Rethinking Children's Play

Fraser Brown, Michael Patte, Phil Jones

• Editore: Bloomsbury Academic
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781441190000
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Education
• Categoria: Education General

Rethinking Children's Play examines attitudes towards, and experiences of, children's play. Fraser Brown and Michael Patte draw on a wide range of thought, research and practice from different fields and countries to debate, challenge and re-appraise long held beliefs, attitudes and ways of working and living with children in the play environment. Children need to play and the benefits of play are many and varied, but they are too often underestimated by parents, educators, politicians and society in general. The authors apply a playwork perspective to a wide range of settings populated by children, both formal and informal, to explore the idea that children's learning and development derives substantially from their opportunities to engage with a rich play environment that is supportive of the play process. Thoughts are provoked through examples of research, reflections on research, activities, key points and guidance on further reading. Rethinking Children's Play is essential for all those studying childhood at undergraduate and graduate level and of great interest to those working with children in any field.

Part 1

Debates, Dilemmas and Challenges: The Background to Children’s Play

1

What is Play?

Chapter Outline

Introduction and key questions

What is play?

Interview with Brian Sutton-Smith about his research

What are the personal and social benefits of play?

What new socio-cultural developments are challenging long-held assumptions about children’s play?

What impact is this having on the lives of children?

Summary

Further reading

Introduction and key questions

Due to its positive impact on healthy child development, play has been identified as a basic human right for every child by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Viewed through a broad lens, the play of children has been conceptualized across various domains including creativity, adaptation, exploration, experimentation, learning, communication, socialization, acculturation, and mastery (Piaget 1962; Schwartzman 1978; Vygotsky 1978). According to Glover (1999), play from a social constructivist perspective allows children to build and extend their knowledge and skills through interactions with the environment and other players. Sutton-Smith (1999) would agree and found that when children play, they re-create their worlds to make them less frightening and less mundane.

Common characteristics describe children’s play as actively engaging, imaginative and creative, fluid and active, freely chosen, motivating, opportunistic and episodic, pleasurable, and most often more concerned with means than ends (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg 1983; Sturgess 2003). When applying these characteristics in play children enjoy what they are doing; use their imaginations when choosing how to play and what to play with; engage in pretense; and are more concerned with how they are playing than with the outcomes.

The subject of inclusion and exclusion of play in the lives of children is an important topic of inquiry in modern times. Many children today are being raised in an increasingly hurried and pressured lifestyle that limits the positive outcomes often associated with child-initiated play. This pressured lifestyle may be most recognizable throughout our society’s educational systems that have shifted to endorse prescriptive curricula where play is often left out in the cold (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2009). As the value of play becomes more marginalized in our accountability-driven and risk-adverse society, teachers and parents are left questioning play’s value and worth. It seems that in the eyes of teachers and parents, play has become a luxury the contemporary child can ill afford.

This chapter attempts to answer these complex issues by examining:

• What is play?

• What are the personal and social benefits of play?

• What new socio-cultural developments are challenging long-held assumptions about children’s play?

• What impact is this having on the lives of children?

What is play?

Archaeologists have documented the existence of play for thousands of years. This genealogy is depicted in the artifacts, paintings, and writings of primitive peoples across various cultures. In his work, Theories of Play, Brehony (2008) identifies prominent thinkers throughout history and their views and theories concerning play. These are summarized below. Although the summary is not exhaustive, it does provide a comprehensive account of how play has been defined across thousands of years. As you will see, many of the ideas and views expressed are in conflict with each other, making a common definition of play across the theories elusive.

Ancient Views

In ancient Greece, Plato recognized the significance of play in the lives of children even though the notion was somewhat taboo. In two prominent works, The Laws and The Republic Plato argues that play has a vital role in education; preparing children for life in the real world of adulthood. This adult centric view of play served as a means of controlling children. During this time it was commonly thought that free play would lead to negative outcomes for society. Holding such a view stands in opposition both to the notion of children learning and developing while they play, and also to the concept of play having aspects of both “being and becoming” (Sturrock 2007).

Enlightenment Views

Play viewed through the prism of religion has historically yielded negative connotations dating back to the Puritans and their strong ethic for work. In such societies it was common to hinder activities encouraging frivolity, which was generally thought to be the work of Satan. Somewhat ironically, it was a Puritan who initially advanced the idea that play should hold a prominent role in educating the young. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke advocated the radical idea that children’s education would be richer if learning was made to be a recreation. The empiricist theory of knowledge advanced by Locke made significant contributions to the notions that children learn through the senses and that childhood was a distinct and important period in human development.

The empiricist views of Locke inspired the enlightenment era philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his classic text Emile, Rousseau advanced the radical theory that children progress through specific stages as they develop and that for education to be meaningful for children it should be in tune with those distinct stages. Rousseau found games and the social interactions between children engaged in those games to be fertile ground for learning. His idea that children should find learning pleasurable stood in stark contrast to the Puritan doctrine of schooling endorsed at this time.

