In the book’s foreword, Steven Seidel of the Harvard Graduate School of Education describes studios as “spaces where minds can and must pursue their thoughts without censorship or shame, where there is time for looking, listening and freedom of expression, and where there is commitment to go deeper into … questions of creativity, imagination, expressivity and research.” He continues, “When I first visited Reggio and saw the schools for myself, I thought that this was the closest I’d ever been to an avant-garde movement in education.”

Another essay in this book, Barbara Burrington’s “Melting Geography: Reggio Emilia, Memories and Place,” describes the formation of an atelier at the in 1999. An atelier, she writes, “is not only about the arts. Nor is it about something in addition to the work we do in the classroom. Rather, it is about linking the experience of teachers’ lives with the children’s lives and waking up together in the world of a new geography.”

I caught up with Burrington to find out more about her studio experience. She cautioned me that while the atelier arose in Reggio, Italy, those who draw inspiration from the concept must not be afraid to incorporate their own cultures. Otherwise, she said, it’s trying to plant an olive tree in Vermont. “You’re probably not going to get a good crop.”

Researching the concept of the studio, I consulted other sources and spoke to additional practitioners besides Burrington. Based on what I gathered, here are five key ingredients for a dynamic early learning atelier.

A space. Burrington recommends “a dedicated space for longer-term, cross-age explorations” but adds that it doesn’t take a big budget. In Vermont, they repurposed their staff room, and the greatest expense was shelving. The right space will also support documentation, a key concept in Reggio.

Ben Mardell, who recently left a decades-long career with , where he helped develop the resources, now runs the atelier at in Boston. He calls the atelier “a center for kids to learn about specific topics, but also a place for adults to learn about kids’ thinking.” He credits Reggio’s leaders for referring to infants as “scientists with hypotheses.”

(Technology Rich Inquiry Based Research)

Materials. Brenda Fyfe, dean and professor emeritus at the Webster University School of Education says the studios of Reggio Emilia schools have “all these wonderful, rich materials for children to explore, which could be paper and paint and brushes and pencils of all kinds and soft materials and rocks or assorted things that they can use in their constructions.”

refers to “materials and media as languages for expression and learning.” (Indeed, the approach’s use of the word language harks back to the “bible” of Reggio, ). While working for the LEGO Foundation, designer, educator and play researcher collaborated with the on the design of , an atelier for exploring play, technology and learning. His latest project, , engages children and families in creative learning with sustainable energy.

An “artist.” Also known as an “atelierista,” this educator is often trained in the visual arts, with the goal of facilitating what calls “a new kind of dialogue.” In the chapter of “The Hundred Languages of Children” that deals with the atelier, Vea Vecchi (one of Reggio’s original atelieristas) speaks of “the visual language as a means of inquiry and investigation of the world, to build bridges and relationships between different experiences and languages.” She describes the atelierista’s job this way: “creating situations within which creative processes can be experimented with, grow and evolve.”

Burrington notes, however, that the atelelierista doesn’t have to be a professional artist. “You do need people who have the knowledge of those materials,” she says. “That might mean taking some of your part-time teachers and creating a full-time system for staffing that space. Or you might invest in professional development so that all of your teachers have knowledge of how to use different media.” Her atelier in Vermont benefited from a teacher who was good at sewing. “She started using fabric as a medium with children,” she recalls. “The children drew monsters. Those monsters became patterns. Those patterns became pillows that were hand sewn in the studio.”

 (Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota)

Creativity. Vecchi writes, “Above all, the atelier brings the strength and joy of the unexpected and the uncommon to the process of learning. It supports a conceptual change that comes from looking through a poetic lens at everyday reality.” Burrington describes a long-term project dealing with the subject of memory, which sparked in-depth conversations influenced by the work of photographer .

In “Spirit of the Studio,” Pauline Baker writes, “Through interactions in the studio, a growing relationship develops between the child and materials, and this encourages children to invent, think, to problem-solve, to strategize, to create and to wonder about themselves and the world around them.”

(Research and Play)

Community. Partly because they had a limited budget, Burrington and her colleagues engaged parents and the community to collect materials and build the space. This process not only saved money. It also engaged adults in the creation of the studio and helped them feel invested in its success.

In addition, she invited artists from the community to take part in activities. A local stained-glass artist, for example, guided five-year-olds as they put on special gloves and used tweezers and glue. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Burrington, her colleagues and the children in their school began a community mural project that, she says, “gave the studio a soul.”

