Truszcienski

Nicole Truszcienski

Diana Lucas

ENGL 110 Essay 2

6 May, 2016

Put Your Pencils Down and Start Learning: Learning Through Play Triumphs

Over Formal Education

America has taken a very formal approach to educating its young

minds. Teachers of children as young as 5 years old are expected to teach a

rigorous curriculum to achieve certain standards that are put into effect by

the state, district, or school. This often results in a very formal form of

education where, in a typical classroom, students are left sitting in their

seats for the majority of the day. There is no doubt that formal education

can enhance a childs cognitive abilities and adequately prepare students for

their future education, however, formal education often neglects other

important areas of development. During early childhood, ages three to eight,

development is crucial in three main areas: cognition, socio-emotional, and

physical.

One way to enhance development in all three of these areas is

encourage children to play. The Encyclopedia of Childrens Health defines

play as The work of children (n.p.). Play is for children entertainment and

has behavioral, social and psychomotor rewards (Encyclopedia for Childrens

Health n.p.). Dictionary.com defines play as exercise or activity for

amusement or recreation (n.p.). Both definitions include childrens natural

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urge to be amused and entertained. Children are usually captivated by

entertaining and fun activities. Educators who teach through play will grab

and hold their students attention, be able to communicate a variety of

information to their students, and show their students that learning can be

fun.

While play is entertaining, it is also beneficial. Kenneth R. Ginsburg

writes, Play is essential to development because it contributes to the

cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth.

Ginsburg points out that even the United States government understands

how important playing is for children; Laws, such as child labor laws, have

been made to protect the American childrens right to play (Ginsburg n.p.).

Playing allows children to be creative by exercising their imagination, but

more importantly, playing can be used to help children enhance their socio-

emotional development to regulate their emotions and effectively

communicate. Learning through play is beneficial for students, and teachers

can achieve the same standards through play as they can through formal

education.

Formal education is often criticized for its lack of creativity (Shaheen

166), and rightfully so. Merriam-Webster defines creativity as the ability to

make new things or think of new ideas. This means, if childrens education

is not fostering a drive for creativity, then childrens ability to make new

things and think of new ideas decreases. This lack of new ideas could pose

problems for Americas future when it comes to engineering new devices and
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technology. Often times, creativity in the classroom is over looked and under

appreciated, but many educators still recognize creativitys worth in the

classroom. Two constituencies, educators of young children and arts

educators, have argued strongly and consistently for a proper recognition of

the value of creativity in education. (Prentice, pp. 146). Encouraging

creativity is never a bad idea in the classroom; Creativity is a valuable, yet

free, learning resource for teachers. One way to encourage creativity is for

educators to form their lesson plans around some form of play. Undirected

and directed play both are driven on a childs creativity. Nothing reinforces

the creative spirit and nourishes a child's soul more than providing large

blocks of time to engage in spontaneous, self-directed play throughout the

day (PBS, n.p.). Throughout the school day, its is the educators

responsibility to make sure their young students have time for creative and

free thinking. One of the most important types of creative activity for young

children is creative play (PBS). Creativity and Play go beyond fun and

games. Creativity includes finding new ways to think, solve problems, and

answer questions. Play includes making discoveries, expressing ones self,

and participating in heathy social interactions.

Social interaction plays a huge role in a childs socio-emotional

development, especially for young children. PBS writes The ability to be

creative, to create something from personal feelings and experiences, can

reflect and nurture children's emotional health (PBS). Playing allows children

to practice normal interactions and express their selves. An education that is

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framed around the idea of play is an education where students will learn how

to appropriately express their ideas and feelings while socializing with

classmates in an effective way. Kenneth R. Ginsburg writes It is through play

that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around

them. Parents, teachers and administrators focus so much on students

academic success that they often neglect to pay attention to their social and

emotional needs. Children need to learn how to communicate and how to

deal with their emotions. Academic success is worth nothing if a child never

learns to communicate with others and control their emotions. Playing give

students opportunities to experience different emotions such as anger,

frustration, excitement, and joy. Play can also be competitive, teaching kids

that its okay to loose and winning is not everything. Competition and

emotions are all a part of the world around us. It is through play that

children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them

(Ginsburg n.p.). Pat Broadhead from Leeds Metropolitan University in the

United Kingdom wrote a journal on children learning through play. In this

journal, he writes, Some have argued that play is childrens work but I would

say that it is far more than this. Play is their self-actualization, a holistic

exploration of who and what they are and know and of who and what they

might become (Broadhead 2004, p. 89). This is a very important point

because with formal education, students are deprived of the opportunity to

explore themselves. This could be the very reason why up to 50% students

enter college without a declared major and 75% of students will change their
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major at least once (Freedman n.p.). Children should not have to wait until

they are adults to learn about themselves.

Learning is what is expected to take place in the classroom. This

includes learning about yourself, one another, and the surrounding world.

