The Value of Play

    "Play is the highest form of research." -- often attributed to Albert Einstein, but this is apparently incorrect; N. V. Scarfe appears to be the person who said this first.

    Regardless, this is one of the primary quotes in use by my professors this semester, because I have been studying early childhood education, and, at least in the UVU community of early childhood professionals, play is considered one of the most important elements of a quality early childhood program, which is often left behind in favor of greater academics both in preschool and during the elementary and high school years.

    I kind of already knew this.

    Because of my job at Thanksgiving Point, I have seen firsthand how play-based learning can work. Kids beg their parents to go to Thanksgiving Point, whether it's to go see the butterflies, to go ride the ponies and the train, or to climb the giant playground (each different elements of a few of the venues at Thanksgiving Point).

    The thing is, I have been trained to work with kids and teach them in the middle of their play through a process called facilitation. In this process, I've been taught to try and spark kids' curiosity by asking them questions and nudging them to ask questions of their own, then encouraging them to explore to find the answers. This element of exploration puts the ball fully in the child's court--if we're exploring an animal skull and trying to determine what kind of animal it came from, there's nothing to stop a child from drawing the conclusion that the dolphin skull we are looking at is actually from a dinosaur (a real experience that someone had, which was later used to train me). These kinds of out-of-left-field answers are actually exactly what we want to see in the early stages, because it means the kid is exploring and using their imagination--and that is the first step to a great learning experience.

    From there, my job is to guide the child to find the right answer on their own by asking, "Why do you think it's a dinosaur? What about this hole in the top of its head? Do you know of a kind of dinosaur that has a hole in its head like that? I wonder if maybe this is a dinosaur that lived in the ocean; whales today have holes in their heads like this, and they use them to breathe. Do you think this dinosaur could have done something like that? (This would be an extra little hint to nudge the child's thoughts in the right direction.) What animals can you think of today that also have blowholes like whales?" Ultimately, the goal is to get the child to say dolphin a) without saying it first, b) without saying the kid is wrong that it's a dinosaur, and c) while thinking they came up with it entirely of their own brains, because for young children that's a huge confidence boost that encourages them to keep exploring. Sometimes they catch on quickly; other times it takes a few minutes of laying breadcrumb-trails to guide them to finding the answer themselves. 

    But that's play-based learning. What about straight-up free play?

    Well, here are a few things I've learned in my classes.

    One: There's something called Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) that early childhood educators strive to follow. It's based on the idea that we need to teach kids what they are developmentally ready for, rather than what parents, principles, and government education boards think they should know by a certain age. In the early childhood realm (so, preschool, mostly), DAP involves thinking about each child individually--about how old they are (so, where they should be at in their development), about what they are used to in the culture they've grown up in (I could go on a rant about this, but I'll save that for another day), and about them individually (where they're actually at in their development). For example, DAP says that while we shouldn't expect a child who is blind to create the same kind of visual art as all the other children in the preschool classroom, we should still make ways for them to participate through more tactile art supplies (play dough, clay, shaving cream and glue, etc.) because the exploration of the supplies, more than the final product, is what will help the child's development.

    Two: DAP says children need to be allowed to play freely, as children play, with some supervision to make sure no one gets hurt. They need to be allowed to work with other children, to get in fights and learn to resolve the issues, to pretend they are firefighters or doctors or parents or friends (I once watched two sisters playing a game they called "Sisters," so yes, children have to practice being friends by playing at being friends.). Free play and dramatic play like this help kids learn the social skills they'll need to be good friends later in life, and as the old quote says, "The best way to have a friend is to be a friend." For example, a child who bites other children on the playground, even if it's due to an actual inability to regulate their emotions, is going to have a hard time making friends if the behavior continues long-term, because other children will learn pretty quickly that playing with That Child isn't fun because you end up getting hurt--and actually, this is one situation where educators step in and work extra hard to teach that child good social skills, because if they don't learn them now it's going to be tough for them to find a friend group later on, and that leads to a whole other host of potential issues.

    Three: Not only does free dramatic play teach children social skills, it also helps them to construct their knowledge of the world by playing at things they've seen or experienced in their day-to-day life, such as buying a house or going to the doctor. Additionally, play helps them cope with otherwise stressful situations because they can work through the emotions of the situation through play in a low-risk way--after all, it's play, and you're supposed to yell at that friend in order to stay in the play because that's what your character would do. There's a reason it's called dramatic play.

    Four: The final kind of play I'm going to talk about is object play, where children take open-ended materials (art supplies, blocks, balls, fine motor manipulatives, etc.) and play with them however they like, from making a space ship out of a cardboard box to building the highest tower in the block center. This kind of play helps encourage children's creativity while also building their motor skills, and the motor skills developed by holding a paintbrush, using a large pair of tweezers to pick up an object in the sensory bin, or stack two blocks atop one another are many of the same motor skills they will need to use a pencil.

    It's all play, and it looks pointless from an outside perspective that hasn't been taught the ways that play helps children grow. My list here doesn't even begin to be comprehensive! During play, children practice higher-order thinking skills unseen in other contexts, problem-solving, negotiation, stress management, and more. It's a low-risk way to practice many things, and it heightens endorphin levels and puts the brain in a state where it will soak up new information like a sponge.

    To close, here is a video I found (about martial arts, no less!) that talks about how play can help adults, too, through the same relax-and-learn brain mechanics we see in children. Whether you've done martial arts or not, I recommend watching it, because it's a fascinating application of the same concepts I've been learning about all semester long.

    So, if you're a parent, and all you see when you go into your child's preschool is play, play, and more play, just in different ways and formats (art activities, centers time, playground time, etc.), give your child's preschool a little shout-out for including such an important element in their program. While play isn't everything, because kids do need to learn some academics, it's importance can't be understated, because leaving play out entirely would be just as bad or worse for children's learning in academic areas as giving them free rein to do nothing but play would be. As one of my professors likes to say, "You've got the people who play, and you've got the people who do academics, and you've got to make those two sides meet in the middle."