Flow and Autonomy

Autonomy and Flow

Last night I digitally presented for a group of preschools here in Sweden. The more I talk about play and strive to advocate for play and encourage others to advocate for play - the more I become aware that this word play is problematic… this is probably evident in many of my recent posts
Trouble with Play for instance.

Throughout the one and half decades of blogging and writing I have had multiple struggles with words, concepts and approaches that I have delved into, publicly through my writing, to find my story - which ultimately brought me to creating the Original Learning Approach (with the full knowledge from the very start that this would be a constantly evolving approach - a space where we can change our minds when we learn new things through reading, research and/or experience). The competent child has been a concept that I have struggled with - what does it actually mean, how is the way we interpreting affecting the way we teach? The concept of “special rights” which I now thoroughly reject - as I think it is very important that we recognise that

all children have the same rights, but that some children need more support than other children to access their rights.

Children with specific needs don’t have a separate list of rights. I have, also over the last decade, shifted from identifying as a Reggio Emilia Approach inspired educator, to a Malaguzzi inspired educator, and finally identifying as a play-responsive educator within the Original Learning Approach. This is not to say that I have stopped being inspired by the wisdom of Malaguzzi or the experiences shared from the early years education system in Reggio Emilia, Italy - it simply means I have found my own path, my own pedagogical identity.

I encourage others to become play-responsive educators within the pedagogical approach or method that they identify with, and use the Original Learning Approach as a reflective tool to better understand their own pedagogical stance.

The Original Learning Approach was, from the very beginning, a space for reflection - not to convince others to abandon their pedagogical identity but to help them define it, refine it and become the educator they have always envisioned (with the room to allow their vision to expand or change if they so choose). It is supposed to work within policy heavy settings that focus on academics, activities and training (even from a very young age) to provide opportunities for autonomy and flow within this system.

Because, while I grapple with the word play, I feel very confident (well at least for now) that providing children with a sense of autonomy and opportunities to achieve flow is vital for well-being, as well as the evolving child (cognitively, socially, emotionally, physically and spiritually). And flow and autonomy can be applied to both playing and learning. The Original Learning Approach is the interweaving of playing, learning and teaching - not play separated from learning and/or teaching but as an integral part.

Striving for autonomy and flow will result in intrinsically motivated learners. Because if the children are in flow they are motivated to be there. Children (and adults) who feel autonomous will feel the liberation to animate their motivation, to freely explore, discover, learn and teach. Because in all of my observations of children in flow (both learning and play flow) children are active agents where knowledge and experiences are traversing in multiple directions - and not just from adult to child.

In my Substack post from December 2023 entitled The Story of Autonomy I write about collective autonomy and the consequences of taking away the ability of making choices, as well as some strategies that I have used over the years to promote a sense of collective autonomy.

In September 2024 I wrote Flow a post that flows together with multiple other posts I had been writing - about flow - at that time… there is a focus on unhurriedness and entanglement.

In a way I feel more and more that the word “play” gets used when the flow and autonomy is not serving a purpose that the current society values. Which means what is being labeled as play can shift over time, it is highly political in nature, as it is often leaders making decisions about what is useful, what should be invested in, what is valued, and makes it susceptible to being researched and advocated for through specific lenses - play as pedagogy, play as therapy, play for physical fitness etc etc etc
Each of these lenses are true and accurate and important, but they all fail to convey the enormity, complexity and pervasive nature of “play”. Because for some people their work is play, because they have autonomy and flow - I have experienced that many many times and continue to - I also know that much of my learning has felt like play - because I was intrinsically motivated, entered a state of flow and had a sense of autonomy - I have also experienced learning which was hard to almost impossible to be motivated about, and little to no energy was used - the bare minimum to get by with the grade/level I wanted - while self-motivated learning goes above and beyond this.

These moments of work and learning are valued and don’t get labelled play. The same as learning to ride a bike… it’s not called playing to be able to ride a bike, even if this is for very many children, exactly what is happening… they are self motivated to be able to ride, they keep trying and trying, because endorphins are being released. The same for learning to walk - yet it is play that is the real motivator of being able to walk. The babies “learning” to walk are self motivated, they fail many times but their brain is releasing those play-feel-good endorphins to keep them going until they have mastered getting about the place on two feet - then they play to jump, to run, to spin, to negotiate stairs - but we call all of this play for “learning” because it is useful and it means we are constantly failing to notice the magnitude of play. Play is what makes us human.

So if schools are having a problem with the word play - because of this massive failure to understand what play truly is… then why not focus on the words autonomy and flow? How do we teach for collective autonomy? How do we teach for flow? Being play responsive educators teaches us how we can do this.

But, the cynic in me wonders if the school system, which is inherently a political thing (it’s governments that are making the decisions about curriculums, books, length of breaks, how many hours of lessons, how much is invested, number of children per class etc etc etc), actually wants collective autonomy, flow, knowledge, curiosity and creativity , or whether the real purpose of education is compliance and specific content?

one of many many falls before mastering how to ride a bike