Teachers who teach their students through play allow their students to play

and direct their play towards information that they need to know. Instead of

teaching a student a lesson, teachers will direct the students play to

discovering the academic lesson while allowing them to make other

connections and discoveries. There has been a tremendous change made in

the field of education recently. Forty-two states have now adopted the

common core standards. Common core does not need to prevent students

from making their own discoveries. Educators can achieve the standards but

need to realize that following the standards directly is going to be less

beneficial to students. According the the Common Core website, the

standards are:

Research- and evidence-based, clear, understandable, and

consistent, aligned with college and career expectations, based on

rigorous content and application of knowledge through higher-order

thinking skills, built upon the strengths and lessons of current state

standards, and informed by other top performing countries in order to

prepare all students for success in our global economy and society

(Common Core n.p.).

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Common core focuses mainly on academic success and preparation for

college but the standards are implemented in classrooms with children as

young as 5 years old who are, again, still in the early childhood stage of

development. One standard that kindergarten students are expected achieve

is the Reading Standard for Literature where these children, ages 5-6, are

expected to answer questions about key details, retell stories, and identify

characters, setting and major events with some assistance (Common core

n.p.). All standards are text based, fostering the idea of formal education. No

where in the standards are students asked what they think or how they feel

about stories. If the standards are followed precisely, students are never

asked to share how a particular text makes them feel or how the text

connects to their life. The standards dont allow students to be creative

either, they just want students to bark back information that a teacher gives

them.

In preschool, all learning is based around play, but one year later, in

kindergarten, learning through play is less prevalent. For every 30 minutes

of free play, many kindergartners are engaged in two to three hours of

lessons and test prep (Ramani & Eason pp. 1). This is a result of teachers

trying to achieve standards, such as Common Core, that the state, district, or

school put into effect. This does not mean that the standards are bad for

young students development, but rather, educators in early grades are

discarding the idea of learning through play because they feel as though

playing will not help their students achieve the goals of the standards.
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Margaret H. Cooney wrote an article based off of a study done with

Guatemalan kindergartners and their parents. In her report, she writes:

The teacher's role becomes a critical component when play is at the

center of a curriculum in an educational setting. The teacher learns to

consider play activities as opportunities in which to be involved as

stage manager, mediator, player, scribe, assessor, communicator, or

planner (Cooney pp. 262).

In her study, she found that not only was creativity and play important for

learning but also that the parents preferred their children to be in classrooms

where they learned through play.

Being an educator is, with no doubt, an incredible, yet challenging

career. Teaching young minds while trying to meet critical standards places

tremendous stress on educators. Resorting to formal education seems like

the most effective way to teach students but it is not. Designing lesson plans

where childrens natural urge to play is the main focus may be challenging to

do but these lesson plans will be more effective. As an educator, Try to

remain open to new and original ideas, and encourage children to come up

with more than one solution or answer Play is the serious business of

young children and the opportunity to play freely is vital to their healthy

development (PBS n.p.). While academic success is important, teachers

should never forget that they are teaching a whole child, including their

creative mind-set, social abilities, and emotions, not just their cognitive

abilities.
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Works cited

"About the Standards." Common Core State Standards Initiative About the Standards Comments.

Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

Broadhead, Pat. "Developing an Understanding of Young Children's Learning through Play: The

Place of Observation, Interaction and Reflection." British Educational Research Journal

32.2 (2006): 191-207. WordCat.org. Web. 12 Apr. 2016

Cooney, Margaret H. "Is Play Important? Guatemalan Kindergartners' Classroom Experiences

and Their Parents' and Teachers' Perceptions of Learning Through Play." Journal of

Research in Childhood Education 18.4 (2004): 261-77. WebCat.org. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

"Creativity and Play: Fostering Creativity." PBS. PBS. Web. 02 May 2016.

"Dictionary.com - The World's Favorite Online English Dictionary!" Dictionary.com. Web. 04

May 2016.

Freedman, Liz. "The Pennsylvania State University Division of Undergraduate Studies." The

Mentor. 28 June 2013. Web. 05 May 2016.

Ginsburg, K. R. "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and

Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds." Pediatrics 119.1 (2007): 182-91. AapGateway.

Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

"Play." - Stages, Definition, Description, Common Problems. Web. 04 May 2016.

Prentice, Roy. "Creativity: A Reaffirmation of Its Place in Early Childhood Education."

Curriculum Journal 11.2 (2000): 145-58. WebCat.org. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

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"Preparing America's Students for Success." Home | Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Web. 05 May 2016.

Ramani, G. B., and S. H. Eason. "It All Adds Up: Learning Early Math through Play and

Games." Phi Delta Kappan 96.8 (2015): 27-32. WebCat.org. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

Shaheen, Robina. "Creativity and Education." Creative Education CE 01.03 (2010): 166-69.

Web. 28 Apr. 2016.