of in that position because it might not look like it’s serious or it’s academic to one lens. Uh, and yet it is the foundation of of life of. Growing, developing, finding who oneself is and, and all that jazz.
And so it’s interesting, like Peter’s, Peter’s like a self-directed learning often is thought of for older, older children. Mm-hmm. You know, even high school age and all that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. But it’s like self-directed learning is just self-directed being Yeah. And, and seems like that’s what early childhood play mm-hmm.
Is, it’s kind of a self-directed flow.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Right. Yeah. Well, and I think, I mean, that’s, that’s a big part of, of the, my book, and I think you were at the I-P-A-U-S-A session when I first kind of formed the idea of the crowds that we have to advocate to and, and making sure that we understand the value that someone holds.
Like if they’re a play skeptic. What is it that they value? And then I need to tell my play story in a way that connects with that value. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: So I know there are some people who say We need to stop defending play because that just makes, it’s like saying you don’t get your brownie till you eat your broccoli.
It makes it seem like there’s something wrong with the broccoli. So for defending play all the time, there are people who are like. We’re working against ourselves, but yeah. Yeah. The reality is there are people who need to be persuaded. If we want to ensure that children get more play or some play or any play, especially in the face of academic pressures that are pushing down into younger and younger years, we’ve got minds to change and so we have to use our storytelling to, to match what will change their mind maybe.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. And so with Schema, how does, how does that fit into it? Like I think about play as like this in instinctual thing. Mm-hmm. And so are these all. Little instincts that were, that were coming from back primitive when we were primitive humans for survival. Are these things that are making connect connections in the brain for future, future, you know, different things and developing or, you know, are these or these like.
Learning to be on the planet and, and what matter is and how uhhuh, how things work. Is it scientific study? What, what, what is all that?
Heather Bernt-Santy: Oh my God. I think it’s all of those things. I mean, I think a case could be made for, for all of those things, but specifically with my work or with schema play, it is sort of acknowledging.
That they’re building their brains and constructing knowledge by being active in the world. They aren’t ready for that. Sort of just, I mean, I don’t think any of us are really super ready for this, but that, um, abstract, your head is empty and I have the knowledge, so I’ll pour it in like that. That’s not how any of this works.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Heather Bernt-Santy: So I think it starts with the drive to explore. I sort of in. In the book and in other places use, explore and play inter interchangeably.
Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, but I, I think
Heather Bernt-Santy: they do have that drive because they’re so brand new to the world. They have so much to figure out, and they don’t figure it out by just seeing it or hearing it from someone else.
They have to have it in their hands, their head, their heart, as Bev boss would say. Um. And while they’re doing that, they’re saying, oh, this is new. How does it fit with what I already experienced? Or, this is the same as what I’ve already experienced. And that’s kind of safe and cool. And in doing that, they construct knowledge that does contribute to future academic success or experience.
But in the meantime, it is, it’s just their, their way of being human. And we try too often to change the way. Young children are being human to look more like an adult way of being human. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s when we get in trouble. Yeah. Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: yeah. Yeah. It’s funny to see families even like, you know.
Families where parents might be proper and have a nice way of doing things and be, you know, nice and neat. Yeah. And then their kid is doing all these crazy things and you know, you can see them be like, I’m so embarrassed that they’re, you know, whatever, rolling around in the tall grass. Yes. Or, you know, whatever it is, splashing in mud.
Mm-hmm. But Right. I mean that’s, that’s sort of the fascinating, beautiful thing about childhood and Yes. Yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And I, I think what I really love about. The schema play theory is that you can use the word theory, which family? Sometimes parents are more influenced by than just Heather said,
Rusty Keeler: that’s good theory.
Yes. Oh, theory. So,
Heather Bernt-Santy: yeah. So I think, you know.
Rusty Keeler: Cool. What
Heather Bernt-Santy: was theories? It looks like, you know, they’re just mixing all the colors of Play-Doh together to be destructive and disrespectful of materials, but really. This could be a transforming experience in line with schema play theory. Ah. And uh, then they’re suddenly like, oh, my kid’s a genius.
