Schools across the country are participating in the Global School Play Day . It seems that educators, child psychologists, doctors etc. have noticed that kids need unstructured play time, a lot of it in fact, much more than they get in their normal day to day experiences. Like most of life, the reasons for this shortfall are many and often complex. The available menu of enrichment activities has mushroomed over the years and who doesn't want to take part in gymnastics, soccer, orchestra, drama, sculpture classes, rock climbing and dance in between visits to the local museum or national park? The average curriculum of your local elementary school has changed over time as well. Some of you may remember taking a nap in kindergarten. Those days are long gone as students practice for the tests which take up an ever increasing amount of the day.
Yes, children need unstructured play, a lot of it, far more than the average child experiences. Yes, it's great that schools are showing some awareness of this fact and wouldn't it be nice if it happened more than once a year?
Here's a modest proposal - why not devote most of one day a week to inquiry and play at school? Who knows what might happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment