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Apr. 1, 2005 Learning to Play; Playing to Learn - in Hawaii Hillel Weintraub, Future University - Hakodate

During the next year I'll be living in and traveling around some different places: first Hawaii, then Australia, next Canada and finally in some countries in Europe. During my travels, I will of course be thinking about teaching and learning, especially for young children, but also for the elderly, and in fact, for all of us. After many years of teaching in formal institutions in Japan, (about 20 in a junior/senior high school in Kyoto, and 4 at a new university in Hakodate) I'm now ready to explore some new learning spaces! In mid-March, I visited my son and his wife in Honolulu, Hawaii. They have a daughter Amelia who is turning two this month and we spend happy days together playing in the sand and reading stories. I was reminded many times of the importance of repetition with playful variation in her learning. For example, one of her favorite books is "Miss Bindergarten Stays Home From Kindergarten" (ISBN:0439442443) by Joseph Slate, Illustrated by Ashley Wolff; New York: Scholastic Book Services, 2000. She asks her mother or father to read this story almost every night, as it's one of her favorites. I read it to her as well, but I added a funny voice for one of the characters in the story. Amelia smiled and laughed a lot when I read the story this way, enjoying the variation on something already loved. She also loved to play "peek a boo" with everyone, especially around the table. Usually she was fed first so she finished eating before others and then she would hide around a chair or under the table and say "Peek a boo" to someone! While she was playing with me, she went under the table and when she popped up, there was a sound as she hit her head a little on the underside of the table. "Oh," I said, "Peek-a-bump!" Amelia gave me a big smile and repeated, "Peek-a-bump!" After that, we often played this familiar game with a new name! (Without her bumping her head, I must say!) Once a week for an hour, Amelia goes to a center called "Wee Play & Learn" or "WeePlay" for short. WeePlay was established with the purpose of helping children socialize and interact with each other as well as adult supervisors. Parents and guests are always welcome and in fact there are special times for parents and children to play together. The founder of "Wee Play" a businesswoman who also runs a connected childrenfs bookstore with her husband, said that nowadays, many parents are so busy that they forget to put aside some special time to play with their children, so the Center created a "Wee Are Family" time. For the class that I observed, there were many different activities, both structured and free, social/interactive and solitary. The children seemed under no special pressure from the staff of WeePlay, though many children were there with one parent, and there seemed to be a bit of social pressure from some of them in trying to get them to act in some particular way. It was amazing for me to see about twenty two-year olds, each so different, each with his/her own learning pace and style, each in his/her own world it seemed. The morning I visited WeePlay it was close to the Irish holiday of St. Patrick's Day, so many of the songs and dances and stories all had an Irish theme. Even the adult guides tried to speak with an Irish accent to the children. The 60 minute sessions were clearly structured, starting with singing a song to welcome each child, singing other songs, dancing and body movement, free play, and story time at the end. There seemed to be a lack of creative play - almost everything in the center was a product which was for sale, and some aspects seemed a bit commercial. I would have liked to have seen more childrenfs art around the room, but there was none. My visit to Hawaii was great fun, and provided me with some ideas for my own dream play and learning center! Let's Talk!

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