Then I just thought they were weird. But look at how smart they’re,
Rusty Keeler: oh, they were going right along with the theory. Yeah. So wait, that was transforming. Yeah. So yeah,
Heather Bernt-Santy: changing, exploring how materials change when you. Take different actions on them, like mixing Play-Doh colors or painting something, or even pretend play.
They’re transforming themselves into a cat or a mom or a bad guy. So, so taking something familiar and, and making it different, making it new is, is the transforming schema.
Rusty Keeler: Huh. And so is that, could that just be loose parts play also is transforming materials or, or, so it’s, so it could be imagination, but it also could be solid actual physical
Heather Bernt-Santy: transformation.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like any kind of child, any area of child development, it’s interrelated. It’s, it’s rarely just one thing. You know, sometimes there are children like Freddy, um, or another little guy Jerry, who have like one schema and that’s the way they play. But then others are just kind of doing all the different schemas at different times throughout their
Rusty Keeler: play.
So when you’re observing, uh, you know, I don’t know if at the college there’s, if you have a two-way glass or, or what, no, no, no. But you’re in the corner with a clipboard. Uhhuh. People are so are you like, oh, they’re, oh look, they’re doing this one now. They’re doing that one now.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I mean, sometimes in the moment you just look at it and you say, oh my gosh, this is fun.
Look at that positioning and ordering they’re doing, but especially. With writing the book, I relied heavily on photos and really, ’cause then you can really look deeply outside of the moment and wonder. I think it’s, to use one of my favorite words, tremendous hubris to think we can ever really know what a child is learning, but we can wonder and we can think about and we can then experiment and add things to see if that’s how they keep.
You know, exploring or whatever. But I, it was really looking at photos and then thinking what, which schema do I think this most closely fits into? And then breaking it down into, okay, so what might be the social value they’re getting from this? What might be the math value that they’re getting from this?
What might be happening with their brain development? And in that way. I can use all that. Like if someone’s super worried about social emotional learning, then I can make a social emotional argument. Or if someone’s only interested in STEM for early childhood, then I can make a science argument based on looking deeply and wondering about this play.
Huh? You look skeptical. No, no, no. Or no, no,
Rusty Keeler: no. Sorry. I’m, I’m, I am. No, so I, so I’m thinking about it in terms of like. Okay. The baby baby’s born and still in like the, you know, the other world, the other realm. Mm-hmm. And then coming into this realm. Yeah. Both as experiment. Yeah. Experimenting, explore. Yeah.
This exploring the planet, but themselves. Yep. In this, but then also, you know, I, I remember this moment with my older son, uh, when young, so first he’s little, you know, infant, infant, infant. And it was, but there was suddenly this moment where he, maybe he grabbed both his feet, I don’t know how many months old he was.
Suddenly it was like there, suddenly there was this connection made. I could see he changed, like there was something in his eyes that I love it. It was like, and then he was different. He was in the next, it was like once the both hands were gripping both feet. Uhhuh, there was some pattern, there was some connection uhhuh, some flow that now was happening, and then he went on to the next thing.
And so it’s interesting just to think about the brain growing. Mm-hmm. You know, like the network that it is, all those connections and Yeah. And do, do these things. Keep making these connections and you know how mm-hmm. We become human or how we become, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. And I think that’s kind of where I like to think about that piece of it being joyful or being meaningful ’cause they have that connection.
Something like that happens and the child’s not consciously probably thinking, oh, this is a new connection. Yeah. But chemicals released in the brain make it a fun thing and then I wanna do it again, and then I wanna do it again. And with each repetition, you have an opportunity to notice something different.
Or experience something different and have a new connection and it just. Rolls. And rolls. And rolls.
Rusty Keeler: Wow. I had a funny experience recently, and I was thinking of you. Uh, we, we had a, a, a friend who was Guy, their toddler. Maybe he just, or he is three. He just turned I love toddlers, Uhhuh. Yeah. And you know, there’s the.
