Albert Einstein said, “Play is the highest form of research”.
When you play you are completely enthralled in the activity. Your imagination and creativity is running
wild. When your creativity is present,
you start to investigate, create, innovate, and research other entities you may
not have done so if you were present in a more constricted environment. I believe as a child, a lot of my play was
researching. One of the main ways my
parents liked to play with us was to go on adventures. I remember as a child just getting in the car
and having no idea where we were going or what we were doing, nor did my
parents. During the car rides, if we saw something cool we would stop to investigate. Many times these car rides lead to us
learning about something new and researching about a topic more. Sometimes that would lead us to playing with
new games or new things. For example,
one time we took a ride and my brother spotted a cow farm. The farm ended up being a milking farm. My
family learned how to milk cows and make butter. For several weeks following this adventure,
my brother and I pretended to be farmers.
This lead to an obsession and we learned more and more facts about
farming and agriculture through playing.
Whether my family took a nature walk, bike ride, trip to the fair, trip
to the park, played a friendly game (board or sport), or crafted there was
always an element of research involved.
Almon (2002) says, “Play helps children weave together all
the elements of life as they experience it” (p. 1). One of my favorite toys to play with as a
child was Barbie’s. My childhood friend
and I would role play with the Barbie’s different elements in our life we were
experiencing at the time. We would create these elaborate story lines before
playing about what conflict the Barbie’s would have to resolve and discuss the
characteristics of their lives. Some of
the elements discussed were peer pressure, popularity, adolescence, friendship,
puberty, love, family, sibling revelry, support, etc. There was always an element of truth to the scenarios
we played out for our Barbie’s. Whatever
we were experiencing in our life, we had our Barbie’s play it out. I remember we also used them to relate to
people. Sometimes we would make our Barbie’s
be poor or had their parents going through a divorce. Although this was not our reality, this was
an element of life we were trying to understand as a child. We also used our Barbie’s to fanaticize about
our life as an adult, the careers, family structure, economics etc. Barbie’s were a therapeutic toy for me
looking back on it now.
As stated before my parents were very supportive of
play. They were active in our lives and
enjoyed playing with us. Other than
taking us on adventures, my parent’s participated in a lot of physical play and
games with us. We played many sports as
a family. We took many bike rides and
went on nature walks as a family. We
also had game night every Friday where we would play 2-3 board or card
games. I do not recall what my life was
like when I was in daycare, therefore I cannot remember the relationship I had
with play. In school, I went to a
traditional public elementary school.
The key memories I have of activities I enjoyed in school or of my
favorite teachers were of teachers who supported play within the
curriculum. I have distinct memories of
my first and fifth grade teacher. I
remember in first grade feeling like school was not work. It was too much fun
to be work. My fifth grade teacher allowed
us to use our imagination and creativity a lot.
We did a lot of group projects as a class. A couple of activities that stick out in my
mind were writing a classroom song for the school talent show and playing
store. During one lesson we invented our
own item to sale. We made the items and
priced them ourselves. Then we played store to learn about profit, losses,
consumers, etc. My good memories of school from childhood are of those who
supported play.
I think the concept of play is still the same for youth now
as it was for me when I was a child. The
concept of play is something self chosen by the child that brings enjoyment to them. I feel the application of play is different
in children now-a-days. Technology has
changed the way the youth plays. When I
observe my parents who have children, the first thing the children asks to do when
they get home from school is to play video games. As a child, I was outside 24/7. There came a time my parents had to put a
time limit on dinner because my brother and I were rushing through our meal to
get back outside to play. When I was a
teacher, I remember parents telling me their children were rewarded for good
behavior or good grades with time to play on the Wii or X-box. There reward was not to play outside or go to
the park, as it was when I was a child.
Technology has also changed the parent’s way of
thinking. Parents do not seem to
encourage their children to go outside. Many
parents give their child an I-pad with a game on it to entertain their child
instead of taking the time to play a board game with them. The other day, a friend of mine took their
children on a hike and their kids said to them after the hike, “this was so
much fun, why don’t we do stuff like this more often”. Therefore, children still crave the same type
of play that was present when I was young but technology has changed society. Today’s youth play video games and games on
tablets for entertainment. Is apparent today’s
youth are becoming more violent due to the amount of video games and TV shows they
are exposed to. I also feel technology
is taking away from children’s creativity and imagination. When I was a child, we would build forts
with blankets. Now there are apps where
you can create your own world on a tablet or phone. It is sad to observe today’s youth become
more and more obsessed with technology. Technology
definitely has its purpose and benefits in this world, but when it comes to
children, I believe taking the technology away will enhance today’s youth’s
health, relationships, social skills, and creativity/imagination.
Play as a child was pure enjoyment. I know my parents taught me the concept of
responsibility at a young age. I was not
allowed to play until all of my homework was complete or my chores were done. In elementary school, I started to view play
as a reward for my hard work. This is the
role play still has in my life as an adult.
The difference in my adult life is I understand the value of play. When I was a child it was just fun so I
wanted to do it. As an adult you have
more responsibilities and have to prioritize all of your task and objectives in
a given day. I understand I must be
responsible and go to work, even if I want to just play. As a child I did not understand the value of
work, although my parents were trying to instill the concept of responsibility
in me. As an adult, play and work balance each other out. I cannot be successful in one without the
other. I cannot play all day without
working because I would not have the means to support my play habits. This is also vice versa, I could not work all
the time without playing because I would become burnt out and have too much stress. Play is a stress reliever as an adult. Play is also an essential part of maintaining
relationships I have as an adult. I have
to make the time to enjoy activities with my friends, husband and family. Almon (2002) says “creative play is a central
activity in the lives of healthy children” (p. 1). I believe play needs to be a central activity
for anyone to have a healthy life.
References
Almon, K. (2002). The vital role of play in early
childhood education. Gateways, 43. Retrieved from http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAPlayAlmon.pdf