Just as a collage comprises humble, disparate materials that add up to something new, the studio can give rise to unexpected connections and discoveries. In “Spirit of the Studio,” Charles Schwall writes, “When the atelier, as well as all our school environments, are continually developed and used in purposeful ways, they transform our everyday life in school into a living manifestation of the richness of children’s potential.”

“Don’t underestimate the value of play,” Hartwick College’s Laurel Bongiorno warns in a for the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Cognitive, social and literacy skills, along with vocabulary and physical abilities all get a workout when the little ones play. And while nobody invented playful learning, one of the world’s most influential champions was Loris Malaguzzi, founder of child care centers and preschools .

To learn more about play’s place in the Reggio Emilia approach, Early Learning Nation magazine spoke to Brenda Fyfe, dean and professor emeritus of the School of Education at . She serves on the board of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance and co-edited .

Mark Swartz: When did you first encounter Reggio Emilia?

Brenda Fyfe: In 1990, I was teaching at Webster University’s campus in Iceland near the NATO base. Many Nordic countries had connected with Reggio Emilia long before anybody in the U.S. did. So I visited Italy, and I was awestruck. A Reggio classroom is a lovely place to be. You want to join the play; you want to play with everything. And yet there’s a sense of calm and peace. In part because it’s very soft and it doesn’t jump out and bombard you like some classrooms do with the primary colors and the letters all over the wall and that sort of thing. It’s soft and it’s peaceful, and yet it’s rich and stimulating, because there are materials there and there’s color, but it’s done in a way that helps you to calm down and not want to jump out of your chair. I returned every year until Covid.

MS: You belonged to a generation of educators who helped to popularize Reggio in the United States.

BF: Back then, all the literature that I could find was either in Icelandic or Italian. Lella Gandini was the key liaison between the U.S. and Reggio Emilia. She had been a doctoral student in Italy, and she brought knowledge of the Reggio Emilia approach and helped to organize an exhibit called , which highlighted the brilliance of children that they uncover and make visible through that exhibit. ( is also the title of an influential book.) Leila and I built partnerships and we created programs together. In St. Louis, I organized a group of educators from about five different schools, originally, to come together as a study group.

MS: Let’s talk about Reggio and play.

BF: calls play a child’s search for meaning. Play is the way that children deal with their reality and make sense of their world. And it gives them a sense of freedom, too, and agency. Children express themselves through materials, through music, movement, construction, sculpture, drawing, painting, all of what they call expressive languages.

MS: So it isn’t just for fun.

BF: And it’s never completely free play, either. The environment is set up; the materials are chosen. It’s not just let the kids go do whatever they want, you observe and document and then study it. Reggio founder Loris Malaguzzi (alongside the two co-teachers in the classroom).

It’s the idea of using materials to communicate ideas, feelings, thoughts and experiences. And it’s done in a playful way. Children are exploring and experimenting and they’re talking while they’re painting and they’re interacting with friends, and they’re looking at each other’s work and commenting on it.

MS: How can an educator tell the play is going the way it’s supposed to?

BF: When it’s really good play, you’re negotiating your experience. If it’s a dramatic play, for example, children are talking; they’re designing ideas; they’re talking about it with each other.  We talk about this idea of design, documentation and discourse as part of the negotiated learning process. Group play is a negotiation.

George Forman and Brenda Fyfe’s chapter in The Hundred Languages of Children

MS: These are life skills. Design, documentation and discourse are things you’re going to use in the workplace and with your family and then life later on.

BF: And even with the materials, you’re kind of negotiating your own understanding of it and your use of it by manipulating it.

MS: How does this concept apply to the youngest children?

BF: Even if infants and toddlers don’t have words, they’re watching. What are they looking at? How are they approaching it or how are they touching it?

MS: What are some of American Reggio’s innovations in recent years?

BF: The first one that comes to mind is called , from 2019, where they’ve looked at children exploring the outdoors. They’ve helped children to augment their playful observations with technology. They put digital cameras into the hands of children to take a photograph of what they see, and they come back to the images later and reflect on it. So play can be very sophisticated. Play with young children can involve materials, each other, but also technology.

MS: It’s a very demanding process for educators.

BF: Yes, and it’s also very energizing in the way it makes you slow down and listen to children. When most of us think about teaching, we picture a lesson plan and a sequence of experiences, and then closure. But rather than letting the plan drive you, you let it open you up to seeing what you didn’t anticipate.

MS: Could you say more about the teacher’s role?

