True Story 10.09
Teachers’ and preschoolers’ differing uses of classroom space
The setting for this story
A primary school in the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina served two small working-class neighborhoods, one Black, one white. Its white preschool teachers, Olivia and Alice, were happy in principle to work with pupils from both neighborhoods, but in practice they sometimes felt frustrated. Below, the two teachers discuss one of their main frustrations.
A story of misaligned minds12
We set up our classroom with activity centers for specific types of play such as blocks, puppets, painting, and puzzles. We explained to the children that they could read in the book corner, play using water at the sink and, in general, keep materials associated with each activity center within that center.
Preschoolers from the Black community did not comply. When released to “play,” they would combine materials from several activity centers. When we found a truck-puzzle in the wet sandbox again for the third time, we explained for the fourth time, “Please put these puzzle pieces where they belong!” These requests seemed meaningless to the Black children.
We hope whoever reads this can understand that, when the two of us were alone, one of us sometimes would remark that, “Our white students are so obedient and so neat with their toys!”
Olivia and Alice’s question
Why do our Black preschoolers, unlike our white ones, pay no attention to our repeated instructions to play with each set of toys only within its assigned activity center?
Critique of story 10.09
The answer to Olivia and Alice’s question lies in the deeply ingrained habits that their Black pupils developed from infancy in their homes and neighborhoods – described in Appendix C – then around age four or five brought with them into this preschool classroom.
The scholar whose observational research was the basis for this story found that whenever the Black children were playing in and around their own homes, they freely mingled materials from everywhere in their vicinity. No area outside or inside their homes was designated as the sole location for any type of play or toy storage. In fact, the Black children didn’t even distinguish between “indoor” and “outdoor” toys, and neither did their parents. Toys were left wherever they happened to be when play ended, then found there when play resumed. Prior to entering school, these children were thoroughly accustomed to play behavior that was the opposite of “A place for everything and everything in its place,” the norm of Piedmont’s white families as well as of Olivia and Alice.
In the terms of the behavior described in this story, the Black preschoolers were dealing with space holistically (subjectively, fluidly, flexibly); Olivia and Alice were dealing with space analytically (objectively, systematically, rationally).
However, consider this: These children were using toys for purposes they improvised, not necessarily for the purposes envisioned by their teachers or the toys’ designers. The Black children’s use of the toys could be viewed as creative, a mental skill that Olivia and Alice very likely would have regarded as worth encouraging. But the scholar’s research report includes nothing that suggests that either teacher recognized a “creative” spark in their Black preschoolers.
For thought
Americans regard creativity as a highly desirable characteristic, one that educators should encourage. For purposes of discussion, let’s imagine that – as the research report implies – Olivia and Alice never thought of the Black children’s play habits as “creative.” Do you think this was because of (a) the understanding they had of “creative,” (b) the high importance they assigned to orderliness, (c) the hidden doubts they had about Black children’s capabilities, (d) the limits of Olivia and Alice’s own understanding, or (e) a flaw of some kind in the scholar’s research?
How about you? If you had been one of these teachers, would you have wondered whether these children were revealing emerging creativity? Or do you think that what the children were doing with the toys doesn’t really rise to the level of “creativity”? Or do you have still another view about how, in Olivia or Alice’s shoes, you might have interpreted the Black pupils’ behavior?
Keep in mind that, although we cannot be sure, it’s unlikely either teacher had ever visited, let alone carried out sustained, systematic observations in, the homes of their Black pupils.
Related stories
Story 10.07 also concerns how humans conceive of and use the spaces that surround them. Story 10.03 concerns children from the same community, which is described in Appendix C.
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Endnotes:
12 Heath, 273-75. Heath offers similar observations about their differing uses of time.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.