This article reflects an application of the child-centered practices in my book Problem Solving with Young Children to the crisis of climate change. It introduces play as a mechanism to bring out the roles children can play as the builders of our futures.

Introduction

How can we, as educators and parents, prepare children for a future that we know will be impacted by climate change?

The answer must include play. In particular, open-ended exploratory play, inspired by children’s emotional connection to home and family, provides opportunities for children to see themselves as active and empowered problem solvers. This type of play helps prepare children to engage in a world in which resilience, innovation, and creativity will become our most valuable assets.

How do we initiate this? As educators, we can begin by inviting children to build a home for a favorite toy.

The Meaning of Home

When does the child begin to understand the meaning of home? As a newborn, the child is held and swaddled — warm arms and soft fabric become the child’s first home. At some point the child becomes aware of living in an enclosed space. A floor supports them beneath their feet, a roof above their heads shelters them, and the walls all around provide safety and protection. Most young children know and understand the concept of home even before they learn to speak the word out loud. (That is, if the child is not one of the millions of children across the globe who do not have a home.)

We hope that all children will learn that home is a place of belonging, a place for family and friends to gather, eat, play, and rest. A home provides shelter, an essential human need.

Erik Erikson’s study of human development tells us that our first task on this Earth is to learn to trust others. Trust is the foundation upon which all relationships, learning, and meaningful experiences are built. The physical home, then, is a tangible representation of the trust we build from birth. A home holds us and keeps us safe in the same way that children’s trusted caregivers — their parents, family members, and teachers — hold them close and protect them.

It makes sense, then, that a home is the structure children most often choose to build when they play. Just as children construct their knowledge of the world and build their sense of trust in others, they also build physical homes and houses with their hands out of blocks, toy bricks, cardboard, sand, mud, or sticks.

But what happens when the safety and security of a child’s home is endangered by climate change? How might a child’s understanding of the concept of home change when the child grows up in a world of climate disasters and peril?

The Threat of a Changing Climate

Our Earth is experiencing climate change as a pattern of long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns. While some causes of these shifts are natural, many are driven by human activities such as burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. The results include intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, and catastrophic storms.

As noted by UNICEF, children are the most vulnerable to the threat of climate change. For example, children tend to spend more time outdoors, where they can be exposed to high temperatures and children are more likely than adults to develop disease and infection during times of both flooding and water scarcity.

A study conducted by the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) titled “Most Vulnerable to Most Valuable” emphasizes that there is currently insufficient attention given to the immediate and longer term needs of young children in climate change and environmental actions. “As we move rapidly into a world affected by climate change and environmental degradation, and the need for adaptation to its increasingly serious and disruptive effects, there is growing recognition that young children will be the most profoundly affected.”

Today’s young children will inherit our Earth from the adults who have created and denied climate change. Children bear no responsibility for creating the problems but they will bear the entire responsibility for creating a safe home and a productive life, for themselves and for their own children.

What can be done to improve this situation and protect children from the impact of climate change? UNICEF’s climate and environmental sustainability strategy includes a call to these actions:

● Make children a focus of environmental strategies

● Empower children as agents of change

UNICEF calls for children to be a key part of the decision making process for government climate and environmental policies. They insist that children can take part in climate and environmental action including disaster risk reduction and advancing their education.

We can imagine an older child or a young adult participating in climate-related activities such as speaking out about environmental policies and attending rallies. Greta Thunberg is the most prominent example of someone in this role. But what about young children in the first stages of life, from birth through age eight or nine? What can they understand about climate change and what contributions can they make to their own future?

Children as Agents of Change

There is an important role for young children in combating climate change, but it is not the role of activists. We need not frighten children with predictions of future catastrophe or demand that they participate in adult activities. The most important role of the child is to be a child. By that I mean that we must protect children’s right to play and to experience joy. Children who experience a foundation of a secure and joyous childhood will be best prepared to serve as agents of change in the future.

Additionally, the role of the child includes experiencing the natural world as a place of beauty and wonder. Before children can become activists or agents of change they must first make friends with the Earth and learn to value it.

It is the responsibility of adults to nurture and support children’s relationships with the natural world. In the stressful environments of a changing climate we can no longer just assume that children will be able to play outside and appreciate the beauty and wonder of plants, animals, and landscapes.

Children construct a relationship with nature through their senses — what they see, hear, smell, touch, and perhaps even taste. The light filtered by the leaves of a tree, the song of a bird, the scent of lilacs, the rough grains of sand under bare feet. Even children in harsh urban environments and stark settings such as refugee camps — especially children in these settings — benefit from safe, open-ended, active exploration in an outdoor, natural space.