Fyfe: The teacher gets involved without being intrusive, without being directive, but you get into the groove of the way the children are thinking. You want children to be in that space of being free to think and act in the moment. I always think of , co-founder of the field of positive psychology, who originated the concept of “flow.” That’s the perfect image for me of what play is. We like to say the teacher’s role is to toss the ball in a way that the child wants to toss it back to you.

This commitment is not a new impulse for KABOOM! but rather one that reaches back to 1995, when founder Darell Hammond read a Washington Post story about two D.C. children who couldn’t find anywhere to play and subsequently died from heat exhaustion in an abandoned car.

Here’s what I learned when I spoke to Drustva Delgadillo, senior director of partnership development, Sally Dorman, director of regional partnerships and Kevin Paul, associate director of thought leadership about how they are scaling impact and partnering with municipal systems across the country:

A daily allowance of play. call for 180 minutes of physical play seven days a week. “What we really need to do is bring back play for children,” said Dr. Juana Willumsen, WHO focal point for childhood obesity and physical activity.

And the American Academy of Pediatrics , noting, “Children play harder outdoors than indoors and they need daily opportunities to do so…. Playing outside promotes curiosity, creativity and critical thinking.”

Delgadillo, the mother of two young children, agrees, noting that child care providers need to provide play spaces in order to receive their quality ratings. “Just walking children to an open space isn’t enough,” she says. “That’s the need that we are trying to address.”

Historical inequity interferes with today’s play. Research by KABOOM! shows that lower socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic minority and rural populations have limited access in neighborhoods compared to wealthier, white and urban groups. It’s important to acknowledge that Playspace Inequity didn’t just happen. Tug on the thread of playgrounds and you get to all these other issues that communities can’t thrive because of historic and institutional racism and other factors.

According to Paul, housing policy, redlining and segregation all contribute to the problem. “We also see surrounding physical and social conditions, as well as issues like limited access to transportation, personal safety concerns and lack of inclusive programming,” he says, adding, “If we want to make an impact, if we actually want to create a difference for kids, we’re going to have to work at that systems level, because that’s where the problems originated.”

Data and play are not opposites. KABOOM! has gotten sophisticated about play. To evaluate the 16 playgrounds built with funding from the William Penn Foundation for the Play Everywhere Philly Challenge, involved geospatial mapping and analysis of neighborhood context; Environmental Assessment of Public Recreation Spaces; System for Observing Play and Leisure Activity observations; and on-site surveys of adult, English-speaking visitors.

Sean Perkins, chief of early childhood education at the Office of Children and Families, says, “Philadelphia, under the Kennedy administration, has clearly prioritized investing in its families, particularly its youngest children. The Office of Children and Families is excited to continue its partnership with KABOOM! to identify areas of the city that most need playful learning environments by both meeting with residents and using available data.” Dorman praises the Office of Children and Families for their holistic approach and also mentions the work of in addressing inequities through development of parks and recreation centers.

KABOOM! also collaborated with Child Care Aware of America and Vanguard to create a story map capturing Philadelphia’s landscape of play space inequity for kids ages zero to six. In addition to sophisticated mapping, the project included survey data from child care providers and other community members.

A has zeroed in on play in rural communities, generating data that advocates use to push for expanding the tax base to generate more public investment in play spaces.

There’s more to play than playgrounds. The KABOOM! team embraces what Dorman calls a “vision for place-based equity that’s focused on everywhere kids live, learn and play,” which means parks, schools, libraries, child care centers and beyond.

Moving slowly is a feature of their approach, she says. “We typically start with assessment work to understand where the gaps exist currently, and then from there we engage community members, city leaders and partners who are already doing this work. We ask them, ‘What is the data showing? Is this data accurate? What do you see as barriers or challenges that are perpetuating place-based inequity in your cities and communities? What do you see as potential solutions?’”

Paul notes that they especially value “folks who have been in neighborhoods for generations; they’re the experts in their community and their block.” They also ask children what they want in a playground—and listen to the answers.

There’s more to playgrounds than play. All the data gathering and community surveys takes a lot more effort than just pulling up to an empty lot and unloading the equipment. That time is an essential part of their approach. “The more we can involve community in all this, the better,” says Paul. “If you come in with a fully baked solution, something that has just sort of popped out of the box, then there’s not as much sense of collective ownership.”

KABOOM! is and always will be known for building playgrounds, and over the years the organization has gained an appreciation of what these spaces mean to people of all ages. “They’re important for kids and families,” says Delgadillo, “but they also play a role in building community as a whole and making communities safer and more welcoming, more beautiful.”

This belief is rooted in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia and with which it shares a name. Harris MacKay and Karlsen are among the thousands of educators who have come from all over the world to absorb the methods pioneered by Loris Malaguzzi (1920-94). The experience helped the Reggio-inspired Opal School, which served children ages 3-11, and the Portland Children’s Museum to jointly emblematize the play, playful learning and playful research that engage young minds in ways that standard U.S.-based pedagogies generally miss out on. These two institutions both closed in June of 2021, falling victim to pandemic financial woes, but their spirit lives on in the Center for Playful Inquiry.

“The mission of the school,” says Harris MacKay, “was not to serve that tiny group of lucky children who won the [charter school] lottery but to become a site of research that was intended to provoke fresh ideas where creativity, imagination and the wonder of learning thrive.”

The Reggio-Emilia approach, Karlsen notes, arose in the years after World War II, when Italian society was asking itself what had happened to make Mussolini’s rise possible and what could be done to keep it from happening again. “It is an anti-fascist pedagogy,” he says, emphasizing that school and society both run on the interaction between people. Is the dynamic top-down, or is the power shared? Do members of the community fear authority, or do they respect each other and gain strength in their solidarity?

Beyond targeting what Harris MacKay calls the false dichotomy between what’s known as free play and what’s known as direct instruction, the Center for Playful Inquiry promotes a wholesale reconsideration of the way teachers are trained. “We talk about adults not walking too far ahead of children, or not following too far behind them, but really just trying to be right alongside them,” she says.

Educators visited Portland from around the country to observe and draw inspiration from the Opal School. “Being based in a school,” Karlsen says, “made things really alive, because children, families and staff were constantly part of this evolving, shifting, surprising, organic experience. We learned a lot from the adults who were visiting, about what kinds of experiences were helpful for them.”

The Opal School’s program of professional development gave rise to the Center for Playful Inquiry (which organizes presentations, and facilitates conversations, planning and reflection) as well as (an online community for mutual mentorship; also known as the Story Workshop Studio). “As we leave the laboratory of the school behind,” says Harris MacKay, “we meet up with all kinds of people who bring their own background knowledge or expectation of what professional development is.”

Donna King of in Durham, North Carolina says, ”So much has been exceptionally enriching about the community and experiences Matt and Susan have created — they are brilliant facilitators, empathic listeners and incisive thinkers — visionaries with a repertoire of skills that make everyone they encounter think more deeply and feel more wholeheartedly.”

Three ways the Center for Playful Inquiry continues to draw upon Reggio:

1. Helping people pay attention to their own context. Harris MacKay and Karlsen were inspired by what they experienced in Italy, but the plan never was to establish a “franchise” of Reggio in Oregon. Their vision was always rooted in their own time and place.

“We were developing some really interesting ideas and some interesting expressions of those ideas,” Karlsen recalls. “When other people came, it wasn’t to say, ‘You should be doing what we’re doing in Portland, at this little spot in Washington Park, and in a children’s museum, in your spot.’ Instead, it was saying, ‘We think this is interesting. What might be the implications to your space?’”

2. Giving educators permission to find their own path. Just as Karlsen and Harris MacKay didn’t set out to copy Reggio, they don’t try to impose a specific method on educators. The experience contrasts starkly with the standard operating procedure for this kind of enterprise, which Karlsen derides as I’m going to show you how to use this binder. And as long as you use this binder, it’s going to work for you and the children that you’re working with.

To capture the dynamic to which they aspire, he makes two comparisons — one, in rock music, to the Velvet Underground (whose debut album came out in 1967); and two, in the culinary arts, to Alice Waters of Chez Panisse (which opened in 1971). In both cases, the influence is vast, but neither icon inspired mere replication. Instead, bands followed the Velvet Underground into sonic and lyrical experimentation, and chefs followed Waters into reimagined ways of preparing and serving fresh ingredients.

3. Drawing strength from reimagining the ways adults interact with each other. Early education isn’t all about children. Equally important is how adults work with their colleagues and with parents. Adults, whether or not they’re officially teachers or not, need to develop their capacity for listening and interpreting what children care most about, and then trying to connect there.

Harris MacKay notes that many of the adults in the profession have not been invited to see themselves as learners, which influences the way that they, then, see children as learners. “Teachers are integral to the experience that children are having,” she asserts. They’re never invisible to the children.”

