Schools
The Key to Smart Kids? More Playtime, Teachers Say
An discussion at College Park Nursery School focused on encouraging parents to recognize and advocate for the return of play to school day activities.
It’s a question that many parents ask themselves: “What can I do to make my kids more successful in school?”
Baby Einstein? Earlier college prep? More homework?
Nope.
“Play!” say the organizers of a discussion on the role of play in children’s learning at College Park Nursery School and Kindergarten on Wednesday.
Joan Sicher, director and teacher at CPNSK, and Claire Beth, Pre-K teacher at Rogers Heights Elementary, who have more than 60 years of teaching experience between them, spoke to a group of about 10 parents and teachers.
“Children who play, who mess with things… become these creative, thinking, problem-solving people,” Beth said.
Time for children to play has been eliminated from Prince George’s County Public Schools, Beth said. Instead, kindergarteners spend the school day sitting and doing worksheets. Recess in some schools has been cut down to only 15 minutes. Because of such changes, she estimates that people under age 30 have never experienced play in the same way as those over 30 did -- as a form of self-guided exploration and learning.
The academic aspect of school is only one of the experiences that children should have, Sicher added, saying that social and emotional experiences are important as well.
Some of the free-time activities that children do at home – playing with computer or video games, sports or individual play -- don’t satisfy the needs for those experiences at school.
Schools have more children, providing more opportunities to practice social skills, and more materials than the typical home, and they keep the mess contained.
“You may not want your house covered in glitter,” Sicher pointed out. Or paint. Or glue. This is OK, even expected, at a school with small children.
Regardless of the location, the presenters said, the most valuable forms of play involve pretend, which allows the children to explore, discover, and create for themselves.
Sicher and Beth provided several academic papers and news articles about research on play and suggested that parents explore the research on the value of play in school for themselves. The teachers recommend reading Dr. Alison Gopnik, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
Referring to Gopnik and others, along with their own observations in the classroom, Beth and Sicher encouraged the parents to speak to their children’s principals and teachers about including play in schools.
“Childhood is not a race… it’s a magical time for them to pretend and create and discover,” Beth said. “You want your kids to love school and want to be here.”