Importantly, the role of the child includes engaging in creative, social, and exploratory play. Through play, children become scientists, engineers, and innovators. Through play children learn to observe, wonder, and understand.

The Role of Play

Play empowers children as change agents because it prepares them for imagining and constructing solutions to problems. This is especially true of construction play and pretend play.

As stated by the LEGO Foundation in the 2022 report “Where Global Science Meets Playful Learning”:

New knowledge requires exploration, trial and error, testing of a vision, development of a design, and finally, the drive to take that spark into the marketplace of ideas. How do we create an environment that nurtures the drive for exploration and discoveries? (page 94)

It is not difficult to imagine that the young child today who is playing on a beach, digging canals in the sand and building bridges out of sticks and rocks will one day be an engineer who constructs a seawall to protect a coastline community. With this in mind, parents and educators must provide opportunities for children to play with both natural materials as well as manufactured toys, in both indoor and outdoor settings.

In addition to providing the time, space, and materials for children to play, adults can also present children with prompts and questions that encourage the development of creativity and help children see themselves as problem solvers.

“What kind of home will you build?”

“Where will you build it?”

“What materials will you use?”

“What shapes will you use?”

“Who will live in this home?”

“What are the parts of the home?”

“How will you make the home strong and safe?”

Homes and Habitats

When we focus on homes in our construction activities, we must be aware that this topic can stir emotions for many children. When children are at school they often think of home, and some keenly miss their homes and family when they are away. All of us sometimes long for the safety and security of our homes.

Also, intentional teachers in inclusive classrooms are aware that some children may be experiencing or have experienced homelessness or housing instability. Others may have experienced traumatic changes in their living conditions, perhaps as the result of a climate-related disaster. Even an ordinary family move from one house to another can be frightening and confusing for young children. Exploring the ideas of home, safety, and belonging during construction play is one way we can offer children some power and creative autonomy.

Rather than avoiding the topic of home, adults can support children’s emotional health and facilitate construction play by “building” on children’s interests in homes and houses. Prompts and open-ended questions can spark new ideas about the design and architecture of the homes children construct. We can also open children’s minds to new possibilities by sharing interesting images of homes from architectural websites, magazines, and picture books.

Inviting a child to build a home for a beloved toy is one of the most powerful ways to engage children in construction play and pretend play, especially children who might be reluctant to participate. Challenge, problem solving, creativity, and resilience are built into the process of constructing a home for a toy

Beyond Play

Children often develop an attachment and feelings of affection for their homes. Having a safe home is essential to children’s growing sense of trust and security. A home is often the first structure a child builds as they learn to play with blocks. If a child does not have a home, or if their sense of security at home is at risk, the process of playing, pretending, and building helps children express and explore their emotions and develop a sense of autonomy and mastery. This has been true for ages, but in the context of climate change, the importance of play has been elevated.

As stated by the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood, “Children must be seen as valued and capable participants in our climate and environmental response, and their education and knowledge needs to be cultivated and supported so that they build competence and a strong sense of individual and collective agency to meet future challenges.”

Climate change teaches all of us that our Earth is very small and we are all connected. As children grow and learn, it will not be long until their understanding of home expands to include the entire planet.

Sources:

https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/children.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556096/

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

Godfrey, S. and Tunhuma, F.A., The Climate Crisis: Climate Change Impacts, Trends and Vulnerabilities of Children in Sub Sahara Africa, United Nations Children’s Fund Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi, September 2020

https://arnec.net/resources/arnec-resources/most-vulnerable-most-valuable-scoping-study-put-young-children-heart-0

UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2018–2021, UNICEF Executive Board Orientation Session 2020 www.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/2020-EBO-PD_and_DAPM-EN-2020.01.16.pdf Figure 13, page 38

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49918719

https://learningthroughplay.com/explore-the-research/where-global-science-meets-playful-learning-implications-for-home-school-cities-and-digital-spaces

https://arnec.net/resources/arnec-resources/most-vulnerable-most-valuable-scoping-study-put-young-children-heart-0

Climate Change and Young Children was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While there is no online equivalent to preschool, digital technologies can certainly enrich learning, especially when in-person play groups and preschools are not available. A recent survey conducted by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) showed that about 90% of preschool classrooms closed in March 2020. This huge reduction in preschool services affected all families, regardless of characteristics like race or ethnicity, parental education, and income. NIEER concludes that, “The results from our survey strongly suggest a generation of preschool children will face long-term negative consequences in their development because preschool systems failed to adequately respond to the pandemic.”