For Reggio veterans and novices alike, the Center for Playful Inquiry is teaming up with author and literacy expert for .

Deep and long-lasting change can take time. Harris Mackay says too many teachers have the mindset that as long as they do what they’ve been trained to do just right, then the children will learn. “That’s just not the way human learning works,” she says. “It’s a slow, gentle process, playing in a lot of different ways, intellectually, with materials and with each other.”

Ankita Chachra, senior fellow at Capita, recently posted an essay, , describing how her dual journeys as an urban planner and a new mother reinforce each other: “With an urgent, selfish and personal interest in securing a safe future for my child and his future friends, I decided to commit myself to climate action at the intersection of early years and the built environment.”

Early Learning Nation magazine spoke to Gill and Chachra about the potential they see for playful cities.

Mark Swartz: We’re going to talk about playgrounds, of course, but for both of you, there’s so much more to making our cities better for young children. What’s the best way for urban planners to tune into what their youngest residents need?

Tim Gill: The way I’m going to take that question is: How do we get urban planners and senior decision makers to care about children? I think it’s a moral issue. , we have to stop designing cities for people who are 30 years old and athletic and male. Caring about children helps us tackle cities’ long-term future, economic as well as environmental. If your city is not attracting and retaining families with children, then its long-term economic future is pretty bleak, because the demographics are against you.

Ankita Chachra: A city that works well for young children and families inherently works well for everyone. There needs to be a shift in perspective on who and what the city is for. What if we centered designing cities around care and caregiving? What if cities prioritized intergenerational social connections where young children and families can flourish?

Planners and city shapers must also recognize that children, caregivers and families navigate and use the city differently than a typical office-commuting-able-male adult. Proximity to services, ease of mobility (walking, biking, transit), and access to green and public spaces are foundational for building child-friendly cities. And lastly, it is essential to involve children and families in the decision-making to understand their needs better.

In the context of the United States, urban planning has had a history of segregation and redlining; thus, as practitioners move forward with working in communities where their needs haven’t been met for so many years, they must always seek to do with, not merely do for.

Gill: I’m a big fan of the bottom-up schemes that reclaim streets. Here in the UK, promotes resident-led, short-term road closures to let the kids come out and play. The model is regular, fairly unstructured block parties, and people experience what the street is like without traffic.

Chachra: That reminds me of awhere there was a small parking lot with garbage bins. We turned it into a plaza, painting the streets and adding some fake grass, and the children started playing there right away. I remember one little boy just running around, shouting, “Playground, playground.” And it wasn’t even close to a playground, but the families had such joy in realizing their children could actually play right in front of their eyes.

Gill: In my book, I talk about how , in Colorado, brought young people’s voices into a debate about a downtown public space and counteracted the commercial interests that were pushing in other directions. That helped the city to build a more progressive and better collective solution.

Chachra: Growing Up Boulder’s has done some exceptional work, and including them in some of the planning decisions and having them go to the planning offices and work with the planners. That’s community engagement done the right way. It’s not tokenism.

Swartz: By spreading the word about these approaches, Urban Playground is influencing a new generation of urban planners, Tim.

Gill: It’s been encouraging to see city leaders joining the dots between children and the climate. Two of the most inspiring examples are Tirana, Albania; and Bratislava, Slovakia.

Chachra: Another question we need to ask is: How are we creating spaces for unexpected interactions between neighbors to happen? has looked at the street dimensions, the distance between the two streets and the number of interactions that happen between neighbors. A lot of it comes down to not driving. You’re very isolated when you’re just driving. Historically, playgrounds or dedicated places to play for children only emerged after we started prioritizing streets for cars over people and public life.

Swartz: I knew we’d get to playgrounds eventually. Now that you live in Brooklyn and have a baby of your own, Ankita, what issues are coming to the fore for you?

Chachra: I wish we were doing better from a physical infrastructure and access to green space perspective. There are a few destination parks and places like the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which offer some incredible opportunities for children and families to play and enjoy public life but those are limited and unique. In general, where families have access to parks, it’s mostly asphalt and concrete, with very few natural softscapes with grass or turf. In most playgrounds, it’s the same cookie-cutter infrastructure instead of a variety of play equipment that encourages imagination, learning and positive risk taking. That equipment is often designed for two years and older, so there’s also that missing amenity for really young children just starting to crawl and learning to engage with their environment.