You know, they talk about the terrible twos, but then the joke is that no one says anything about the threes ’cause they’re so bad. Uh, or something. She said three danger. Yeah. Um, but I don’t, there was, we were outside and there was some, something going on. There was a little bit of tension happening. He wanted, maybe he was bugging one of my sons who Uhhuh, you know, trying to.
And I thought, oh, I’ll get him, uh, I’ll divert him and I’ll, I’m gonna give him something that he can not say no to. So I was just like, come on over. You wanna feed the bird feed? You wanna pour seeds? You know, bird seed into the bird feeder? And he was just like, yes. You know? So it was just like, so just scooping.
It’s all I want to do forever. Yes. Scooping the bird seed. Pouring the bird seed uhhuh. And I just had to chuckle ’cause I was like, he, he can’t help himself. Yeah. Yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. I mean, but that’s such a good example of how as an adult. That’s not as interesting to us anymore. We have so many years of experience that we just, like, I feed my cat every morning, I scoop it, I dump it, I move on.
But for someone who’s been on Earth 36 months, uhhuh, it’s not just the pouring, it’s the watching how it moves through space. So maybe that’s a trajectory schema, watching how those. The, the bird food seed, whatever moves and the sound that it makes and the, the smell like, it’s, it’s a multisensory thing where for me, in the morning it’s just shut up.
I’m feeding you. I’ve gotta go to work with the cat. She’s beautiful. I’m so sorry, Gwen, that I said that about you. Um, in case she listens, yes, in case she listens. Uh, but it’s hard to get our adult brains back into that because we don’t have to think that. Way anymore. And we don’t experience everything or we’re not as open to the sensory multisensory stuff ’cause it’s not necessary for us anymore.
We’re moving through the world in a different way. And that’s one thing that I think Schema theory helps me get back to because it’s not looking at. The noun that they’re making, it’s looking at the verb that they’re doing. And that pulls me back into a space where, yes, they have to be active. It’s not a product, it’s the process.
And uh, sometimes that’s really hard for grownups to do, especially if you’ve got 23 year olds. In your space and you’re trying to figure it all out,
Rusty Keeler: it’s really hard. Yeah. Right. I mean, can you imagine? Yeah. To look at all the schemas to all, everything, everything that’s happening at the same
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: same time.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Well, and so that, that when I, sometimes when I talk to groups, they’re all like, oh yeah, I see that happen. Yeah. Yeah. That’s so funny. Or exciting or new, but also, I, I get that. Okay. So, um, how do you make sure they. Do all the schema, like we all, we wanna make it linear and we wanna make it standardized because that’s our traditional way of thinking about Yeah, sure.
Education, right? So, so they’re thinking, okay, I need to plan a trajectory time every day, and I need to plan a transporting time every day. And how can I, how can I pay attention to everybody’s schema when. We’re doing everything together all the time, and I think that’s where play comes into it. We don’t have to be in control of everything.
We’ve set up the environment, we trust the children, we’re letting them play, and then we can meet, move through and notice the things like schema play better than if we’re leading the whole group through the same thing. We all do circle time, and then we all do an activity. And then we all do this together.
Yeah, like the traditional childcare schedule. So we have to, it, it, it requires a lot of shifting for the adults. Was my long way of saying that.
Rusty Keeler: Huh? Well, it’s interesting to shift from the doing to the observing. Mm-hmm. Or supporting or, and maybe the doing is. Getting that environment set up. Yeah, getting that, getting the materials and the, and the space
Heather Bernt-Santy: and the wondering like part of this for me, the more I started to look for schema play and notice it, and then especially as I was writing a book and trying to make a case about what value it had was professional development for myself.
So it was observing and not doing and being in charge. But then there was also another piece where I was like, I need to learn more about math. I thought I understood. Math, foundational skills for preschool children, but I need, I, maybe I need to learn more. And I did. I learned so much more about how we need to move away from just numbers to mathematical thinking to really understand what.