“We Do What We Do”

Given that access to in-person preschool this fall will also be limited, many children will continue to miss out on an important window of opportunity for early learning. Especially in households that lack developmentally appropriate learning materials such as picture books and blocks, and where adults may not be readily available to engage children in meaningful conversations and play, digital resources offer an important supplement to young children’s hands-on learning experiences. As preschool director Shannon Skeens recently commented on HELLO, the online discussion forum of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, “We do what we do. We think outside the box to keep those connections going and digital is part of that.”

Learning through Play

Play is essential to learning in early childhood. Play should always be at the center of learning for young children, whether the play is taking place in a digital environment or in a tangible environment. As Marina Bers of Kinderlabs has wisely noted, the best digital learning environments are playgrounds, not playpens. This means that digital tools for remote learning must be more than animated flashcards that teach letter names and counting. A digital playground for children is open-ended, sparking creativity and exploration. Well-designed digital games can also build social connections and community.

The best remote learning for preschoolers involve play and engagement with tangible materials on both sides of the screen. For example — When a preschool teacher leads a Zoom meeting with a preschool class, she can use puppets and props to engage children in stories and songs. The children can be invited to hold a toy and play along. Although the children in the class can’t physically engage with each other, everyone is able to touch, hold, and manipulate a physical object during the learning experience.

Preschoolers also need to move to learn. Remote learning experiences for young children must include movement, either as part of the screen-based learning experience or through frequent movement breaks. Digital learning can also be extended into physical play when children are invited to recreate a screen-based experience using hands-on craft materials and toys.

Quality Counts

Resources are available to guide parents and educators in selecting quality digital learning tools for young children. Common Sense Media provides ratings and recommendations for websites, apps and games. Britannica for Parents publishes resources and guidance for tech savvy families. And let’s not forget that public television is still one of the best sources for developmentally appropriate educational media.

Screen-based learning does not have to be interactive (via touchscreen, mouse, or keyboard) in order to engage young children. In fact, there’s growing evidence that “passive” screen experiences can sometimes result in better learning outcomes than interactive experiences. Decades of research has shown that educational television shows like Sesame Street help children learn early language, literacy, and math skills. The importance of educational television shows for young children is even greater now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Fred Rogers of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood once said, “In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” Let’s continue to ask good questions about how we can best support early learning during these challenging times.

Sources

The Concept of Screen Time Is No Longer Relevant

There’s No Such Thing as Online Preschool

Remote Schooling Failed Our Preschoolers. We Have to Do Better.

Why Learning Through Play Is So Important

Think Playgrounds, Not Playpens

How to Use Games to Build Community

Why Young Kids Learn through Movement

How to Turn Screen Time into hands On Learning

The Great Interactive Debate

The World According to Mister Rogers

What Can Preschoolers Learn from a Screen? was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Parents and policy makers are often misinformed about what teachers need to improve learning outcomes for children. Many think teachers need more training or more technology. Others think more testing is the answer. Yet what teachers really need is additional time. I don’t mean more time to prep and plan, although that’s often true. I mean time to be with children, to be truly present with children — in all the patient and slow ways that nurture deep learning. This is because learning, thinking, and playing take time. Teachers need permission and encouragement to observe children and allow ideas to develop.

We know this, based on our own experience. As adults, when we have something new or difficult to learn (think both long term projects like learning a new language or short term tasks like programming a home security system) the last thing we need is someone timing us and rushing us through the learning process — eyes on the clock, insisting we move on after a designated period of time. Yet that’s exactly what happens in most classrooms, even those serving our very youngest children. State boards of education require or recommend a specific minimum number of instructional minutes for core subject areas like reading and math. In the federal Head Start program in the US, for example, which serves young children ages three to five, teachers are required to address five domains of learning in the daily curriculum. This is besides finding time for meals, naps, and brushing teeth. Systems of accountability at every level, from government agencies to funders to parents, pressure teachers into rushing from one activity to another, to accomplish more and faster. In teacher preparation and training programs, struggling teachers are offered time management tips, with the implication that if only they tried harder or organized their time better, they’d be able to do everything required in the allotted amount of time.

The importance of taking time for learning is clearly illustrated when we compare traditional early childhood programs with schools following a Reggio Emilia approach. Reggio Emilia is a city in Italy that gained global recognition for the quality of its preschools and infant-toddler centers. Schools that follow a Reggio-inspired approach create their own curriculum based on the interests of the children. The emergent projects (often called investigations) might involve a whole class or just a few children and typically last for several weeks.

To demonstrate what happens when teachers are allowed the time to nurture children’s interests and facilitate learning, let’s look at an example of an extended investigation. Preschool of the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin serves about 200 children between the ages for 18 months and five years old (Full disclosure: I was Executive Director from 2017 to 2019). In the fall of 2018 the Gold Room, a class of four year old children, became fascinated with a broken double bass that had been donated to the school. The team of teachers, which included classroom teachers as well as art and music specialists, observed that what children found most interesting about the bass was its brokenness. This led to questions and conversations about how the instrument was made and its structure.