Gill: The American Journal of Preventive Medicine just published a study by Meghan Talarowski and others on . They found that location is critical. If you’ve got a playground in the right place with a good local catchment (a local population that surrounds a service like a school or park), you can have six times as many users as a playground that isn’t in a dense area with a good catchment within half a mile. The second thing is trees and greenery, which is a factor that doubles the levels of use.

Chachra: Access to green space is a big question. Of course, the catchment area is extremely important, but also, where does it sit within the city? For example, three playgrounds within walking distance of where I am right now are adjacent to highways. If we’re talking about children’s health and reducing exposure to bad air, especially in this era of changing climate with recurring days with hazardous air quality, the location of playgrounds near highways, that increase children’s daily exposure to poor air should be a non-starter.

Swartz: What else are you noticing about New York City?

Chachra: I won’t go into social programs and policy but will speak purely from the infrastructure perspective. While New York is walkable and has relatively good public infrastructure, it can still feel harsh and uninviting for young children. There’s been progress, but there’s a long way to go in making our streets and intersections safe and more child friendly. Streets where you can let your children play as if it were your front yard, or let your newly walking toddler roam free and know that your child is safe riding their bike from home to a neighboring park.

Sidewalks in many neighborhoods still lack shade and seating or in general, opportunities to pause and rest, which is essential when you are moving around with young children or the elderly. If streets are not safe and comfortable for everyone, and if they don’t feel inviting, then we are losing that opportunity to create a truly child-friendly city.

Swartz: What larger trends do you see affecting the way we live in cities?

Gill: One change we have definitely seen here in the UK — and I think it’s true in many other countries — is a decrease in workers going into city centers to work. So they’re working from home more or their jobs have shifted. And so that’s led to a kind of drop in demand and economic activity of various kinds in city centers.

This has led to a rise in economic activities in more peripheral areas, which, for me, relates to the idea of . Simply living locally, traveling more locally, focusing on local amenities and green space, reducing the dependence on the car—all those things help make neighborhoods better for children.

The cofounder and executive director of Chicago nonprofit VOCEL, which stands for Viewing Our Children as Emerging Leaders, thinks of her role as “democratizing brain science,” explaining, “We see ourselves as a go-between between everyday families and academic centers like the and .”

Sure, play is fun, and ample evidence demonstrates that it’s a key to how young children learn, but can it also address economic and social inequities? Building upon the investigations of Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff, Helen Shwe Hadani and others, a contends that because play builds up assets like self-regulation and motivation, it increases children’s agency, which, in turn, “makes it possible for the child to own and guide their own train of thought.”

Baker and her co-authors continue, “While agency does entail self-reflection in thought and self-determination in action, the scope of these can extend to a wider community and is, therefore, consistent with collectivist values.”

If that all sounds overly abstract or ambitious, consider VOCEL’s story, which began 10 years ago with a visit to the . “This was a preschool where children’s voices were meant to be heard,” recalls Ilhardt. Signs in the hallway read, “No shh zone.” The children walked not in lines but in clusters, in order to encourage, rather than curtail, conversation.

Inspired by what she’d seen in Atlanta, Ilhardt and her cofounder Kelly Powers launched a full-day, year-round nonprofit preschool in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago () and ran it on the principles of play-based learning and putting children in control of their education. Soon, it became apparent that the students’ learning correlated with assets that weren’t accessible to Austin’s families. “I remember recommending a ‘mommy and me’ music class and hearing, ‘They have those out in the suburbs, but they don’t have them here.’ That was one of those light bulb moments for us.”

As VOCEL launched its own housed within neighborhood elementary schools, the organization received feedback that Ilhardt has never forgotten. “I love the model,” said one school principal, “but, no offense to you, I don’t want your people to lead it. I want someone from my community.” This exchange fueled a budding co-creation stance that has persisted to this day and has become central to VOCEL’s approach. It has proven valuable as Chicago ramped up early education through the public schools. VOCEL’s preschool closed, but the academies proliferated. By next year, there will be 24 across the Windy City. Parents and caregivers share their experiences, driving content of the academies, which Ilhardt describes as judgment-free communities, with VOCEL staff supplying research-proven approaches.

Ilhardt’s talent for explaining young minds has led to a new and impactful shift for VOCEL. Public school principals, many who had early learning thrust upon them when Chicago implemented its pre-K initiative, found themselves out of their element. They often resorted to methodologies that apply to older grades, and Ilhardt started getting calls from parents, who said things like, “You taught me it was all about play and nurture and conversation, and now my child is getting worksheets, flashcards and timeouts.”

