Welcome to the Play Based Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Arby Peterson, and maybe your new teacher, Bestie, that is here to hype you up, maybe give you a motivating kick in the pants, and teach you all I know about play and childhood. I am here to help you challenge old and outdated practices and inspire you to create a truly developmentally appropriate early childhood environment that fosters creativity. Curiosity and joy in the Children that you care for.
Let's set the stage for a lifelong love of learning. Let's get going. I am so excited to have my friend and fellow early childhood play advocate with me. Her name is Jean Marie Dagren. Welcome Jean Marie! I'm so excited. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited you're here. Thank you, Kristen. I'm so excited to be with you. Thank you for having me. Of course. Okay. We're going to talk about, well, it's probably one of my favorite things to hash out with people. And it seems to be maybe one of yours as well.
So we are actually talking about the big old buzzword that you hear everywhere, developmentally appropriate practice, DAP. D. A. P. That's what we're hashing out today. So okay, let's start with your definition. What does that mean to you? My definition? Well, I think developmentally appropriate practice is such a widespread term used in our field, and it's used very loosely.
I'm seeing, but for me personally, And in my experience, developmentally appropriate practice is how we are honoring and protecting childhood. What are we doing to to honor and protect childhood? Because developmentally appropriate practice is such a large term, and it means so many different things, and it looks very different and different environments, early childhood environments. so really, it's how are we honoring and protecting childhood? How are we making play a priority?
Because that is a huge piece of developmentally appropriate. Environments and early childhood settings, how are we meeting children where they are at developmentally providing a wide variety of materials and allowing children to explore? I could go on and on. How are we respecting them? How we speak to them? All of that. Those things are developmentally appropriate practices that when I go into a classroom, I like to see. Absolutely.
Okay, so what's interesting to me is when I go and do trainings all around the United States and sometimes other countries, I will ask, like, What is developmentally appropriate practice and a lot of people don't know how to answer that question and I reflected on that too, because I mean, 10 years ago, I would have had no idea how to define developmentally appropriate practice and why it's important because I was so focused on.
Teaching the children and being a teacher and doing all the teachery things that like developmentally appropriate practice just kind of fell by the wayside because I was like getting them ready for kindergarten, you know, and in turn, like completely not providing a developmentally appropriate environment at all.
Yeah. I do see that in classrooms where, you know, teachers, it's, it's like a very transactional process in their classrooms where they're just checking off things that they do throughout the day just to get through the day. And so for me, as an administrator of early childhood programs, over the past 27 years, I, I go into a classroom each and every time with these three questions in mind, and it's. How do I feel when I walk into a classroom? What am I hearing? And what do I see?
And really, the hearing and the seeing part. Really affects how I feel. So I feel going in. It's like, you know, when we go into a spa and we that Zen moment where it smells nice and there's music playing and we just feel like, ah, we take that deep breath and we just all the anxiety or stress in our bodies go out when I and it's very different in a preschool setting. But when I go into a preschool setting, how do I feel? Is my anxiety building up? Is my stress level building up?
If it is for me, how does how is that for Children? You know, and I noticed when I was in the classroom teaching, cause I taught in a very traditional setting before I knew play, and then taught in a very play based setting. My anxiety was so much lower in a play based program when allowing children to have control over their own learning and control over their space and their time and materials. Like when you can drop the control that we feel we need to have over children.
I feel like just In turn, a more developmentally appropriate environment is discovered. Yes, yes, yes. It's so amazing and it's so magical. For sure, for sure. Oh my goodness. Okay, talk to me. I want to know what your journey in early childhood has been. Yeah, so I've, you know, how much time do you have? I I've been in the field of early childhood for, gosh, a little over 30 years. I started out as a preschool teacher when I was 19, when it was, you only needed the 12 units to teach preschool.
a lot of product art was happening back then. Yeah. but then, you know, as I graduated from college and got my degree, I went into, you know, I was thrusted into an, administrative role. And from there, that's all I've been doing really. And I've had the opportunity to work at. Both in the public and private sector, for-profit nonprofit programs. I've taken many programs through N-A-E-Y-C accreditation, so I learned a lot about developmentally appropriate practice through that.
but I would say my transformational period in my career is when I was one of the managers at a community college child development lab school. There, I just learned so much and took with me along the way from there. So I learned how teachers speak to children, how children regard teachers and what they call teachers. Um, just so much I learned from there. and with that experience too, so outside of my full time job, I'm still an administrator. overseeing early childhood programs.
But in addition to that, I do work as a part time adjunct faculty teaching early childhood courses at the community college level, which is, is amazing because I get to have these students who are so excited and fresh and have all this knowledge and like, I really feel like I can, I am contributing to their path. Yes, you are. And I think that that's where we need.
We need people that are teaching those courses who understand developmentally appropriate practice and have actually like lived it and see it. Yeah. Because. Like my college experience was one where we were taught that craft projects were one of the best ways to get children to work on certain skills and worksheets and like really, really teacher directed lesson plans and long circle times. And that set me up on a path of like not doing what's best for children. Yeah, yeah.
We need people like you in those. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. How many college students do you like reach each semester? It just depends. Like I, I will be starting back up in the spring and it depends on, you know, each semester depends on how many courses I get. So probably, uh, 40 a class. So it could be up to 80. I won't do any more than two classes a semester just because it will impact, you know, my life in a way because I still work full time.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, probably 80 students a semester. But that's huge. That's very huge. Okay, so back to developmentally appropriate practice. So, uh, I, um, there's a gal named Heather Burnt Santee. She has a podcast called That Early Childhood Nerd.
And she actually, instead of in, of referring to it as developmentally appropriate practice, this is what somebody else told me, and I need to like message her and connect with her on this, but she calls it being developmentally informed, which I thought was pretty powerful because Bye. That's really what it is about. It's, it's a bit about being informed about what is developmental.
So like, what resources do you know of that, that caregivers, teachers can go and say, okay, is this in line with what's developmentally appropriate? Like, how do we know what's developmentally appropriate? I don't know, Kristen, that's a good question. I think that, um, NAEYC is such a huge resource that, um, so many don't utilize, and I think that just by becoming a member of NAEYC, there's so much on there that really speaks to that.
But I also think a huge benefit is teachers who are maybe in a rut or questioning their current practices, it's so beneficial to go and observe. Other teachers who are actually implementing it. Absolutely. So, um, I, yeah, I, I think that is the biggest, um, thing to be had is to go actually observe teachers who are implementing it and, and really who are effective at it. Absolutely. How do you know if they're implementing it and effective at it?
Well, I go back to my three things that I question myself. If I go into a classroom and it is, um, running like a smooth oiled machine, kids are engaged. I'm hearing the voices of children and I'm not hearing teachers talking over children. I'm hearing, I'm seeing children, um, having the ability to explore in their environment and, and, Um, really be the leader of their learning. And so it's just a feeling you get.
And after all these years, I can know almost, almost immediately when I walk into a classroom, it's that feeling, like, I just know this is the right place for children to be. This is where I want to come hang out every day, you know, as an adult. And so, um, I think that's a huge, huge, huge piece is identifying those teachers who are just rockstars in the field that are doing it and saying, go see this person. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So, um, how, uh, okay.
How, so if you are a teacher in an early childhood program, or I'm speaking to the listeners. So like, if there's a listener out there that's finding themselves in a program where. Um, maybe there's a lot of teacher directed learning and I say learning loosely because it's probably not actual real learning and understanding. Yeah. Um, what are some like baby steps? Like where do they start? They start with like finding out more about NACI and their position statement on DAP.
But like, what are some small changes they can make right away? to, to encourage a more developmentally appropriate atmosphere environment for Children. I think it all starts with the relationship that you build with the child and that rapport that you build with Children. And so, um, opening yourself up to, um, developing that, that Relationship with kids is so important and, and sharing that mutual respect with children.
So I think it starts there it always starts with the relationship right and, and, in addition to that the relationship that you develop with the parents because so much of what we do. in our field, we're always having to sort of justify, like, this is why they're playing all day. This is why. Yes. And so when you develop that rapport with parents too, and build that mutually respectful relationship with them, you get their buy in. And it's amazing to see, you know, just that little piece.
How that can transform your teaching, I think when that relationship is built, then you naturally want to do things differently than maybe the majority of people who are doing more traditional stuff. You just want to engage your children on a higher level, scaffold their learning, you want to just be all that for them. And so I think that's a natural course it takes. And, and we have that gut feeling in our belly that is telling us what feels right.
Right. So, um, I think that in and of itself is, is the push and is the first step. Yeah. I think one of the things that I've noticed. In early childhood rooms where it seems to lead more to developmentally appropriate practices when the children's voices are louder than the adults in the room. So if the adult's voice is being heard more than the children's, then it's probably not the most developmentally appropriate space for young children. So we need to hear the kids voices. Yes, absolutely.
I always say that to teachers that I'm mentoring, like if I were to go into your classroom, what would I hear? And if it's, you know, a very directive teacher, you know, shouting across the classroom, that's, that's not, we shouldn't be doing that, you know, so we need to be hearing the voices of children. Absolutely. Um, Okay. I want you to, so we're talking about how do I feel? Um, what do I hear?
I, so Bev Boss, if you know who Bev Boss is, she says that music is like a memory, a hook to hang a memory on. So thinking back to like your own childhood, what are some different, where, where do you remember music being? Oh, music was such a huge part of my life. My father just loves to sing. And so he was always singing and, and, you know, he loved Frank Sinatra and Lionel Richie. And just, it was just always a part of, you know, our environment and in our home.
And so, yeah, that's, that is a huge memory and, and it has impacted my life and just in so many ways, you know, just those memories of adulthood and having that experience. Oh my goodness.
Yeah. Um, okay. So Lisa Murphy, the wee gooey lady, she talks about the seven things and I don't know that I'm going to be able to rattle all the seven things off, but they're the seven things that she says that need to be present in an early childhood environment for it to be child centered, which then in, in my opinion makes it more developmentally appropriate. So, um, we have create, um, sing. Read, observe, move. Um, the other two. You're almost there, come on.
Um, observe, create, sing, read, move. Um, I don't know what the other two are. But those, maybe I'll Google. Okay, so, knowing what those are. Yeah. How does that fit into In your opinion, planning for an early childhood environment, like how do we best plan for a developmentally appropriate space? Well, I'm a firm believer in emergent curriculum, so I, I feel like planning takes every day at the end of the day for the next day, based on where children are in their process of play.
Um, but it's funny you mentioned the whole music thing because I am seeing a trend and I think it's a It's a push like from the kindergarten on up world with the use of technology and teachers using iPads to here, let's sing along with this video. And, and that that's where I feel teachers need to do away with that. And let's sing with the children. We may not have the best singing voices, but let's sing with them.
We're, we're kind of losing that piece of it or just having it happen organically rather than showing a screen and let's sing along with the cartoon figure on the screen. So anyways, that, that just kind of triggered me, but in terms of planning, I, I do think that it needs to happen organically every day based on, you know, what's happening that day. Yes, absolutely.
And, you know, if you're seeing trends in your classroom, then knowing that you need to start collecting certain materials to add in, if you're seeing children's play is deep into one area, then how can I, what can I bring in tomorrow or what can I get over the weekend? Um, To bring in, to kind of continue to scaffold their learning and get them Absolutely. More engaged. Yeah, absolutely. To plan every day. Yeah. Mm. Tell me your top five read alouds for young children. You're like, what?
Asking me this. Kristen . I wasn't prepared for this. Um, I don't know. I'll, I'll have to Google that. I don't know. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'll, can I tell you some of mine? Yes, please. Okay. The book with no pictures. Have you ever, have you ever read that one? Yes. I love that one. Um, the little old lady who wasn't afraid of anything. Have you read that one? Yes. Yes. I love that one. Tap the magic tree. Um, one dog canoe and the bog baby. Ooh, those are some of my favorite.
I'll have to get those. You know, what does come to mind? Have you heard of the bot, the, the book called not a box? Yes. And that's so powerful too because there's so many things kids could do with the box and so you could, you could have a whole thing surrounding a box and the creation of that. It's kind of like your whole philosophy on anything's a canvas, right? So yeah, um, yeah, I, that book is great. And there's a lot of, um, I'm really into the social emotional piece too.
There's a lot of books about feelings that I, I like that I have in my office. Actually I can't off the top of my head think of their titles, but yeah. Okay, so what does developmentally appropriate practice look like during circle time? What would a developmentally appropriate, let's say for four year olds, not going off to kindergarten the next year, um, so what would a developmentally appropriate circle time look like in your opinion? Oh, that's funny.