What these experiences, what kind of value these experiences bring to children in the years before school. So I, I think there’s two, you know, it’s observing, but it’s also wondering that is an active piece that we can do.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm. Hmm. Well I love that. And that, that gives adults. Something to do. Yes. Oh, oh, you can wonder.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. Well, I mean, ’cause the question always is, and you’ve probably heard this too, if they’re just playing, then how am I a teacher? What am I supposed to do with all my skills and ideas and the beautiful things I make cut out and laminate and how, how am I still a professional if I’m just letting children play?
And I mean, those are the, you observe and you wonder, and then you add and you can extend and support and advocate. And that’s how we’re. Professionals. It’s different from being a teacher of older children.
Speaker 3: Hmm hmm.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Should be different. Or maybe older children should be different. We teach
Rusty Keeler: older children.
Yeah. No. Yeah. It’d be nice if they, if there’s more wondering at that level too. Yes. We
Heather Bernt-Santy: need a push up instead of a push down.
Rusty Keeler: That’s right. That’s right. Well, how about the environment? If we, if we think about that, the preparing the environment. Yeah. You know, with schema theory in mind of like thinking about, you know, trying to give.
Give kids what they want, give the, that brain that can’t help it with they what it wants. And maybe we can think about outdoors and some kind of, you know, the out interest in the outdoors especially. But, uh, you know, play for everywhere. Yeah. Uh, but yeah. So how would you, you know, prepare an outdoor space?
Yeah, that could, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. Well, I would, um, this is like the one place where I think a checklist might come in handy, but I, I would, would make a list of this. The eight or 10 schema, depending on how you talk about ’em. Most commonly it’s a list of eight or a list of 10. And look around my playground space, my outdoor space, and say, do they have materials here to transport with or things to transport?
Is it safe for them to practice trajectory schema with their body? Um, are my expectations aligned to them doing that? You know, how many places can they go for perspective and orientation exploration? So really just thinking, looking around. At your space with this list of, I mean, most of them are verbs with this list of verbs that we know, uh, children repeat often in their play and explicitly saying, okay, that allows for transporting, that allows for transforming, that allows for connecting and disconnecting.
And then if there are gaps. There’s a bajillion lists that you can Google of ways of things to add for schema play. Um, yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot. I mean, it’s, it’s not coming from the states, but there’s, there’s some stuff out there. Huh? Kathy Brody has some good stuff. Oh, I shouldn’t have started naming names because there’s a woman in Canada who has specifically lists of loose parts for schema play.
Oh, Michelle. Something. Anyway, you know, so we, we can then. See what we already have and think about what we could bring in. For the things we don’t have. Huh. But also we need to include ourselves in that environmental review. Like, am I stopping it because I don’t like risky play. So trajectory schema makes me nervous.
Uhhuh because they wanna jump through the air. Um, or they wanna go down the slide head first on their back, uh, to do a positioning and ordering explo exploration. But I don’t like that. So, so we’re part of that too. We have to think about our comfort levels and our expectations and do a risk. Benefit analysis.
Huh. Which I learned from your book. Okay. And I think that’s the one place that I’m okay with using a checklist to evaluate
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, yeah, yeah. To see what do I have the stuff out there,
Heather Bernt-Santy: Uhhuh?
Rusty Keeler: Um, gosh, you know, it, it’s interesting with thinking about like materials and uhhuh, the different uses. And so I, I, I flashed to like Montessori materials where.
You know, both say schema theory and say Montessori materials, they the materials that entice the children. Yeah, but I feel like Montessori is like, oh, look at these pink blocks. Aren’t they enticing? You wanna be over here, but. You. You use them in a certain way, right? Right. Yeah. A scheme. There’s a scheme.
Yes. Yeah. Montessori is a scheme, and this is s scheme of theory. No, this
Heather Bernt-Santy: is a schema. Yes.
Rusty Keeler: So it’s like, so it’s like, yeah, there’s ways that you can use the enticing things for a goal, adult goal oriented kind activity. And then the S scheme of theory is kind like. Children are wanting to do these things.