Upon inquiring with principals at VOCEL’s partner schools, Ilhardt heard principals admit that they didn’t know much about early learning. One even blurted out, “I’m scared of the littles.” Her VOCEL team sought to fill the gap with a coaching and training fellowship for principals and assistant principals. School leaders, she says, are reconsidering schoolwide attitudes about behavior, intervention, discipline and environments conducive to learning at every age. Ilhardt and her team impart developmentally appropriate practices to school leaders in a position to strengthen their early learning programs and smooth the transition from the early years to kindergarten and even the upper grades.

Joyce Pae, principal at The Chicago Academy elementary school, recently went through VOCEL’s Building Early Learning Leaders (BELL) fellowship. She says, “These past few years have been particularly challenging for our littlest learners to our biggest, and one big takeaway I had from BELL was on the importance of co-regulation and focusing on the social and emotional well-being of our children. Our partnership with VOCEL has taught me so much about early childhood and building a strong foundation for our students to succeed.”

Ilhardt notes that public schools in Chicago, like many organizations, have been undergoing a high level of turnover ever since the pandemic started, so it’s important to maintain relationships and continually refresh knowledge about early education as the makeup of schools’ leadership teams evolve. VOCEL customizes their approach to each school, allowing for flexibility.

Throughout the transition from a brick-and-mortar care center to the launch of parent-child academies, to the implementation of the fellowship for principals—and, even more recently, a fellowship for teachers, Ilhardt says her organization has stayed perpetually open to change. “It’s a muscle that definitely needs to be worked,” she says.

Dr. Sharon Carver, who has been running the Children’s School since 1993, did not just chuckle and tape the request to the refrigerator. “We ordered the stuff they asked for,” she says.

The wheelbarrows arrived, and there was another problem: they were not assembled.

In most places, staff might get out the tools and read the instructions for assembly while the children played, but that’s not how it works here. “They immediately understood that they were responsible for putting their own wheelbarrows together,” Carver says. “They couldn’t necessarily do it entirely themselves, but they did what they could and asked for help with the parts they couldn’t.”

Once the wheelbarrows were put together, the children encountered yet another obstacle. There were different levels on the playground, and the wheels of the wheelbarrows weren’t big enough to get up and down.

So they built ramps.

That’s just how they roll at the Children’s School. Guided by highly trained educators and supported by design choices, the play here is pragmatic. Carver, who admits that she gets bored easily, likes it when the children surprise her with new ideas and projects.

Demographically, the Children’s School is a mirror of Pittsburgh as a whole, with about 30% multilingual, the full range of income levels and 15% having special needs. The school arose in 1968, the same year as another Pittsburgh institution, the long-running TV show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Like Fred Rogers, founder Ann Baldwin Taylor built upon the influence of John Dewey (1859-1952), who famously wrote, “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980), who declared, “Play is the work of children,” was another inspiration.

According to Carver, Taylor and Rogers were part of a generation trying to understand and respect children for who they are and the way that they think. Everyone here makes mistakes, deals with it, asks for help and tries all over again.

Many of the lessons Carver uses from Rogers come from by Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski. The authors show how his principles have been proven effective by learning sciences research and in in varied contexts for learners of all ages.

Around the world, she notes, young children do things like tending livestock, chopping wood and washing clothes, but in many parts of America, they have none of these responsibilities, and as a result, play and learning fall into different, artificial categories, with work being something that awaits in the distant future.

Carver says, “When we give them the skills, they’re actually capable of doing a lot more than you’d think. What you should do when you’re four is going to depend on what you did when you were three.” Rogers, she notes, loved to show children how things are done and made. Famously, he took his young audience on tours of farms, factories and restaurants. Besides landscaping, children at the Children’s School get involved with activities like cooking and woodworking. The curriculum conforms to individual interest.

As a laboratory school — —the Children’s School has a second, equal responsibility to facilitate research into child development. Carnegie Mellon psychology, computer science, and robotics researchers and students, sometimes in conjunction with the , observe the children and set up experiments and experiences. Carver refers to the school as a “sandbox” where undergraduates and graduates get to “mess around before going out into the world.”

A recent project investigated how children interact with marble mazes. “These are computer science students,” says Carver. “Many know nothing about children.” In September, they observed the school, and they returned in November with their prototypes involving chutes and various gizmos for controlling the marbles. It was immediately apparent which projects engaged the children and which didn’t. “Children vote with their feet,” she says. “It’s pretty easy to tell if they’re engaged or not.” Students in a Music Entrepreneurship course collaborated with children with an interactive workshop inspired by an exhibition celebrating author and illustrator Mo Willems.

