Department of Environmental Studies DISSERTATION COMMITTEE PAGE The undersigned have examined the dissertation entitled: Monkey Brains and Monkey Bars: An ecological approach to the values of school recess, presented by Emily L. Stanley, candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and hereby certify that it is accepted*. K. Heidi Watts, Committee Chair (Associate Faculty, Antioch University New England) Louise Chawla (Professor, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado, Denver) Elizabeth McCann (Core Faculty and Director of Environmental Education, Antioch University New England) Defense Date: April 30, 2010 Date Approved by all committee members: April 30, 2010 Date Submitted to the Registrar‟s Office: May 13, 2010 *Signatures are on file with the Registrar‟s Office at Antioch University New England. MONKEY BRAINS AND MONKEY BARS: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE VALUES OF SCHOOL RECESS By Emily L. Stanley A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England 2010 Copyright by Emily L. Stanley 2010 All Rights Reserved Dedication To Margaret Byrd Rawson, for her enduring vision of the good life in childhood. i Acknowledgements For their continual support, wisdom and encouragement, I thank my dissertation committee members. I am especially grateful to Heidi Watts for urging me to study the fascinating phenomena that existed right in front of me and for taking as much pleasure in them as I did, to Louise Chawla for introducing me to a way of perceiving and describing the world of children‟s experience that was a perfect fit for this study, and to Libby McCann for accompanying me in this process with a sympathetic ear and a sharp eye for important details. I gratefully acknowledge as well the support of the other Antioch New England faculty and students who became my extended cohort. To the members of the Jemicy School community – parents, fellow teachers past and present, alumni, administrators, staff and board members – I extend my heartfelt appreciation for enthusiastic support and willingness to offer up your insights and memories. And, to the Jemicy students who are the true experts on play, special thanks for sharing your precious recess time with me. May you encounter many monkey brains along the paths of this good life. ii Monkey brains and monkey bars: An ecological approach to the values of school recess Abstract Recess is a cherished part of the school day for countless children. Its value, however, has been increasingly questioned in many communities as academic performance standards and management of playground risks take precedence over play. This research examined the multiple outdoor play values held by constituents of a small, independent school for dyslexic students. Students have the choice of several recess options, including traditional playground equipment and a woodland with a stream. Ethnographic methods, including videotaped observations and interviews, were used to inquire into the values that children demonstrated through activity in their chosen play settings, as well as those expressed by their parents, teachers, school administrators and alumni. A theoretical framework of ecological psychology integrated the theory of affordances, behavior settings, and nested systems to describe the values of each group regarding outdoor play in school. Over the course of the study, most elementary students, and some middle school students, followed a longstanding pattern of selecting the woods as their preferred play setting, where they established territory and participated in practices such as creating a barter economy, foraging for human and natural artifacts (such as wood, metal, and “monkey brains”), searching for animals, constructing forts, and engaging in other forms of fun. Children selecting the playground structures (including a sport court, swings and “monkey bars”) expressed the desire for a more managed space, or for larger peer group activity. iii Presented as portraits of children‟s encounters with their play settings, results demonstrated that the appeal of the woods setting correlated with a far greater diversity of affordances (action possibilities) than the traditional fixed play structures, as well as providing a respite from adult expectations and the opportunity to establish both personal identity and friendships in a dynamic, ongoing social setting. Adult respondents expressed commitment to the experiential learning that occurs through recess play, particularly in the woods. As schools are increasingly identified as potential havens for nurturing competent, enduring relationships with outdoor environments, this study emphasizes that the complex ecological context of schoolyard play should be considered in policy decisions affecting recess design and practice. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of Contents v List of tables vii List of figures vii Preface 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 5 Research Questions 9 Structure of the Dissertation 10 Case Description: Jemicy School 10 Chapter 2: Literature review 15 Part 1: The child-nature relationship 16 Part 2: The relationship between children‟s well-being and outdoor environments 26 Part 3: Children‟s experience of outdoor environments in school 32 Chapter 3: Theoretical framework: Ecological approaches 44 Affordances 44 Behavior settings 46 Nested systems 47 Play as environmental experience 50 Chapter 4: Methods 53 Portraiture 53 Case study and ethnography 54 Participant observation 56 Description of research methods 59 Data analysis 65 Ethical considerations 68 Chapter 5: Results The behavior settings of recess 71 Alumni values 87 Administration values 97 Student portraits 106 v Alex and Jenny: “Organized chaos” 108 Elizabeth: “Wonder” 118 Brian: “The outside child” 124 Maria and Henry: “Just fun” 130 Lincoln: “Having the forest in mind” 139 Michelle: “Leveling the playing field” 148 Abby: “Creating common ground” 156 Mark: “Free to be my own self” 163 Jonathan: “Almost like real life” 172 Chapter 6: Discussion 181 Microsystem 182 Competence and creativity 182 Green areas: Gray areas 183 Social capital 184 Reciprocal relationships 185 Loose and connected parts 186 Ownership and agency 187 Time 188 Interaction and retreat: Accommodating differences 190 Mesosystem 196 Exosystem 197 Macrosystem 198 Risk and safety 199 Legitimizing outdoor play 203 Chapter 7: Conclusions: Limitations, recommendations, implications 206 Significance 206 Subjectivity 207 Implications for practice: Outdoor play and environmental learning 207 Implications for further inquiry 212 Afterword 216 Literature cited 218 Appendices A. Jemicy School Philosophy 227 B. Jemicy School Fort Treaty 229 C. Selection criteria: student and alumni participants 230 D. Informed consent letters for participants 232 E. Interview guides for participants 236 F. Online survey questions for alumni 239 vi List of Tables Table 1: Selection criteria and data sources for participants 59 Table 2: Jemicy recess observation times and places 72 Table 3: Activities of Jemicy School‟s play settings 73 Table 4: Woods recess activities recalled by alumni 92 Table 5: Student portrait themes 107 List of Figures Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner‟s nested systems 47 Figure 2: Jemicy School outdoor play areas 75 Figure 3: Woods/Playground preference 81 Figure 4: Values at different system levels 198 vii Preface: Valuing outdoor play in school Recollections of my own childhood recesses evoke some painful images. There was a fairly traditional public school playground, with swings, slide, monkey bars and a monstrosity of centrifugal force called the “Ocean Wave,” which seemed designed to perpetually fling small children onto the hard, knee-scraping asphalt. I remember reluctantly lining up for jump rope competitions and enduring the blazing, seat-scorching surface of the slide. But mostly I recall what I couldn‟t do, constrained by the cultural codes of that time and place: climb on the monkey bars (unthinkable in a dress), jump off the swings (ditto), and certainly never take part in touch football. It was in the early fall when I was about nine that a friend and I, wandering off one day to the cool, wooded perimeter of the football field, discovered a patch of jewelweed growing taller than our heads. I knew how to make the swollen seed pods pop, and this fun led us to imagine that we had a secret arsenal to use against invading boys. With the urgency of knowing we were violating accepted recess behavior, we quickly collected rocks to lay out the perimeter of a house. Perhaps it was only a matter of days until we were discovered and chased out by our teacher, but the time spent in this spot expands in my memory to months of shared, secretive play. I have been a teacher at the Jemicy School for 23 years, having arrived as a tutor trained in methods of helping dyslexic children cope with language-related disabilities. When a position teaching nature science became available, I immediately leapt for it, in spite of having had no formal training in science. Instead, I had spent my childhood outdoors developing a love and knowledge of nature, and this opening seemed meant for me. What I didn‟t know, I assumed that I would learn along the way. 1 Over these years, I have learned a great deal about teaching science, yet of equal significance to me are the dimensions of children‟s lives that educators often neglect to see: interstices between the “real” venues of formal instruction in school. Recess is one of these gaps. When children leave our classrooms to go play outside, we adults often check out of our teaching brains. As long as the children seem happy and safe, we pay very little attention to what they are actually doing, and the meanings that their activities have for them. We may be excellent practitioners and researchers in our classrooms, but recess is often regarded in much the same way as when we were children: a break from work. This was precisely what I did for most of my teaching career at Jemicy. When I did not have recess duty, I was relieved to have a break.

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