Soon the children expressed an interest in building their own “real” musical instruments. Of course , none of the teachers had ever built a musical instrument before. Yet art specialist Kelly Blondin facilitated the process and the teachers learned side-by-side with the children over the course of almost a full year. The project progressed and was sustained both in the class’ once a week art studio visits and in the daily classroom play and activities.

The instrument project demonstrates many of the characteristics and benefits of slow, patient, and deep learning. One key element to the long-term success of this project was the opportunity to develop multiple iterations of their instruments. This was not a “one and done” construction project. The children worked in teams to develop prototypes using several different kinds of materials — first on paper, then in clay, then with metal, then cardboard, and finally wood.

The practice of representing an idea multiple times, each time using a different medium, is aligned with the Reggio Emilia concept of “the hundred languages of children.” The influential founder of the schools of Reggio Emilia, Loris Malaguzzi, described this concept, “The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.” Sometimes called multi-modal learning, the creation of a design multiple times using a different medium each time, provides opportunities for deep learning because it requires children to use higher order thinking — to compare and contrast, to make connections, evaluate, and to test and refine their theories about how things work.

Using a variety of different media also requires learning how to use a variety of different tools. Before they began constructing instruments with wood, the children in the Gold Room spent time learning to use real woodworking tools and practicing the techniques necessary to bend and glue a real stringed instrument. This was not just manual labor, however. The project involved the students in mathematical processes like measuring and calculating angles. The children also developed new vocabulary and were challenged to communicate and collaborate in new ways.

This type of project-based learning meets a full range of learning standards, requirements that are typically measured in the few short minutes of daily class instruction. Slicing the school day into small snippets of instruction may be convenient for assessment, but it’s not how children learn best. A sustained experience like the instrument project will cover just as many different subject areas and learning objectives as a series of short daily lessons but the evidence used for assessment will be the documentation of the children’s learning process — the questions, decisions, actions, and behaviors that children demonstrate while they are working together, actively exploring and experimenting with new ideas and materials. When a group of children are deeply engaged in a creative project, thirty minutes of lively conversation will cover a week’s worth of language and literacy objectives.

The most surprising thought of all? To reap the benefits of extended project work, teachers don’t need to study Reggio Emilia or earn a master’s degree. They simply need to slow down, breathe and listen to the children. Are we willing to let them?

Photos courtesy of Preschool of the Arts.

• Preschool of the Arts: www.preschoolofthearts.com
• The Reggio Emilia approach, visit: www.reggiochildren.it

What happens when we allow time for learning? was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Attitudes about the role of technology in early childhood tend to be unnecessarily polarized. On one side are those who believe we must protect children from technology because of the potential dangers of exposing children to too much screen time and an unsupervised internet. On the other side are those who believe that children will benefit from using the newest technology early and often, so they will grow to be savvier and smarter than the previous generation.

My position is much more balanced. As an early childhood educator experienced in both traditional constructivist learning and progressive computer science curriculum development, I believe we can be both careful and creative in the ways we introduce children to technology and teach them about computer science.

What is computational thinking?

Instead of teaching children about specific programming languages and hardware, schools must prepare children to think with creativity, complexity, and logic. The key to building a computer science literate society is teaching our children computation thinking skills, starting in early childhood. But what is computational thinking?

The K-12 Computer Science Framework, in consultation with the Computational Thinking Task Force of the Computer Science Teachers Association, describes computational thinking as the thought processes involved in solving problems, specifically problems that can be expressed as steps or algorithms that can be carried out by a computer. We don’t need a computer to use computational thinking, but we do need computational thinking to program a computer!

Generally, computational thinking is understood to be a combination of four skill categories:

• Pattern recognition
• Creating and using algorithms
• Decomposition
• Understanding abstractions

Pattern recognition is the process of identifying, defining, extending, and creating patterns. Pattern recognition requires the classification of data. For example, a preschooler learns pattern recognition when she sorts blocks according to attributes like shape or color.

An algorithm is a set of steps that solve a problem. Programming a computer and solving an algebraic proof involves creating and using algorithms. Everyday tasks, like sewing a button on a shirt or baking a pie also involve creating and using algorithms in the form of step by step instructions.

Decomposition is an analytical process that involves breaking something down into smaller parts. In mathematics, for example, we can decompose a number like 456 by breaking it down according to place value — hundreds, tens, and ones. Pretty much any problem-solving task involves taking something big and complex and figuring out how to break, separate, or divide a large thing into smaller things.

An abstraction is something that exists only as an idea. Understanding abstractions requires us to make generalizations, draw conclusions, and use other problem-solving thought processes to imagine something that we can’t see or touch.

