Have you Seen - Your Baby Can Read? - Page 3

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by jessicaSAR

We cannot really value play unless we are really able to see the kind of learning and developing that goes on when play is really unstructured and unappropriated. If we really believed that play is in and of itself important, then I think we would not feel compelled to replace the amazing world of child-directed play with our own overriding sense of what play should be teaching. There is a sort of mastery to unstructured play,of the self, and the will and the world that children cannot achieve when the play is planned by adults. And I think that lack of mastery lingers in ways that we do not yet fully understand.

Anyway, these are just thoughts that have been bumping around in my head all day.

Wow - absolutely fascinating thoughts. I too think there's often a lot of lip service given to play where there isn't really so much depth of importance given to it - but this really thought provoking. - Lillian

[LeftField]

Originally Posted by Sharon, RN

But I would be untruthful if I didn't say I wish my ds had taken to reading like a fish to water. But he didn't, and now that I don't have "experts" calling me all the time telling me that certain doom awaits him if he can't do everything at the level they expect him to, I feel alot better.

Anyway, that kinda went on a little longer than planned, but I just wanted to explain how some of us do get sucked into this "earlier is better" mentality.

Thank you for sharing this perspective. I sincerely appreciate it. I'm so sorry that you guys went through that. It's crazy that school expects all children to learn at the same level, at the same time and in the same order! It's just illogical. again.

[LeftField]

Originally Posted by Lillian J

Wow - absolutely fascinating thoughts. I too think there's often a lot of lip service given to play where there isn't really so much depth of importance given to it - but this really thought provoking. - Lillian

I also wholeheartedly agree with what Jessica said about unstructured play. When I sit, out of sight, and quietly watch my kids play, I'm struck by how intricate their game is and how they cycle through things like: inventing (a problem), brainstorming solutions, arguing over solutions in brainstorming but working out a consensus, and then actively solving the problem. It's very innocent looking, but if you analyze it, it's very mental. At times where I've attempted to enter the game, with good intentions, my creative contribution seemed so one-dimensional compared to what they had going on. And then the play dynamic seemed like some of the wind was taken out of the sails.

In my former work life, I was a curriculum developer and instructor for a software company (i.e. for adults). The biggest problems I repeatedly faced with colleagues was lack of imagination, lack of self-motivation and difficulty in seeing abstractions. I'm convinced that free play nurtures all three of these things, so it's educational IMHO.

[Aeress]

Play- so you might say that play is vital to learning right?

I left my job at a fantastic daycare center over the new assessment format they wanted us to follow. While I agree with doing some assessment, I tend to agree that it pushes teachers to begin structuring play more than they normally would. Suddenly you pull out toys becuase it teaches a skill rather than pulling out the toy becuase you heard the kids talking about it.

[Sharon, RN]

I love watching my son in unstructured play. Now, sometimes I'll run with his ideas and do some "schooling" with it, but I always give him time to do his thing. My dining room has it's own Lincoln Log/hotwheels track city in it right now!

[jessicaSAR]

In one of the articles I read (it may have been one that you posted Lillian) there was this story of a little boy who had created an elaborate game of postman using the back slats on a kitchen chair as his post office and pieces of paper. His Grandma then bought him a post office toy, and he never played the game again.

This image has been stuck in my head ever since I read the article. Once this game was no longer his he was unable to play it. I run across so many parents who tell me that their children simply cannot and will not play alone, and that they are always bugging the parents to play games with them or give them something to do. I think this is related to the increasing tendency for parents to try to "do" educational things and games with their kids at younger and younger ages. The kids seem to lose what ever that thing is inside them that enables them to initiate and follow through on their own ideas. As a former college professor, I can tell you that skills of independent thinking and initiating new ideas and following through on those ideas are very hard to "re-teach" to eighteen year olds.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by brendon

Play- so you might say that play is vital to learning right?

I've collected a number of articles to that effect. Take a browse through this page - preschool/kindergarten - the first two are by homeschoolers about homeschooling, but a lot of the others are by professional educators or researchers who have put a huge amount of time in with children, and they're all saying the same thing. Lillian

[Aeress]

Good point about buying the post office. I have a thing for toys, I love them, but my kids sure don't need them.

Today we went with our homeschool group to see an animal exhibit. We brought along a notebook and a camera. DD took pics of stuff she was interested in and drew 4-5 pictures of the animals she saw. She told her dad that she had made an "observation" about the animals and "I will write it down for you."
We have been playing (read dd5 and dd2) animals. Some animals have been to the vet, some live in a barn, some eat bugs. This was all dd's idea and we have just gone with it. We did view some animal cams on the web but we don't do alot with the internet.

Lillian- thanks for the links. have you always been interested in play?

I, as a learner, am researching play for a website. Right now, I am focusing on play and "smart toys". I wish there was better information for parents about smart toys and how they impact play but there is very little. I guess there isn't money for these type of studies becuase so many institutions do not value unstructured play.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by brendon

Lillian- thanks for the links. have you always been interested in play?

Interesting question. I guess so - or at least I've always been interested in the imagination, and the two things go hand in hand. And I think they're both essential in the style I paint in.

At one of our California homeschool conferences, Win and Bill Sweet, authors of Living Joyfully With Children, presented a workshop on "play" for adults - they find that adults have generally lost the ability to play, and need to actually be led into it.

On the run... - Lillian