Romantic Views

Play examined through the lens of the romantic period was strongly influenced by the views of Rousseau who believed in the concept of childhood innocence, and education following nature’s lead. A strong proponent of this philosophy was Friedrich Froebel, founder of the kindergarten movement in Germany whose ideas, practices, and writings positioned play at the center of his educational theory, and suggested it was of the deepest significance. This view was a major departure from previous beliefs that thought play was trivial. Opportunities for children’s play in the Froebelian kindergarten were controlled through his gifts and occupations.

Evolutionary Theories

The seminal work of English Naturalist Charles Darwin served as the springboard for several evolutionary instrumentalist theories of play across species. The three prominent theories of the time were surplus energy, preparation for life, and race recapitulation. The initial theories offering scientific explanations of play, rather than previous observational and practical applications of its use, came into prominence after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

The surplus energy theory of play advanced by Friedrich von Schiller and Herbert Spencer was an attempt to conceptualize the play of animals and argued that the highly developed nervous systems of species who are better equipped to meet with the necessities of life and survival expended surplus energy in the form of play. Play as preparation for later life was a second evolutionary theory of play based upon the work of Darwin advanced during the nineteenth century by Karl Groos. Groos argued that play contained an instinctual element that proved vital to the survival of any species, and that engaging in play helped to hone these survival skills. Play fighting among the young of many species is often cited as an example of this theory. The third prominent evolutionary theory of play during the late nineteenth century advanced by psychologists James Baldwin and G. Stanley Hall was race recapitulation. This theory advances the idea that the development of each individual repeats the stages of development of human kind. And in contrast to play as preparation for life that stressed the honing of skills, in recapitulation theory play is not seen as an activity that builds future instinctual skills, but rather that it serves to free the organism of primitive instinctual skills passed down through heredity.

Scientific Theories

The theories of play advanced by John Dewey and Maria Montessori are considered scientific in nature due to their reliance on detailed observation and continuous experimentation. Dewey saw play as a subconscious activity that helped children develop cognitive and social competence. He further believed that play should be seperate from work as play helps the child transition into the world of work as an adult. Dewey held that as children became adults they relied less on play and instead found enjoyment in their chosen occupation. Play then prepares children to become working adults.

Where Dewey viewed play and work as binary opposites, the theory of education advanced by Maria Montessori blurred the lines between the two as articulated in her famous saying “play is the child’s work.” For Montessori children learned best by experiencing things as opposed to fantasizing about them, better know as sensory learning. In fact, Montessori held that fantasy play was the byproduct of a learning environment void of meaningful activities. Montessori also drew a distinction between the ideas of fantasy and imagination. During the late nineteenth century, fantasy was more associated with daydreaming, whereas imagination was employing facts to create something new. Therefore the Montessori classrooms are stocked with real objects for children to manipulate. Hence, a rich learning environment leads to a greater desire to learn.

Psychoanalytic Theories

In 1920 Sigmund Freud introduced his psychoanalytic theory of play in the important text Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud’s theory views play as a mechanism for continually working out traumatic events experienced in the past in an effort to gain mastery of those events. Freud viewed this repetition as a child’s way of reducing tension produced in daily life, or the pleasure principle. Eventually the pleasure principle of which play is a major part is replaced by the reality principle when the instinctual drives of children are replaced with the ability to reason.

Psychological Theories

The prominent psychological play theorists of the twentieth century include the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and American psychologist Jerome Bruner. Their theories of play were unique in that they focused on cognitive functions of play.

For Piaget, play was defined as assimilation, or the child’s attempts to match environmental stimuli to his or her own concepts. Piagetian theory argues that play itself does not result in the creation of new cognitive structures. Rather, Piaget believed that play was just for pleasure and while it provided children with opportunities to practice previous learnings, it did not necessarily result in the learning of new ideas. Through this lens, play is thought of as a process reflective of the beginning of symbolic development, but one that contributes little to it.

In contrast, Vygotskian theory holds that play actually facilitates cognitive development. Through play, children not only practice what they already know, they also learn new things. Vygotsky, who focused his definition of play on dramatic and make-believe play, saw play as the leading source of development in the preschool years. He believed that children developed higher mental functions through dramatic and make-believe play. Such playful activities allowed children to go beyond the level of learning they achieved previously.

In Bruner’s theory, play was a means for acquiring information about and experience with the environment. Acquiring such information was vital in developing flexibility that allows for creativity. For Bruner, play provides the stage for children to experiment with combinations of behaviors that may otherwise never be explored. Social play experiences such as these serve as a communic...

Indice dei contenuti

• Also available in the New Childhoods Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction to the New Childhoods Series
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 DEBATES, DILEMMAS AND CHALLENGES: THE BACKGROUND TO CHILDREN’S PLAY
• 1 What is Play?
• Part 2 CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
• 2 Play and Schools
• 3 Play and Other Institutional Settings
• 4 Play in Informal Settings
• 5 Play Deprivation
• Part 3 IMPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREN’S LIVES
• 6 Playwork
• 7 Rethinking Play
• Bibliography
• Index