Provocations

Provocations are enhancements you place out to ‘provoke’ new learning. They are part of many educational approaches around the world but there are a few things to consider before you dive right in.

An example of a provocation might be a typewriter. (If you know me well you know how much I hate typewriters and how much I bang on about them, patience – I’ll get to my point)

Imagine you’ve been to a charity shop and found a typewriter. You get excited because you’ve seen aesthetically beautiful rooms on Instagram and you’ve joined the ranks.

What do you expect to happen?

(This is a tough question. I ask this when I see typewriters in rooms.)

Practitioners often push keys and say, “use it.”

“How do they know how to use it?” I ask.

“They’ll explore and find out.”

What will they learn by exploring?

Think back to our early post on Play Vs. Exploration. Exploration is destructive, it needs to be. Children pick things up and throw them. They mash things together. They do whatever they need to to make sense of a resource.

Not everyone will of course, those with some understanding of the mechanics of a typewriter will have a foot up from the others. But that’s likely to be very few children these days.

So, what will most likely happen is at least one child in your cohort will do something to the typewriter that breaks it or pauses its operation and requires intervention.

They naturally explore. They’re not trying to break it; they’re trying to make sense of it.

Many practitioners are committed to the idea that a provocation needs to be beautiful. Ditch the idea of it being beautiful. Provocations should be a small step from the familiar or similar, regardless of what they look like. A small step into the unknown so that children can apply what they already know and add new knowledge or skills on top.

Let’s explore an example of when a typewriter makes sense:

In this instance the child has a reason for the typewriter to be presented and some understanding of printing. You would, however, expect some elements of exploration still.

How should I set up a provocation?

This is entirely up to you. I believe children do need an element of discovery, but it all depends on how the team manage the unexpected. Where provocations are more closely related to previous experiences and exploration is likely to be less destructive you may wish to display a resource and allow free play. Where it’s disconnected and possible expensive, this needs adult monitoring.

In a future post we’re going to explore having empty tables in the context of provocations. Can children create their own learning opportunities rather than have them set up by adults?