Importance of Play: Rethinking Education Reform Vaughn Hokanson

Professor Joseph Griffin English 252 1 June 2013

Hokanson 1

Vaughn Hokanson Professor Joseph Griffin English 252 1 June 2013 Importance of Play: Rethinking Education Reform The headlines in print newspapers, online news articles, and political blogs bewail the state of the American education system and enumerate the many problems that American students are facing as they try to navigate their primary, secondary, and post-secondary educations. Because of the depth of the problem, even articles and books that are inflammatory and exaggerated get published and many echo the extreme view voiced by Sharon Rose Sugar, who in her 2010 book The Silent Crisis Destroying Americas Brightest Minds, ranted that talented and gifted students are not able to achieve academic success, fulfill their potential, and obtain their American dream, because the American education system is malfunctioning (7). As parents, teachers and school administrators work to navigate the many problems in American educational systems they need to contemplate the reality that education can be made fun for children and for teachers by increasing the incorporation of active learning and play into the educational experience. More importantly, they need to not ignore the possibility that play could be a key ingredient to making American education function again. As educational experts try to sort through the conflicting ideas and philosophies that govern Americas school systems and meet the challenges that todays students face, they may find themselves posing the questionand answering in a similar wayas asked by a retired

Hokanson 2

teacher and Dr. of Education, Gary Gordon: Can our school systems, which have been very resistant to change, meet these challenges? Not by doing more of what theyre doing today (1). More of what they are doing today equates to more inactive classroom work sitting behind desks in crowded rooms where just the act of keeping order, among kids who want to be moving constantly, can wear the energy of a teacher down to nothing. Gordon goes on to consider many ideas about how to make the American classroom function better by comparing the public school model of productivity to corporate models of productivity; however, he does not consider the possibility that the lack of active learning and play in the school systems could be part of the problem. Many people who are engaged in the discourse on education reform seem so caught up in the old established teaching practices that they have grown accustomed to that they dont even stop to consider that there might be a better way. Especially when caught up in some of the worst teaching environments, educators get lost in the day to day grind of trying to keep kids from expending their innate energy in negative ways, and maintaining the unnatural order. Sitting at a desk continually can be exhausting for the most energetic teachers and their students. If the possibility of making the classroom more active does cross a teachers mind it can be easy to dismiss because of all the pressure to maintain order. An example of how the current classroom environment can drain even the very dedicated teachers can be found in the story of Molly Ness, a passionate teacher and advocate for the group called Teach for America, an organization that places college grads in difficult school districts for two year teaching opportunities. Of her two year experience with Teach for America Ness recounts, I was scared that any more time in the classroom would leave me dismissive, ineffective, and complacent. Teach for America made me realize that I wanted to devote the rest

Hokanson 3

of my life to social justice, but that if I didnt take a break from it to regain my strength and conviction, I might not return (224). Throughout her book Ness details the hard work, successes, and failures of teachers working through the Teach for America program, but just like Gordon she does not emphasize the possibility that part of the struggle for teachers could be in the correlation between children having difficulty learning and children wanting to be in motion and engaged in play. The times when teachers fail to make this connection are regrettable as playful activity while learning could serve as a restorative influence for both teachers and learners. While many seeking to improve the education system fail to even connect the inherent inactivity of sitting all day behind a desk or the lack of fun and imagination in the school system to the problems in education, there are many others who have begun to speak out concerning the importance of active learning and Play. Experienced educator Vivian Gussin Paley, in writing about her years of observing the learning process and engaging in teaching, chose to make play the focus of her writing. In her book A Childs Work: the Importance of Fantasy Play, she details many of the reasons that play is important to the learning process and, among other things, connects play to learning communication skills. She recounts: A few years ago when I asked a group of university mentors to a large Head Start district in Texas what aspect of classroom practice concerns them the most, they were quick to answer. Conversation! We dont hear good conversation. There are mostly oneline questions and answers, but the teachers dont simply converse with the children. And they dont encourage the children to talk to one another either. As the professors gave examples of the sort of dialogues they overheard in the classrooms, it became clear that none took place during play. (57)

Hokanson 4

When considering this connection that Paley makes between the importance of play and the development of childrens abilities to make meaningful conversation, the reality of the importance of play becomes more apparent. Not only does active play help kids learn and get their energy out positivelyit also connects them with their teachers through meaningful conversation! Throughout her book Paley emphasizes the value of play, but her focus is not on connecting it to the academic environment and lacks the type of rhetoric that might convince school officials to change classroom design and practices. Further support for the importance of play comes from research into early childhood developmental skills. In a collection of scientific papers entitled Childrens Play: The Roots of Reading advocates of play, essayists Jerome Singer and Mawiyah Lythcott, argue that: Play has often been derided as a trivial childhood activity that has little value in fundamental education. Yet there is evidence that various forms of pretend play can enhance school readiness, social skills, and creative accomplishment (Zigler 77). Here the mistake is made again, unfortunately, to assume that the value of active learning and play is to prepare kids for the traditional sit down school system. The real need to incorporate play into the school as a way to enhance learning productivity gets smothered by the idea of using play as a preparation for engaging in the school system just as it is. One way to really get at the center of why incorporating active learning and play is so important to the reformation of American education is to use the paradigm that the school system is already a game. Using this lens of the system being a game lends insight into the possibility that real creativity and play is needed to replace the superficiality of the current system. This perspective is exactly what Robert Fried, a professor of Education at Northeastern University, expounds upon in his book The Game of School. Fried argues quite convincingly that:

Hokanson 5

For nearly all of us, advantaged and disadvantaged, as we emerge from those preschool years of unabashedly enthusiastic learning and begin our careers as students, our inner drives to learnwhat I would call our learning spiritsuffers a series of blows. Our freedom of physical movement is severely restricted, our curiosity is confined, our opportunity to talk to other kids about what we are learning is curtailed . . . Little by little, grade by grade, we find ourselves relating to school more and more in a way that sharply contrasts with the energy, purposefulness, and joy that young children bring to the challenge of learning to talk, run, play games, ask questions, and investigate the world around them. Learning becomes a chore rather than an adventure. (6) Fried goes on through chapter after chapter clearly and effectively enumerating what kind of games the current school system is propagating and how these so called games have nothing to do with the real and imaginative games that are engaged in by active learners. To combat the negativity of the traditional inactive learning models Fried, in conclusion, pleads for teachers to hold on to the resolve that you and these kids are destined to do great things together (200). The kind of active classrooms that Fried advocates certainly are not connected to the meaningless playing of mind-games, but rather are synonymous with classrooms that engage students in the true joy of active and playful learning. With the importance of real, engaging, and active play established, the next question becomes how to incorporate more of this type of learning and play into the classroom. Many books and articles have been written about helpful teaching techniques, and some like LouAnne Johnsons Teaching Outside the Box share good teaching principles like her instruction to assume that half the students in a given class are right brain (creative) thinkers (143). However, just acknowledging that there are different types of learners in a classroom falls well

Hokanson 6

short of looking at active and playful learning opportunities as a standard for schools to aspire to, and, almost completely, Teaching Outside the Box fails to consider the outside the box idea of designing more active and playful curriculum and educational environments. While many if not most books on teaching and most educational authorities have a hard time breaking away from traditional teaching styles, there are a few glimmers of change in recent educational literature that can keep the hope for promotion of more active and engaging teaching methods alive. Two examples of these types of books are Herbert W. Brodas SchoolyardEnhanced Learning and Moving the Classroom Outdoors. In Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning the skepticism towards more active learning models is demonstrated in the following story: The principle was definitely skeptical. Small groups of fifth graders were energetically releasing balloons on the playground and then running to mark the landing spots with hula hoops. Although she viewed herself as a progressive educator, she couldnt help but question how this would relate to learning . . . As the process unfolded, any doubts about the value of the activity quickly evaporated! (59) The change in attitude of the administrator in this story is one example of how, when done correctly, enthusiasm for active learning that involves play can spread quickly and the positive impact on students can increase. There are both positive academic and positive physical impacts on students exposed to active playful learning. In Brodas Moving the Classroom Outdoors he shares how a student burst into his classroom and said, I saw tracks on my way to school today! Although the child had probably passed tracks dozens of times before, a lesson about tracks in the school yard had made this child more alert even when he wasnt in school (76). While this is an example of an academic benefit of an active lesson, information that supports the physical benefit of playful

Hokanson 7

active learning is found by considering a segment from a 2011 article in the online publication Peninsula Press; the article reads: One of the problems with our school system, said Anne L. Friedlander, vice president of programs at ConnectWell and a consulting professor in the human biology program at Stanford, is we have all these kids, and theyre running around, and theyre very energetic, and theyre playing all these games. And then we take them into school, and we say, you know, Sit down and be still. And its one of the worst things we can do for their health. (James 1) Certainly whenever educators create learning environments and curriculum that promotes more active playful learning the student benefits both academically and physically. In a 2005 compilation of academic essays from the Association for Childhood Education International entitled Outdoor Learning and Play, Sandra Stone a professor of Literacy and Early Childhood in the college of Education at Northern Arizona University gave a clarion call to educators to stop ignoring the reality of the benefits of active learning and play. She writes: In the name of academic excellence, children have too long endured the absence of play, both indoors and outdoors. We see the erosion of quality play time for all children, because society continues to focus on a linear curriculum with an emphasis on transmitting informational facts . . . these linear approaches in U.S. schools further decrease childrens outdoor play and recess opportunities. If we are to be true advocates for children, then we must be outspoken advocates for play. Educators must let their voices be heard. We must not succumb to the narrow definition of learning that undervalues or eliminates play as a curricular tool. (Burriss 41)

Hokanson 8

With all of the evidence supporting the value of active learning and play, Stone is right on the mark. Educators do need to have the courage to pioneer learning opportunities for children that go well beyond what is accepted as the status quo today. When facing the challenges that are confronting the students in our country it will no longer suffice to ignore the evidence that traditional classroom and learning models leave students and teachers bored, exhausted, and frustrated. While active learning and play definitely will not solve every problem in the education system, they certainly can and should play a key role in revitalizing American education. Educators, parents, and policy makers need to come together and examine the facts and find ways to use childrens innate energy and passion to be moving and learning and joyful to create the curriculum and learning environments that can keep kids busy learning while staying healthily and passionately engaged in their natural motion.

Hokanson 9 Works Cited

Broda, Herbert W. Moving the Classroom Outdoors: Schoolyard-enhanced Learning in Action. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse, 2011. Print. Broda, Herbert W. Schoolyard-enhanced Learning: Using the Outdoors as an Instructional Tool, K-8. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse, 2007. Print. Burriss, Kathleen Glascott., and Barbara Foulks. Boyd. Outdoor Learning and Play, Ages 8-12. Olney, MD: Association for Childhood Education International, 2005. Print. Fried, Robert L. The Game of School: Why We All Play It, How It Hurts Kids, and What It Will Take to Change It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Print. Gordon, Gary, and Steve Crabtree. Building Engaged Schools: Getting the Most out of America's Classrooms. New York: Gallup, 2006. Print. James, Julia. High School Students sit for too long, new health research suggests. Peninsula Press. Stanford U, 2011. Web. 31 May 2013. Johnson, LouAnne. Teaching outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Print. Ness, Molly. Lessons to Learn: Voices from the Frontlines of Teach for America. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004. Print. Sugar, Sharon Rose. The Silent Crisis Destroying America's Brightest Minds. New York, NY: Tree of Knowledge, 2010. Print. Paley, Vivian Gussin. A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2004. Print. Zigler, Edward, Dorothy G. Singer, and Sandra J. Bishop-Josef. Children's Play: The Roots of Reading. Washington, DC: Zero To Three, 2004. Print.