Yeah. So we give them the materials and then we kind of stand back and observe. Yeah. And, and watch what happens.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. To bring a little Reggio into the, the comparison, it’s your image of the child. Right. Montessori the image is that they’re capable, but we want them doing this one thing with it. Right.
Play. They’re, they need to be active and it needs to maybe be choice, but we want ’em to do this one specific thing with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Because they have a deficit. If they don’t do that, that thing. Sorry, Montessori people. ILI love a lot of it. Of course. Sure, of course. Um, but then when we’re talking about schema play, it’s sort of, for me, it’s a whole different image where the child is someone who has their own good ideas and there’s value in letting them explore and follow their own ideas.
I could bring all the theorists in. So then that’s Eric Erickson.
Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. Bring them in, bring them in.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Guilt, um, you know, initiative versus shame and guilt. Is it okay to try my own idea or am I gonna get in trouble for trying my own idea?
Rusty Keeler: Oh. Um, or am I gonna initiative versus shame and guilt? That’s a,
Heather Bernt-Santy: yeah.
Yeah. Oh.
Rusty Keeler: Um,
Heather Bernt-Santy: it’s one of the eight stages of man. Um, anyway, I just, I just think your image of the child. We’ll determine whether schema play is something that I plan and lead an activity for so that they meet my curriculum goal. Or whether it is something that we provide for children because we know they deserve it.
We can trust them. We can trust that that process has meaning, whether we completely understand it or not.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I, I think it’s a, it’s a real shift. Sorry if all the Montessori come after you now send ’em my way.
Rusty Keeler: I just, I just did a, a talk at a Montessori little summit and somebody at the very end, you know, I’m showing all these messy environments Yes.
And lots of loose parts and stuff, and somebody asked me, well, well, how do you create an orderly. Environment. Yes. And I said, you’re asking the wrong person, right? Yeah. You’re
Heather Bernt-Santy: asking the wrong person
Rusty Keeler: here.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like when I get a question about how do you get ’em to clean up?
Rusty Keeler: Uh, yeah. Unless it’s a schema than, than ordering order.
Well, there
Heather Bernt-Santy: can be. Yes, you can. I mean, there, the, the other value of. A schema or the other connecting point with schema play is that it does help us reframe things that are thought of as misbehavior, and it even can help us redirect to something else. Like they’re throwing blocks if we just stop at, well, that’s just misbehavior and I’ve gotta.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Shame it
Heather Bernt-Santy: out of this child. That’s, that’s certainly one way to spend your day. Yeah. But um, if you see it as, oh, I wonder if they’re just experimenting with trajectory, what else could I give them to move through the air that’s not gonna be as harmful as a giant wooden block.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Have a good spot for it.
Yeah. ’cause it’s important for, for whatever reason. Have there ever been any longitudinal, longitudinal studies about, say, Freddy, people who are like, I’ve enveloped, and then we’re what ha. What do they do? Not that I’m aware of.
Heather Bernt-Santy: No. This question comes up a lot though. No, I don’t because I think. There just aren’t many longitudinal studies about Children’s Choice.
Huh? Um, about play, you know, true free play, because it’s hard to get funding for that because it’s harder to justify, you know, it’s, it, we don’t see the educational value, we don’t see the return on investment, all the, all the different narratives we’ve got. Uh, commodifying children
Speaker 3: Uhhuh. So
Heather Bernt-Santy: it’s, it’s hard.
Um, but I, it is a question I get a lot is, so then do adults have schema and do you see that carry through? Like if, if Freddy is all this enclosure and enveloping stuff, what he is for, what do we know about? How his, he behaves and ha and, and and handles materials when he’s 20. When
Rusty Keeler: become, become an architect that envelopes people.
Yes. You know, there’s the structures keep going or, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. I mean, I think about myself anecdotally, myself. I did a lot of transforming play as a kid, making potions, pretending things I did, you know, those little pot holders that were very popular with seventies kids and now I still do a lot of transforming.
I weave and I knit, and I crochet and I all that stuff and I, I still pretend a lot. I, uh, love a good flannel nightgown to pretend I’m wandering the Moors in the cold. That’s good. Being destitute. I love a good, uh, taper candle in a candlestick holder.
