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Play
What is Play? Play as an emergent process. The role of
play in the development of self-regulation.
Should teachers examine play as a model for instruction?
1. My Starting Place
1.1 In February 2008, a series of articles in the mainstream press appeared all focused on the same topic: play. These articles proclaimed the importance of imaginative play for young children, pointing to a variety of positive outcomes: 1) developing executive function and self-regulation, 2) since executive function is a better predictor of school success than IQ, better school success, 3) stronger langauge development, and 4) decreased impulsivity. I read and discussed these articles with my colleagues and shared them with the parents of my students. These articles served to remined me of, and validate, some of the reasons why I insist that my kindergarten students have at least one hour of uniterrupted free-play each and every day. The articles follow:
NPR article: Creative Play Makes for Kids in Control (February 28, 2008)
NPR article: Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills (February 21, 2008)
NY Times: Taking Play Seriously (February 17, 2008)
1.2 I have attached an essay that
I included in my weekly parent newsletter this past year. In
this essay, I discuss a particular experience that occured during Worktime
(my name for free time). My story centered on what the magic
that occurs during Worktime: children cooperating, responding,
creating, experimenting, etc.
Classroom Newsletter: The Magic of Worktime (October 17, 2008)
2. Brain and Behavior Summer Institute 2009
I am currently attending, along with 11 other teachers, the Brain and Behavior Summer Institute 2009, led by Paul Grobstein. In this institute we are grappling with how the brain processes information and produces behavior, how to apply this information to our classrooms, and tying it together with the concept of emergence and emergent pedagogy. Emergence is the idea that simple things interacting in simple ways can create complicated outcomes.
Part of our responsibilities as a participant in open-ended
transactional inquiry, is to explore a topic of interest to
ourselves and creating a website to gather our thoughts and resources,
and to present those thoughts to our Institute community and the
external community as well. I began my explorations here, with
a big list of possible areas to explore. I embarked on my journey
without much purpose, just exploring to see what I could find
(some of my notes and resources can be found here).
I began to notice that many of my possible topics could be, and often
were, linked together under the broader topic of "the development of
self-regulation" in children. My next stop was here, where
I began to develop a page on "The Development of Self-Regulation
and it's Impact on Academic Success". The research varies on
describing the different kinds of self-regulation, the different links
between the different kinds, as well as the areas of the brain that
control self-regulation. What became fairly clear to me is that
the brain is an emergent system and within the brain are many different
areas (or boxes) that interact together and trying to separate out each
contribution to self-regulation was not really useful. What was
useful is that research seemed fairly consistent in one point:
self-regulation is more strongly linked to school success than
IQ.
Now new throughts arose. Perhaps instead of trying to
determine how self-regulation develops in the brain, perhaps I needed
to examine what kinds of experiences help promote the development of
self-regulation. I remembered the recent surge in interest in the
role of unstructured play in the development of self-regulation.
I had arrived at a new starting point! Time to focus on play as
an emergent system...
3. What I've discovered and my
Emerging Thoughts on
Play and Emergence
Emergence: simple things interacting in simple ways with complex/sophisticated outcomes. Play seems to be a ideal example of an emergent system.
On the internet there is an ample
supply of parents, educators, and researchers advocating for play and
lamenting the shrinking
amounts of time devoted to play in school. Indeed the National
Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) hosted its
National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development in June
2009, "Play: Where Learning Begins". The conference focused on
the importance in play in learning. There is also a large
supply of research linking open-ended play to the development of
self-regulation and academic success.
Why is it then that
the amount of unstructured play time for kids has been largely phased
out of schools, even at the kindergarten level? A review of the
first ten results of a google search for "kindergarten daily schedule"
revealed that many kindergarten classrooms have no indoor free play
time and an average recess of 29 minutes. What is causing this disparity between what
we say is important and what is the reality of the school experience? Perhaps
it is the
pressure from external assessments?? Other ideas?
Can we begin to
look at play as not just something fun and physically important?
How about play as a powerful form of emergent pedagogy?
Furthermore, can this play pedagogy be utilized beyond the early
childhood
realm? Why does the emphasis turn away from play once children
enter the grades?
Upon further
investigation, I discovered there is actually strong support this idea
of play as a curricular model, from both classic and modern educational
theorists.
In the article Serious Play in the Classroom: How Messing Around Can Win You the Nobel Prize (Childhood Education, Spring 1992), Selma Wassermann argues, "virtually every important concept to be taught - whether it be at the primary, intermediate or graduate level or whether it be in science, math, economics or business management - can be taught through the medium of serious play".
Jean Piaget,
famous for his theory
of cognitive development, frequently championed play and described
the kind of experiences characteristic of play pedagogy.
“Play is the answer to the
question -- How does anything new ever come about?”
Childhood
Education, Sandra J. Stone an article entitled Integrating
Play into the Curriculum (Winter 1995)
David Truss: The Pedagogy of Play - David is pondering many of the same questions that I am about play...
Topoi: Pedagogy
of Play (September 2005)
Early Learning: Play
as Pedagogy
Studying Teacher
Education: Developing
an Integrated Play-Based Pedagogy in Preservice Teacher Education
(November 2007)
Interestingly, the
video game industry seems to have embraced this idea of Pedagogy and
play:
- Half-Real -
Dictionary of Video Game Theory
defines Emergence as "Game type where variation appears by the
interaction between elements in the game. Emergence games often
surprise players and even the designers of the game."
- Emergent
Gameplay
- Pixels, Programming, Play, and Pedagogy
People and organizations proclaiming
the importance of play:
National Education Association: The Power of Play (May
2009) - This article actully focuses on the importance of play for
adults.
NAEYC: The Importance
of Play
American Association of Pediatrics: The Importance of
Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong
Parent-Child Bonds (January 2007)
Alliance for Childhood: Crisis
in Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School
Illinois Early Learning Project: Young Children Need to Play
Braden Kelley of Business Strategy Innovation: The
Importance of Play to Innovation
National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State
Departments of Education: Recess and
the Importance of Play
People and research linking play to development of self-regulation:
Science Daily: Self-regulation
Abilities, Beyond Intelligence, Play Major Role In Early Achievement
(May 29, 2007)
Young Children: Developing
Self-Regulation in Kindergarten (March 2008)
Illinois Early Learning Project: Play and
Self-Regulation in Preschool
Early Childhood Research Quarterly: Self-regulation
in Young Children (Summer 2002)
More detailed information about my
examination of play time in kindergarten schedules:
Sample
Kindergarten Schedules
4. Other Resources
Wall Street Journal: German Tots Learn to Answer the Call of Nature (April 14, 2008)
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Conventions on the Rights of the Child, "recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts."
Attachment | Size |
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worktime_essay.pdf | 353.38 KB |
worktime_essay_pict.jpg | 676.91 KB |
playatwork.jpg | 143.55 KB |
brain.jpg | 31.38 KB |