Teaching computational thinking in early childhood

Of these four categories of computational thinking — pattern recognition, creating and using algorithms, decomposition, and understanding abstractions — there is only one category that cannot be easily integrated into an early childhood curriculum. Understanding abstractions is a particularly high level thinking skill that most young children are not able to master in preschool. The theory of child development created by Jean Piaget tells us that young children learn through their senses, through movement, and by manipulating tangible objects. Almost all learning moves from the physical to the mental, from the real to the imagined, from the concrete to the abstract. For example, we learn to count to ten by touching and extending the fingers on our two hands. Later, we can imagine the concept of ten in a variety of ways — as a numeral, as a digit, as a decade, as a design.

This is why block play is so important in early childhood. Computational thinking is born in the preschool block corner. As children build towers, roads, forts and bridge using blocks of calibrated shapes and sizes, they gain experience recognizing and creating patterns using attributes such as shape and size. When one child seeks to imitate another child’s building project (“I like your house. How did you make it?”) they are creating and using algorithms. When the block structures inevitably tumble and the blocks scatter across the floor, the children learn decomposition as they use their own small hands to sort the blocks into piles and return them to the shelves.

Block building, however, is not abstract. The children are touching, lifting, holding, balancing, and, in many cases, knocking over physical, tangible objects. And that’s the real and essential beauty of the whole experience. By engaging in block play, children are literally laying the foundation for computational thinking. Children must have these tactile and kinesthetic experiences with real objects in the real world in order to prepare them for the abstract and virtual experiences they will have later as they learn to use and program computers and robots.

Begin with spatial reasoning

The child building with wooden blocks (or LEGO!) today will be programming and using computers in a future we can hardly imagine and predict. What can we teach children now, when they are very young, that will build a foundation of skills and knowledge that will help them become creative problem-solvers? Computational thinking is the goal, but how do we help children make the leap from tangible problem solving in a physical world to abstract problem solving in a virtual world? The answers to these questions can, in part, be provided by small plastic robots.

Five years ago, when I began developing coding and robotics curricula for young children at Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, teaching robots for preschool classrooms was a rare find. Among the pioneers in this area are the KIBO robot from Kinderlab Robotics, the Bee-Bot from Terrapin Software, and Cubetto from Primo Toys. Now there are dozens on the market, some better than others, but the one thing all these little robots have in common is that they are all travelers. Children learn to code by programming the robot to navigate from one point to another. In the case of the KIBO, children literally build an algorithm by lining up programming blocks in a particular order. One block represents a “move forward” command, another a “turn right” command. Similarly, the Bee-Bot is programming using buttons along the spine of the robot and the Cubetto is programmed by placing pegs in a pegboard. In each case the children are programming the robot to navigate a path, and in doing so they are practicing spatial reasoning.

Spatial reasoning is ability to think about the way objects exist and move through space. I believe that a focus on spatial reasoning in early childhood is an important way to plant the seeds of computational thinking. Understanding how robots, blocks, and their own bodies move through space, navigate obstacles, and align with other objects, will help children learn to extend their thinking from the tangible to the abstract.

Using, making, and imagining maps

The importance of spatial reasoning in the development of computational thinking can be illustrated, literally, through children’s use of maps in play and learning. When children construct a miniature city in the block corner, they have essentially created a three dimensional map. When children program a Cubetto robot to move from one corner of the rug to the other, they must use the rug like a grid map. These playful problem-solving experiences involve the using, making, and imagining of maps.

As an early childhood educator with a keen interest in blocks, robots, and maps, I am increasingly fascinated by the ways that spatial reasoning opens doors to computation thinking. In my current work I find myself playing with analogies that pair the tangible with the virtual:

1. Robots are to coding as blocks are to spatial reasoning.

2. Spatial reasoning is to computational thinking as an abacus is to a calculator.

In a scene from Joyce Hesselberth’s Mapping Sam, a picture book, a cat named Sam explores her neighborhood at night. Sam’s adventures are represented through a series of colorfully illustrated maps incorporating a variety of styles and techniques including a star chart, a blueprint, and a topographical map. My favorite is the map of a water molecule, shown on the page that illustrates Sam’s stop by the local pond. In this map we see two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. In this lovely example of decomposition, Hesselberth writes, simply, “There are many, many water molecules in a single drop of water.” The enormous potential of each child to explore and learn about the complexities of our world are just as deep and profound as Sam’s pond.

Planting the Seeds of Computational Thinking in Early Childhood was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I started teaching preschool, way back in the 20th century, before we had iPads and classroom robots, the most complicated gadget in my classroom was a See ‘n Say.