“We take the same approach with staff development as we do with the children,” she adds. When they experience the joy and power of such learning at their own level guided by their own interests, they are better able to design similar opportunities for the children. To that end, educators will soon take a trip to Pittsburgh’s , an “immersive work environment” where new products are designed.

“We have no idea what’s going to happen,” enthuses Carver. “That’s what makes it play. Whatever we’re doing, all of us are approaching it playfully, within the structure of the activity.”

With the lines between work, play and learning permeable, the experience is always unpredictable, which is something the children, the educators and Carver herself appreciate.

Active. When you picture education, do you see students sitting at their desks? Or do you recognize that children, especially young children, learn with their whole bodies? “These aren’t playgrounds,” insists Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, chief science advisor and co-founder of the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN). “They’re deep learning that happens to be fun.”

Jumping, climbing and running engage minds as well as bodies, she says. That’s why there’s a climbing wall in the Cecil B. Moore Library in North Philadelphia, one of many collaborations with the nonprofit . As Meghan Talarowski, the studio’s founder and director, , “Risky play is the idea of encouraging kids to use their bodies in different ways that are developmentally appropriate for them.” The Playbrary also features tangram cutout reading nooks; colorful, lightweight tangram blocks; and a magnetized board with words and letters where children can express themselves.

Inexpensive. The installations I visited on my tour were creative and colorful, but their budgets were modest — a mere fraction of what the orb must have cost. Many are fabricated at the maker space, where Jon LuBow of LuBow Design LLC and Katelyn Fletcher — a postdoctoral fellow with the — demonstrated a prototype of a pattern game inspired by Dance Dance Revolution as well as a set of story wheels destined for 12 sites throughout Philadelphia.

The story wheels build knowledge of story structure, just as the dance game teaches patterns that feed later STEM skills. “Local artists, designers and fabricators are wonderful to work with,” says Sarah Lytle, Ph.D., executive director of PLLAN. “They bring their creativity to every project and figure out how to turn ideas into reality.”  Local is a related quality. Rather than hiring international luminaries, PLLAN works with abundantly talented Philadelphians.

Low-tech. While NextFab offers some pretty impressive equipment, the overall low-tech vibe rubs off on families. “The parents are playing, too,” notes Hirsh-Pasek. “They actually put their cell phones away.”

In the Belmont neighborhood of West Philadelphia, Urban Thinkscape transforms a bus stop into a zone for family discovery. Installations include a bench with puzzles, hopscotch developed to allow children to practice impulse control, icons on a walking path for story creation and a hidden figures sculpture. increases in targeted types of caregiver interaction and child language use.

Lytle and team are developing that families can check out from the library. She’s also inspired by innovative play concepts emerging from .

Open-ended. The best games don’t come with rules. Children and families invent their own rules. As , “Critically, adults do not tell a child what to do or direct them towards the ‘right answer’ during guided play, but rather adults encourage the child to explore further and find their own solutions.”

Stories drive playful learning games and activities, but these stories don’t necessarily have beginnings and endings—as anyone can tell you who has tried to follow a story emerging from a young child’s imagination. In her NAEYC post titled , Judi Pack writes, “A story is powerful and meaningful to families and can often communicate more than a number, a score or a checklist of skills.”

Hirsh-Pasek has spoken and powerfully against the prevailing emphasis on the testing that drains the joy from learning.

Driven by community. Not many community members are likely to walk into a corporate headquarters, but they do go to grocery stores, laundromats and health clinics, and these are the kinds of spaces that PLLAN targets. For example, an interactive mural animates the large waiting room at the clinic, which accommodates 10,000 visits per year. The mural vividly depicts weaving, dancing, embroidery and other aspects of the culture and heritage of the patients. Hundreds of community members took part in painting the mural.

The installation also includes a ���dzٱ��í�� game in four languages selected by community members: English, Spanish, Nahuatl and Q’eqchi’. “The project uplifts our community’s linguistic diversity,” says Orfelina Feliz Payne, the clinic’s executive director.

Aesthetically, the playful installations I saw on my tour were far more engaging than the gleaming white orb in the office tower, but, more importantly, the science of child development is baked into these designs, which is why they are so effective. As Hirsh-Pasek notes, “It’s not just about beautifying. It’s about learning. It’s about community.”