I am just having so many visions in my head right now, but I I think a developmentally appropriate circle time would be one that is flexible and movable One that is very responsive to the children if you're seeing that if you have a well executed Circle time, um, children are engaged, they are interacting, they are part of it. It's not just the teacher. Oftentimes teachers will find that their circle time, it's my time to perform, and so they're going to be my audience.
Um, and so, uh, I think that a well executed circle time looks like that. It's very flexible. Children are engaged. Once you see, and a very responsive teacher, once they see children kind of Not disengaging they want to leave the circle time, but they're still going. Yeah, that's when it becomes that feeling of oh my gosh what's happening. That's when my anxiety. Yeah, because teachers are not being responsive to children's needs are taking their cue.
And so That's when it falls apart, and then children are being blamed for, well, my circle time didn't work because Joey wasn't, Joey was hitting their friend, or so and so was, you know, interrupting, whatever it may be. It has to be responsive and flexible, and it has to be able to move with the children. Absolutely. Okay. So I show a video in one of my trainings and it's just a little clip of one of the teachers that used to work at my program, reading a book to children at circle time.
And I show it because none of the children are sitting on a carpet square or in an assigned spot, but every single child is engaged in that video in the story that is at hand. And I think that is. So powerful. And a lot of times, like teachers, early childhood teachers are like, um, I could never run a circle time without, without carpet squares or assigned spots. But my response to that is, is then you're not, you're not being responsive to the children.
You're not providing an engaging, engaging content that they actually care about. They don't, they don't care that what you're doing if you're not, you know, if you have to, you can't run a circle time without them sitting wherever they want to sit or sitting how they want to sit or sitting not on carpet squares. So you kind of have to like, think about what it is that you're trying to get them to. Learn or what you're presenting to the Children and the way that you're doing it.
And do they actually care about it? Absolutely. I, um, I go back to that whole idea of a checklist for circle time. Many teachers use it as okay. This is my time to do the calendar to do the weather to assign roles to the Children. Read a story all those things are trying to fill in in the circle time and you're losing them and they're disengaged and you know, some of those things I just listed off are not developmentally appropriate. Like why are we doing these things? Absolutely.
Okay. What does the developmentally appropriate art? area look like to art or craft or whatever it is? What does that look like for you for early childhood programs? Well, art is open all day to children. So it shouldn't be an area that's just open up for, Oh, this is our free choice time. Let's have the art area open. It's open up. It's opened all day. Sensory is there all day. The easels up all day for children to come and go as they wish.
There's open ended materials for them to create things as they wish. Um, there is no real direction. It's just open. And, and again, they are the leader of their, their journey and their learning. And, and that's just another way to support that. So it's always open ended. I love that. Okay. How about, um, outdoor play? How does that fit into development? Appropriate practice?
I've been fortunate and, um, in my career to work with a few programs that we did true indoor outdoor classroom where children can flow from inside to outside and what is, yeah, it's, it's the best. It truly is the best. Um, instead of having your scheduled recess time, what, what so many classrooms call it as recess. Um, people aren't using the outdoor enough.
Um, Children need to get out and explore and I'm a huge believer and I'm sure you are is whatever you have in the classroom you can have outside and you can have those environments or if they maybe they don't want to climb the jungle gym, but they want to paint outside because it just feels good. The sun is out and the air is fresh and they just, it's such a wonderful thing for kids, they want to read whatever it may be. They can explore.
Um, I had this awesome experience at my community college that I worked at where I was really a part of creating the outdoor space. We were doing a whole outdoor renovation project and we eliminated all of the play structures. It was like, there's no benefit for this. We can put big boulders in for kids to climb on. We can, you know, um, We had animals, we had goats, we had all these things, it was just so great. We had musical instruments outside.
We're not listening to music, we're playing the music. Um, and so, such a wide variety. And so I was, I feel like I was spoiled from that experience, because now every experience I go into, or every role I go into, I'm like, I want that, kids need this, you know? Um, okay. Last question. And this is kind of a biggie. So, and you've maybe answered it indirectly with other questions, but let's put it all together for everybody. So what does.