The children loved pointing the dial at a farm animal — for example, a cow — pulling the crank, and hearing a recording of the sound of the animal. “Moo!” But what the children most enjoyed was the funny surprise when the toy made a mistake. The dial on the See ‘n Say would often lose alignment. The child might point at the dog and hear “Quack!” or point at the cat and hear “Oink!” The children thought the mistakes were hilarious and they loved discovering that they were smarter than the machine.

Now that I’ve had many years of experience using new technologies such as programmable robots and coding apps in early childhood classrooms, I’ve learned a lot about how to teach critical thinking and problem-solving. I wish I could go back to those days with the See ’n Say and ask the children some open-ended questions about our malfunctioning toy. I’d like to ask:

Why do you think the machine is giving us the wrong answer? How is this machine supposed to work? Maybe we can take the cover off, look inside and see how it’s made. Let’s look at the parts and how they fit together and see what we can learn.

Do you like this broken toy better than a new toy that gives the right answer? Why or why not?

I might even ask questions that challenge children to think about the ethical uses of machines and technology in the classroom:

What do you think the makers of this toy wanted you to learn?

What do you think is the best way to learn about the sounds that animals make?

For example, do you want to learn about the sound a dog makes from a machine? Or would you rather learn about it from a dog? Why or why not?

I can’t go back in time and ask these questions about the See ‘n Say, but in my work now, I coach teachers to nurture children’s critical thinking and ethical decision-making skills in early childhood classrooms. These conversations are an essential component in any 21st century computer science curricula.

Artificial intelligence experts like Mark Stehlik of Carnegie Mellon University emphasize the importance of teaching critical thinking and ethics to computer science students. In a recent presentation at SXSWedu, Stehlik described the importance of demystifying artificial intelligence. “People shouldn’t be afraid of AI. They should understand what it can and cannot do.” He believes that ethics should be a core component of computer science content at every level of instruction.

When to begin talking about ethics and AI

Children as young as three or four years old are using programmable devices, such as robotic toys and iPads, on a daily basis. It’s never too soon to begin having conversations with children about the role of technology in their lives.

The topic of ethics is particularly relevant when we consider the growing role of artificial intelligence in devices used by children, families, and schools. The broad question we must all consider is: What decisions will we let computers make for us?

This may seem like a very new question, but Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, has been researching our relationships with technology for more than 20 years. Back in the 1990s her team of researchers from MIT studied the ways children interacted with robotic toys such as Tamagotchis and Furbies. In summary, she found that children often became emotionally attached to these devices. Many of the children she interviewed said their robotic toys were “alive enough” to care about them and care for them.

Today there are even more types of sophisticated and lifelike robotic toys available for children. Additionally, children can engage in conversations with artificially intelligent assistants such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. In her New York Times piece titled “Co-Parenting with Alexa,” Rachel Botsman eloquently describes the anxiety parents may feel when they see their children interact with AI devices. Botsman asks, “How do we teach our children to question not only the security and privacy implications but also the ethical and commercial intentions of a device designed by marketers?” She concludes, “Our kids are going to need to know where and when it is appropriate to put their trust in computer code alone.”

The prevalence of AI in the daily lives of families means we must begin talking with children about computer science and artificial intelligence topics at an early age. We can’t wait until they have learned to program computers and engineer robots. But how do we begin?

Deep conversations happen during play

The foundations for critical thinking and ethical decision-making can be established during early childhood through conversations, problem solving, stories, and play. As Mitchel Resnick describes in his book, Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers and Play, young children can begin learning about computer science through hands-on experiences with physical and tangible materials, such as blocks and robots. The richest conversations will take place during collaborative, social play experiences.

In my work developing robotics and coding curricula at Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, I found that even very young children are capable of understanding introductory computer programming concepts when they are invited to play with a combination of virtual and tangible tools. For example, children who enjoy virtual world-building games like Minecraft and Toca Builder will deepen their understanding of engineering and problem-solving when they are challenged to create in the real world, using blocks, LEGO, or cardboard, a structure that they built in a virtual game environment. Pairing a tangible experience with a virtual experience, such as working in a small group on building a LEGO structure, also creates opportunities for social conversations and collaboration that might not happen when students engage alone with screens.

Teaching robots, such as Primo Cubetto and Bee-Bot have been developed to teach beginning programming concepts to early childhood and elementary school children. These are developmentally appropriate tools that support play, social interactions, and learning.

The Power of the Human Heart

What about classrooms where robots and devices are not available? Teachers can still provide opportunities for critical thinking about machines and computers. Almost every child has had some experience with machines — with toasters, clocks, locks, and bicycles. Even simple machines can spark a conversation about engineering and how things work.

For very young children, I’ve discovered that the topic of artificial legs and arms comes up surprisingly often during play. Children may have heard stories about pirates with wooden legs or seen cute Youtube videos about an injured dog who uses a wheeled cart to get around. A broken toy, then, can become a teachable moment about the meaningful uses of robotic technology.

Recently I was teaching a preschool class in which a cardboard unicorn piñata experienced a broken leg. The cardboard was beyond repair and I asked the children what we could do to help the unicorn walk again. Through a collaborative problem-solving process that involved the engineering of several different prototypes, the children were able to build a prosthetic leg out of LEGO bricks.

As children get older they will be able to participate in conversations around broader and more sophisticated questions like:

What can computers do?

Hoe can computers help people?

What can’t computers do?

Can computers make mistakes? If yes, then why?

For example, in one of the coding classes at CTD, a second grader reflected on these questions by writing: “Sometimes robots don’t do what you tell them to do because you programmed them wrong.” This child’s answer shows that she has an understanding of the role of a human programmer. She now has the foundational knowledge to think more deeply about the appropriate and ethical uses of technology and artificial intelligence. It is important for children to know that computers are not magic. Humans build and program computers. We can make ethical, intentional, and reflective decisions about how computers and robots will be used in our world.

Building a robot car wash is one of my favorite activities to do with preschool children. By “build” I mean that each child pretends to be a robotic component in a drive-through car wash. One child is the water-spraying robot, one is the soapy robot, one is the scrubbing robot, etc. This activity helps children think about how to create an algorithm for programming robots, because the order to events is so important. You can’t rinse before you scrub! I love this activity because there’s always a moment when someone says, “What about the person with the cloth at the end? That’s not a robot.” Many children know that an automated car wash often has a worker with a soft cloth who spot dries the car at the very end. This moment in the activity is significant because we can have a conversation with the children in which we recognize that there are some things, like polishing a car, listening to a friend, or giving a hug, that humans still do better than robots. These moments of insight are essential in the development of ethical decision making.

For more information

This article is based on my SXSWedu session from March 2018 titled “Teach Artificial Intelligence in Kindergarten.” An audio recording of that session is available here: https://soundcloud.com/sxswedu/sxswedu-2018-teach-artificial-intelligence-in-kindergarten

Since SXSWedu, I was excited to see this article, which echoes many of the points I expressed in my session.

“When Robots Teach Kids Computational Thinking and Kindness” https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-04-27-when-robots-teach-kids-computational-thinking-and-kindness

References

Abamu, J. “What Does it Mean to Prepare Students for a Future with Artificial Intelligence?”EdSurge, March 16, 2017. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-03-16-what-does-it-mean-to-prepare-students-for-a-future-with-artificial-intelligence Accessed June 7, 2018

Bers, M.U. Coding as a Playground: Programming and Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom. Florence, KY: Routledge, 2017.

Botsman, R. “Co-Parenting with Alexa.” New York Times, October 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/opinion/sunday/children-alexa-echo-robots.html Accessed June 10, 2018

Clark, J. “The Era of the Algorithm.” Creative Mornings, January 31, 2018. https://creativemornings.com/talks/josh-clark/1 Accessed June 7, 2018

Gadzikowski, A. Robotics for Young Children: STEM Activities and Simple Coding.St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press; 2017.

Resnick, M. Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers and Play. Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2017.

Turkle, S. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2013.

Teaching Artificial Intelligence in Kindergarten was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Each time I read the news I see dire warnings about technology: Robots are taking our jobs! Driverless cars are speeding through our streets! Hackers are stealing our secrets! It’s easy to become frightened and pessimistic about the future of technology in our world. In contrast, my experience working directly with young children in computer science and robotics classes tells me a very different story. I see children building and programming robots, creating their own games using code, and collaborating with each other to solve problems and help others. As a result of my experience teaching young children coding and robotics, I am very optimistic about the future. I have confidence in the creativity, ingenuity, empathy, and compassion I see children demonstrate when they are given the opportunity to engage with computer science and robotics in meaningful ways.

When you imagine a classroom where computer science is taught, the picture that comes to mind may include students sitting in uniform rows, silently staring at screens. That scene may be true in some settings, but the computer science classrooms most familiar to me are active, busy, noisy places where young children play on the floor with colorful robots, collaboratively build block structures using a colorful variety of shapes and patterns, and create animated stories about friends and families.

Old School Meets New School

I haven’t always felt such confidence and excitement about technology. I began my career in early childhood education many years ago, back in the days when a cassette recorder was likely to be the most sophisticated gadget in a classroom. In terms of philosophy, I have always been a constructivist — I value active play and hands-on learning experiences. The core tools of my trade are blocks, clay, puppets, and picture books. I am “old school” in every sense of the term. Yet here I am, advocating for computer science as an essential topic in an early childhood curriculum.

