228 - Creating Play Taxonomies with Max Alexander

Declarative language and empathy sit at the heart of how we support behaviour at Children of the Forest. Rather than issuing commands, we describe what we notice and help people see the effect their actions have on those around them. Most of the time, that’s enough to shift things. There have been a few times, with different groups, where I’ve run into the same wall. The approach works best when someone is visibly affected. What about when a child is talking unkindly about a person who isn’t there? Or when the person being discussed is unaware, or simply unbothered? If they’re happy either way, the drive to change behaviour out of care for them disappears. This is a professional discussion in the truest sense. We take one idea and turn it over, look at it from different angles, throw “what if” scenarios at each other and push back where we disagree. We don’t come away with a tidy solution, and that’s deliberate. The value is in extending our own thinking, and hopefully yours. In this episode we explore: Why empathy-based behaviour support depends on a visible impact, and what happens when there isn’t one Gossip, venting and “isn’t that person annoying” as a normal part of human social life How to make room for frustration without endorsing unkindness Encouraging empathetic conversation without imposing our own will or relying on authority The tension between letting group dynamics unfold naturally and our duty of care for the social and emotional wellbeing of everyone in our sessions What being Ofsted registered and holding safeguarding roles asks of us in these moments Supporting the podcast The Forest School Podcast has been running for years now, and it’s free for everyone. We don’t offer bonus content or extras on Patreon, so supporting us is simply a way of helping the show keep going. Contributions from as little as £2 a month cover our running costs and buy the books we read and share with you all. We’re genuinely grateful to everyone who chooses to, and is able to, chip in. patreon.com/TheForestSchoolPodcast

Wem and I get into a concept neither of us had a name for until this week: inessential weirdness. It comes from a video by organisational psychologist Pippi Kessler, and once you've got the term you start seeing it everywhere. We open with my Ofsted saga (someone reported me to Ofsted over a cropped screenshot of me singing with a puppet, long story, I passed with zero concerns), then get into the real conversation. Pippi's video looks at activist groups and asks what actually alienates working class people from community spaces. The answer isn't posh venues or fancy food, it's things like unsalted vegan potluck dishes and unexplained rituals that have nothing to do with why people showed up. We spend the rest of the episode pulling that idea apart and applying it to forest school and CPD spaces. Where's the line between weird that's essential to what we do and weird that's just unexamined habit? We talk about whimsical go-arounds, breathwork, sit spots, hierarchy, virtue signalling, agency, and why "can you explain why we're doing this" is the best test for whether something belongs. We also get into the class dimension of all this, how much time, money and prior exposure it takes to feel comfortable with certain kinds of "weird," and why that matters if you actually want your sessions to be open to people outside your existing community. Not an argument against weirdness. We love weird. It's an argument for knowing why you're doing it. Watch the video that started this conversation: Pippi Kessler, "Inessential Weirdness" — https://www.instagram.com/p/DbWVC6rPBaL/ More on Pippi's work: https://www.pippikessler.org/

In this episode, Wem and I chatted about feedback from previous episodes, preparing for incoming winter seasons, and whether it's possible to 'procrastinate' at Forest School.

This week Wem and I get into something that's been rumbling through forest school Facebook groups all summer: fires, heatwaves, drought, and where individual choice ends and collective responsibility begins. It started with a post about forest school leaders lighting fires during the current UK drought, and the pile of comments underneath it. Some people were arguing it's down to individual practitioners, their training and their risk benefit assessments. Others were pointing at local fire services actively fighting wildfires and asking whether "I've done my RBA" is really enough justification right now. We try to pull that apart properly rather than picking a side. Along the way we talk about the headline game, a tool I use for weighing up risky decisions, and how it applies just as well to cancelling a session as it does to lighting a fire. We get into whether forest school is a community or a collection of individuals doing their own thing, my ongoing argument against the mycelial network metaphor and my pitch for lichen instead, and where the line sits between influencing someone's practice and controlling it. We finish on training and accrediting bodies, what a climate-literate Forest School Leader Level 3 might actually need to cover, and how we might get better at critiquing each other's practice without it turning into a pile-on. Forest School Association, the UK's professional body for Forest School, which runs the Recognised Provider and Endorsed Trainer schemes we talk about: forestschoolassociation.org

This week I'm joined by Ellie J, known online as Clown Daddy. I first came across her work online and knew straight away that forest school leaders and outdoor educators would get something out of hearing how she thinks about performance, status and play. Ellie trained as an actress at NYU before studying at the famous L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, sometimes called clown school even though it teaches far more than that. She now works as an actress, clown and puppeteer, blending all three into what she calls Clown Daddy, and her current show is a one woman version of Hamlet built entirely around the idea that the rest of the cast simply doesn't turn up. We talk about what happens when you take something as wordy and prescriptive as Shakespeare and hand it over to clowning instead. From there the conversation opens out into the stuff I really wanted to get into: status and hierarchy, the courage it takes to fail in front of a group, and why safety has to come before play, not the other way round. Ellie draws a brilliant distinction between offering someone a single kernel of popcorn and tipping the whole bucket over their head, and it maps almost exactly onto how I think about pushing kids gently rather than shocking them into growth. We also get into the darker side of performance training, the Philippe Gaulier school of "you are a piece of crap on my boot" teaching, and whether that culture still has a place anywhere. Ellie's answer is more generous than I expected. There's a good stretch on consent in performance, on reading a room without ever handing someone a form to fill in, and on why she doesn't record her workshops or shows. And we finish on nature, puppetry, and pine needle confetti, which I am now determined to actually make. Clown Daddy's website: clown-daddy.com