A developmentally appropriate environment as a whole look like when you walk into the classroom. We've already kind of touched on a few of the things, but is there anything else? So we talked about relationships. So we've talked about, um, uh, we've talked about being able to hear the children's voices more than the adults. We've talked about circle time. We've talked about process art, but as what else is in the environment and how the environment is run and set up, that would be.
Developmentally appropriate. It's a mutually respectful environment where, um, teachers are fully responsive to the needs of Children all the time. Um, where the teachers in the environment are supporting each other and the goal to support Children. And so those relationships are just everything is just flowing. Um, and it's always based around the needs of the Children.
Um, the environment is responsive to the needs of the Children in terms of Adding in materials when we need to add in materials. If we're seeing a certain, um, you know, thing go a certain way, we want to scaffold their learning. It's, um, ever changing based on the needs of the children. It's just, that's what it is about. It's about honoring children and allowing them to be children as long as possible and respecting them in a way that, you know, they should be respected.
Yes. Yeah. I think we could come up with so many examples, like, of what is developmentally appropriate but then also like, what isn't? And, um, yeah, I think also it's very, very important to make sure that each child feels represented in your classroom. Yeah, for sure. With, you know, their own families and their cultures and their communities and, um, so that everybody feels like they have a place there.
Yeah, um, and I feel like another big thing to note is that like The children run the classroom like they have the capability to bring a block to the kitchen to use it as a plate or whatever it may be, you know, there's like cross contamination of things.
And, um, I think that that's one thing that adults like to have control over is, you know, telling children where and when they can play and what they can play with and where they can't take things and where they can take things and, um, you know, Yeah, I think that when you see that the children are more in control of the space than the adults, I think that's another good sign that it's developmentally appropriate. For sure. Teachers releasing that control.
It's so funny that you bring that up with, you know, having the ability to bring something from the kitchen area to another area. And that causes so much stress for a teacher, I think. And when they just let go of that control. Oh my gosh, the learning that could take place in another area with an item from another area, incredible, right?
Absolutely. And then I think your stress level just goes down once you're like, once you, it's kind of like, um, the, the, where you have to be the type of therapy where you have to, and I'm not, I am not like likening teaching to needing therapy or in any way, shape or form, but, um, what is it where you have to like, If you've got something you're trying to work through, you have to like put yourself in front of it. Yes. Multiple times so that it just gets easier and easier and easier.
I think that that is what we can do in early childhood environments to make them more developmentally appropriate, is to like do things that make you feel like, ugh, as the teacher or caregiver, but have to do it multiple times because then over time that goes away. That feeling of, oh, like being out of control. Mm hmm. So that you need control. I think that over time it subsides and then it's just the anxiety releases and the stress releases and it's just so much more enjoyable to go to work.
And it feels more like play to you. Yeah, I, I 100 percent agree with that. And I also think teachers need to place themselves in, in the mindset of a child. Um, because none of us like to be boxed in, you know, and when we box people in, then they start to sort of rebel, right? And so I think that You know, the less we box children in and allow them to spread their wings and grow and explore the better for everybody all the way around. Absolutely. Yeah. That was gold.
I'm going to leave it at that. Okay. Um, so tell people where they can connect with you, Jean Marie. Where, what do you got going on? Yeah. So I started up an Instagram page called the early childhood point of view, the ECE POV. You can find me on Instagram and I just start. Started a few months ago, feeding information, all my experience and knowledge, just putting it out there.
I'm hoping to help and mentor maybe teachers who are looking to reinvent their teaching style, maybe even parents who don't know what a quality program should look like. So I'm just feeding information at this point and hope that I can touch the lives of teachers and parents. And in the end, it's touching the lives of children, which is so important to me. Absolutely.
Okay. So we'll link your Instagram in the show notes so that people can connect with you and find out more about how they can connect with you. Send you messages there if they have questions. Thank you for your time. Thank you for advocating for children. I appreciate you and the work that you're doing so much. Thank you so much, Kristen. If you liked what you heard today, share this podcast with your coworkers, admin, or maybe even your partner.
And I love getting five star reviews so more people can embrace play. Hit follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. Or connect with me on Instagram or my website, KristenRBPeterson. com. Until next time.