The hidden power of play
Spielen, lieben und arbeiten (play, love and work)
David Elkind
The Boston Globe: October 9, 2006
At a time of great international turmoil, growing globalization and exploding
technological advances, making time for child play seems an unaffordable
luxury. Yet, a new study by the American Academy of Pediatrics makes just the
opposite case. It argues for the essential role of play in the healthy mental,
physical, social and emotional development of the child.
Today, many elementary schools have eliminated recess in favor of more time
for studies. Even kindergarten children now take tests and are assigned
homework. After-school tutoring and organized sports have cut deeply into the
time for spontaneous, self-initiated play.
Summer camps devoted to sports, computers or exam preparation are rapidly
replacing those that once offered swimming, boating, hiking, campfires and
storytelling. Bike-riding is down and computer game playing, which purportedly
teaches computer skills, is up.
Even infancy is no longer seen as a time for play as an entire industry now
markets a wide variety of computer programs, CDs and educational toys for the
infant and toddler set. The not-so-subtle message is that play is superfluous;
play is for slackers. But this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the
role of play in human life.
Freud was once asked what he thought was necessary to lead a full, happy, and
productive life. Living in a puritanical era when play was regarded as sinful,
Freud replied, Lieben und Arbeiten, loving and working. With all due respect,
I believe he should have added a third activity, namely, Spielen, playing.
Play, love and work are the three innate drives that power human thought and
action throughout the entire life cycle.
Through play, we adapt the world to ourselves, and create new learning
experiences. It is through loving that we express our desires, our feelings and
our emotions. Work is the outlet through which we adapt to the demands of the
physical and social worlds.
Although work and play are thought to be in opposition to one another, they
in fact complement one another. Any endeavor is most effective when all three
drives are operative.
At school, when children have some input (play) into the curriculum this
creates positive motivation (love) and more effective and lasting learning
(work).
The same is true in the home and in the workplace. Parents who listen to
their children and allow them to take part in some decision-making (play) gain
respect and attachment (love) as well as effectively instilling the rules of
the household (work).
In those workplaces where employee input (play) is welcomed and rewarded,
workers have a positive attitude toward the job and their employers (love) and
the result is a better product or service (work).
Likewise, all creative endeavors, whether in the sciences, the arts, or in
our everyday life, are a combination of play, love and work. The person who
loves his work takes something from himself or herself (the play element) and
something learned from the environment (the work element), and the result is
something new that cannot be reduced either to the individual or to the
environment. Our everyday avocations follow the same formula. Creative cooks,
gardeners, potters, weavers, etc. always introduce something of themselves into
their creations.
Play, then, is the answer to the question, How does anything new come about?
Learning allows us to acquire what is already known, play gives rise to new
knowledge, skills and artistic products. Play is vitally necessary in the world
today, particularly in our schools.
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that education either liberates
or domesticates. Americas current, test-driven education is geared to
domestication, not liberation. It emphasizes rote learning, which is the death
knell to critical thinking, and to challenging authority.
As a new school year begins, we Americans need to reintroduce play in our
schools and allow for child input and teacher innovation. Only then will we
have an educational system whose aim is, as the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget
put it, to have children who think for themselves and who do not accept the
first idea that is presented to them.
** David Elkind is the author of The Power of Play, which will be published
in January. This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.
Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/09/opinion/edelkind.php
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