| Re: Child Research Net Newsletter November 12, 1999 |
From: Dee Dickinson (11/26/1999 15:59:00) <http://www.newhorizons.org/>
Dear Friends at CRN,
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. I have been meaning to answer your request for ideas about play, and today seems an appropriate time to do so. It is very fortunate when we find no difference between work and play--that is an ideal way to live in the world, and I feel that way about my work. There is also a close connection between love and play. The love between parent and child, between spouses and close friends often is often expressed in playfulness. What a wonderful world it would be if there were more love and play among all people.
It has often been said (and I can't remember who said it first) that the work of childhood is play. Children learn about the world by playing the roles they will some day assume; they learn about learning by playing games; and they learn how to live in harmony with others by playing with them. It is ironic that at the present time, as schools strive to increase academic achievement many of them are eliminating the very subjects and processes that can lead to greater success in learning for students at all ability levels. We are even seeing greater pressure on children in the pre-school and kindergarten years to focus on learning academic subjects through timed work sheets instead of open-ended, playful, creative experiences that help them fall in love with learning.
The arts - the visual arts, music, dance, drama--are often the first to be cut in favor of focusing on reading, writing, math, and communication, which of course are essential to learn. Yet the arts offer children opportunities to play and experiment with their ideas, help them to learn the discipline of seeing projects through from beginning to end, help them to learn self-evaluation, and lead to their wanting to revise and rework a project until it seems to be successful. These are the very subjects that offer the means to increasing proficiency in the basic skills, and they reach the diversity of students that exist in every classroom. It is essential that we pay close attention to neurological findings that the emotions play a crucial role in learning--for better or worse. Children who are unduly stressed, threatened, or bored by learning experiences will not likely become lifelong learners in the best sense of the term. On the other hand, when children fall in love with learning and find that it is as much fun as play, then they will continue to be curious, dedicated learners throughout life.
Happy Thanksgiving to all at CRN! I am now going to play in the kitchen and prepare a turkey dinner for my family. This evening we will begin our feast by each telling about what we are most grateful for this year, and we will tell happy stories and laugh a lot. During the day we will share with others less fortunate and hope that one day their lives will also be filled with love and play.
Best wishes, Dee Dickinson |
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