There is a photo of a huge green mound of fluffy sugar on the front page of today’s Globe and Mail, along with the headline, “How long can your four-year-old resist eating this marshmallow? (It matters more than you’d think)”. It links to this story inside, part of a series on the impact of play-based learning in Ontario’s new full-day kindergarten.
The story touches on how play can teach self-regulation and the importance of this skill. Here is what Tane Akamatsu, an educational psychologist and one of Reach’s founders, has said in the past about self-regulation in Sudbury schools:
The Marshmallow test, executive function and a Sudbury education
The marshmallow test goes like this. You put a marshmallow in front of a kid and say s/he can have it now. But you have to leave the room to do something. If they are willing to wait 15 minutes while you’re gone, when you come back, they can have two marshmallows. Research shows that the kids who can wait do better academically years down the road.
What executive functions are required here? Resisting the impulse to take the marshmallow, for one. Being able to keep the ultimate goal of two marshmallows in mind. Perhaps being able to distract oneself or deciding to do something else in the meantime so the temptation to take the marshmallow does not become too great.
Since a Sudbury education may or may not include traditional academics, a direct comparison between kids who do well in a traditional academic setting and kids who do well in a Sudbury setting is like comparing apples and oranges. However, we do know that executive function is not part of a standard curriculum. Could it be said to be part of a Sudbury “curriculum”?
A Sudbury curriculum is anything a child wants it to be. It is as individual as the students themselves, for it is they who determine how they will spend their time. Successful functioning within a Sudbury community requires the regulation of attention, memory, behaviour, impulses, planning and organization in order to be able to live and let live. Students who are not able to problem solve, whether through conversation or the formal JC or school meeting processes, do not last long at Sudbury schools. They may not even gain admission in the first place. Problem solving, whether academic or social, requires people to be able to understand other people’s perspectives, disagree without being disagreeable, remembering previous solutions to problems, planning for preventing problems in the future, and organizing the carrying out of solutions or restoring the peace.
Beyond problem solving, however, are other life skills such as goal setting, working toward a goal, persevering despite setbacks, concentration and focus, delaying gratification, and dealing with boredom. These are skills that are practiced daily, across any number of activities. Whether the next goal is to get to the next level in a computer game, to climb to the next branch on the big oak tree, or to do well on a college admission test, the same kinds of learning/work skills are needed.
I wonder how well Sudbury kids would do on the marshmallow test?