My interest in computer science and robotics was sparked by my experience developing enrichment programs for young children at Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development (CTD). In 2015, I began writing, researching, and piloting a “Tech Beginnings” curriculum that introduces foundational coding and robotics concepts to children in Pre-K to Grade 3 using hands-on, playful, project-based learning. The challenge of creating this curriculum was that no model existed for how to teach a scaffolded sequence of computer science and robotics content to such young students. I began by exploring and testing a variety of new educational tools for teaching young children — apps such as ScratchJr and Hopscotch, and robots such as Bee-Bots and Primo Cubetto. By combining these new cutting-edge tech tools with a traditional constructivist learning approach, I was able to create a unique model that blends and balances virtual and tangible learning experiences and also provides novel challenges for creative learners. Over the past three years more than 1400 children have participated in CTD Tech Beginnings courses. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Northwestern University’s School of Communication and School of Education and Social Policy have studied student outcomes in these courses and found consistently positive results (Pila et al., 2016).

The Role of Play in Learning

When I meet other tech educators at conferences or in online communities, usually they have a background in computer science or secondary education. I recognize how unusual it is for someone with my background in early childhood education to have any knowledge or experience in computer science. I think what makes my approach most powerful is my understanding of the important role of play in learning. When children play with traditional toys — balls, puzzles, dolls, blocks — they often don’t have a specific goal or method in mind. To play means to mess around, try things out, experiment in creative ways. Play is also a social experience, incorporating language, humor, friendship, and collaboration. When children play with tech devices like robots or mess around with coding apps on tablets, using these tools in social and open-ended ways, their learning becomes much deeper and more meaningful than if they had simply participated in a structured teacher-directed lesson.

This playful approach to developing computer science curricula for young children emphasizes the importance of connecting students’ learning experiences in a virtual environment with meaningful and tangible experiences in real life. For example, a child can use a touch screen to create a line of code in the app Daisy the Dinosaur. In this digital learning environment the child creates a sequence of commands in block code that will make the dinosaur on the screen walk, jump, and turn. This learning becomes more meaningful to the child when she is able to replicate or expand upon her experience using real, tangible tools. For example, in a Tech Beginnings classroom, the children move from tablets to the block corner where they use wooden blocks and toy dinosaurs to create a tangible 3D environment that mirrors the digital environment. The child is challenged to apply what she’s learned on the screen to a block construction project. The child builds a sequence of tangible wooden blocks to create a path where her 3D toy dinosaur will walk, jump, and turn. Learning deepens when children make meaningful connections between the digital and the tangible.

My commitment to ensuring that children’s learning is connected to real meaningful experiences is inspired by the NAEYC position statement Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth to Age 8. One of the principles outlined in the statement speaks directly to the importance of a child-centered approach that employs a variety of tools or media: “Effective uses of technology and media are active, hands-on, engaging, and empowering; give the child control; provide adaptive scaffolds to ease the accomplishment of tasks; and are used as one of many options to support children’s learning”(National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2012).

I believe balance is the key. While some parents and educators fear that children will become addicted to screens and must be protected from any exposure to technology, the NAEYC position statement and my own experience with children support the idea that we can facilitate a healthy balance between different kinds of play and different kinds of learning. As I argue in my book Robotics for Young Children (Redleaf Press), “We teach children about the weather, about the rain that splashes onto their boots and the sun that warms their skin. We teach children about plants and animals, about the seeds that grow into tall trees and the pets that make them smile. We teach children about stories and counting, about letters and numbers, building a foundation of skills for later success in reading and math… Why don’t we teach young children about machines and computers, about the robots and devices that make their lives safer, easier, and perhaps more interesting and more entertaining?” (Gadzikowski 2017)

As parents and educators, our job is to challenge children to imagine and create technology that will improve the world. We must teach them the skills and knowledge to become active creators rather than passive consumers of technology. Young children need to learn about computer science and robotics through play, in the context of meaningful relationships and collaborative, responsive projects. With these principles in mind, I remain stubbornly optimistic. Our children will not be ruled by evil robots. There’s no need to fear. We must begin now to teach children to create their own bright future for a world that only they can imagine.

References

Gadzikowski, A. Robotics for Young Children: STEM Activities and Simple Coding.St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press; 2017.

Pila S, Gadzikowski A, Wartella E, et al; Learning to Code in the Classroom. Society for Research in Development. 2017.

Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children fromBirth to Age 8. NAEYC.org.

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PS_technology_WEB2.pdf

Published 2012. Accessed 2017.

Why I’m Optimistic about Children and Technology was originally published in Early Insights™ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.