Speaker 3: Oh, to
Heather Bernt-Santy: pretend I’m old timey, all that stuff. Very good.
Yes. So, so I think for myself, I see that. That trend continuing. Huh? But I, that’s not,
Rusty Keeler: that’s not empirical, huh? Huh? Well, you know, it’s interesting because it’s like, uh, some is that behavior like, oh, okay, this person, I mean, have you ever seen those that the movie series seven Up?
Heather Bernt-Santy: No. Seven.
Rusty Keeler: Oh, this is interesting.
Heather Bernt-Santy: If it was made after 1960, I probably haven’t seen the movie.
Rusty Keeler: Well, it’s, unless Olivia
Heather Bernt-Santy: Newton John or Will Ferre.
Rusty Keeler: That’s funny. Well, here’s the deal. I think it started in the sixties. Oh, okay. And, and, and they, they basically said the, the, the quote was something like. Sexist, but it’s like, show me the, show me the child at seven and I’ll show you the man.
Oh. And it was saying, okay, well, they followed a group of kids who were seven years old, Uhhuh, and then every seven years they did another installment of the documentary. And you saw like, what similarities that, yeah. You’d be interested in this. What? Yep. Write it down. Who have they become? Who were they as a teenager, as a young adult, and now they’re.
I don’t know, in their sixties or seventies uhhuh. And there’s still some that are participating from the original. Oh, wow. And so it is interesting yet to, to see. And you know, it’s interesting because some is like this behavior of, of things that we like to do and we like to do. You know, I like to draw when I was a kid, or I like to mm-hmm.
Build stuff and then I’m still doing it now. That’s who I was or who I am. But then schema almost feels like if you just bring it back here. Yeah. That it’s almost like beneath that, it’s almost like some fundamental humanity thing. And maybe animals too. That’s another question for you. But Yeah, it’s almost like that’s different than like likes and dislikes or talents or, yeah.
You know, uh, than it’s almost like. It’s, it’s something fundamental. Yeah, I would agree
Heather Bernt-Santy: with that. Yeah, for sure. I think, well, I, I think process versus product can come into that, right? Because if we think about skills and talents, we’re thinking about ability to make a product. I am anyway. Okay. But when I’m thinking about schema exploration, it’s much more just about repeating processes over and over and over without necessarily having an end goal.
Which could contribute to the development of a talent for sure. Sure. But I don’t know, I’m just processing this out loud now. That’s interesting. It’s really interesting.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Because it’s like, because you are really good at pouring, that doesn’t mean you’re gonna be a poorer, right. Mixologist or even, yeah.
Yeah. It’s, I mean, I could see that like when kids are pouring, pouring, pouring, and it’s almost like, and then it’s time for snack and they get called out almost like a dream. Right, right. Yeah. It’s almost like they were. Like it is almost an altered state. Right. Pulling ’em
Heather Bernt-Santy: outta that flow. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yep.
Huh.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I think about this with people who say, I was called to teach because I loved playing school when I was a kid. I was like, or did you just have a transforming schema? And school was a, was a familiar context to pretend, oh, and uh. And now you, you’ve taken it as you’re calling and that’s fine. But I just, there’s always that part of my brain that’s like, or
Rusty Keeler: were you just transforming?
Right. Right. Had nothing to do with your vocation or what you should do with your life. Mm-hmm. And now you’re stuck. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because you’re a good poorer, right? Yeah. Uh, transformer. Huh? Oh gosh. Yeah. That’s interesting. Just like, I mean, I think about all the play and then the scheme of theory is like mm-hmm.
How do we go get on board being human, you know? Yeah. Going from two cells to, to being bored. Infancy, then on.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. You know, we, we hear, or we see, I see on social media all the time, this quote play as the work of the child, and sometimes it’s Montessori that it’s attributed to and sometimes it’s. PGE that it’s attributed to, and I think Mr.
Rogers gets thrown in there. Yep. Um, yep. And we, we liked it. We love it. We collectively, maybe not you and me here in this conversation, but Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: I don’t like, I don’t love that quote.
Heather Bernt-Santy: No, me neither. Because it’s, it’s very much like, I don’t know. Our adult understanding of work
Rusty Keeler: makes important. Work’s important.
So they’re trying to be like, work’s important. I, that’s why plays I play important because it’s work. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: But you know, if we had to take the phrase and use it, I would hope that I. It would, could be translated as that just means it’s what they should be doing, right? Mm-hmm. It, it just means that this is important at this part of their lives.
I mean, it should be important for all our lives, but especially in these early years, that we just recognize that they have a right to play.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And sometimes play looks. Meaningless or, you know, I, one of the things I really hate is the, the, the label functional play. Okay. Makes my skin crawl a little bit functional for who, like exploring how blocks move through space.
Is functional for that child in the moment because it’s something they’re trying to figure out or just enjoying doing. We don’t like it. We can put boundaries on it maybe or give them something else to throw, but ultimately it’s what they should be doing. So whatever tools we have to help us understand that and accept that, and then provide for that.
I’m a fan of, so yeah. Schema does it for me.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. This is what they should be doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So right to play. Why don’t we, that’ll just lead me to ask you about, tell us about like IPA, now you have just gotten elected as a co co-president of this co-president. Yeah. Great, great organization.
The International Association for the Child’s Right to Play.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Rusty Keeler: USA chap chapter. Yep.
Heather Bernt-Santy: I-P-A-U-S-A. Yeah. Um, yeah, I’m really looking forward to the, the conferences late October in Louisville. Yeah. Louisville. Yeah, Louisville. Um, I’m told the closer you get to it, the fewer syllables there should be,
Rusty Keeler: so just,
Heather Bernt-Santy: it’s, it’s such a good.
It’s just such a good time to be with not just other early childhood folks, but there’s people working with all ages and, and in museums and libraries and college professors and parks departments, and all of these people united around The idea that we have to take seriously, the child’s right to play.
And so this will be my third conference, the third I-P-A-U-S-A conference.
Speaker 3: Yay.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And, uh, gonna do a little presenting. Uh, so that’ll be fun. I don’t remember what my topic is. Something about schema. I bet, I’m sure if I, I’m sure I tweaked it a little bit so that people don’t get sick of me. Oh. Could never use different words.
Could never happen. Could never happen. Yeah. I, I just love that. I just love the conference. It’s, it’s just really, it uplifting. Even last year when we got stuck in a hurricane in South Carolina. That’s right. Everybody still really came through and um, you know, we switched over to Zoom and. We supported each other and learned from each other.
Wow. Yeah. So everybody should come.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I got, I got a hurricane to out. I couldn’t get to the conference. Yeah, that’s right. I was, I was on my way, but I couldn’t get to it. Uh, we, I’m gonna get to it this year. I’m excited. ’cause one of the days is gonna be at the Bernheim Forest. Yeah. And you can come.
Build Fairy Huts with me. That’s amazing. Oh my god, that’s amazing’s crazy.
Heather Bernt-Santy: Yeah. I mean that blew my mind the first time, the first IPA conference, I went to USA conference I went to. Was that the day when we’re out in the spaces, like they find these amazing play spaces in the city where the conference is.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Heather Bernt-Santy: And and we go out and we see it happening in the real world. Right? ’cause that’s what we hear is that play is fine, but not in the real world. And then we go see it in the real world. Yeah, there it
Rusty Keeler: is. Fairy huts. I love it. Yay.
Alright. Thanks for listening. Do you have a comment or a question? Email me at Play Nature podcast@gmail.com. You know, I like talking about this stuff. And maybe we could use your question on a future podcast episode. As always, I have some free goodies for you in the show notes, including my outdoor loose parts guide, fun stuff in there.
And so I wish you the best in your outdoor play adventures, and when it comes to adding nature to your yard or loose parts or saying yes to risky play. My favorite motto is dream big, start small, and never stop. Oh yeah. Woo, woo, woo. Let’s do it. All right. Have fun out there.
