Play, Learning and the Early Childhood Curriculum

SAGE Publications

Elizabeth Wood

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781446289464
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

The Third Edition of this popular book reflects contemporary research as well as thinking about the role and value of play in learning and development, within and beyond early childhood. The author explores recent developments across international contexts which endorse play, and argues for critical engagement with some aspects of policy discourse in how ?educational play? is constrructed. This accesible book also reviews contemporary theoretical trends which focus on the meanings and intentions that children bring to their play.

The new edition includes coverage of:

- play in education policies; UK and international perspectives

- working with parents

- social and cultural diversity

- children with special educational needs and disabilities

- outdoor play

Each chapter includes case studies provided by practitioners, along with questions and tasks to promote critical engagement and reflection on key issues and debates.

This book is for students on Childhood Studies courses and those on Initial Teacher Education and Masters programmes in early childhood and primary education. Experienced practitioners on CPD courses will also find it useful.

CHAPTER 1

UNDERSTANDING PLAY: COMPLEXITY AND CHALLENGE

The aim of this introductory chapter is to review contemporary debates about play, focusing on the ideologies and theories that inform the ways in which play is defined. You will understand some of the key issues and challenges in:

• Defining play
• Debating the status of play
• Exploring lifelong playing and learning
• Making a distinction between play in and out of ‘educational’ settings
• Developing critical perspectives on play

The ideological tradition

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Early childhood education is underpinned by an ideological and theoretical tradition which regards play as essential to learning and development. The eclectic mix of ideas from this tradition ranges from the rhapsodic to the pragmatic, regarding the value of play, the nature of childhood, the purposes of education, the rights of the child and adults’ roles and responsibilities. Central to this tradition are the educational and psychological theories of Johann Pestalozzi, Freidrich Froebel, Rudolf Steiner, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Margaret and Rachel McMillan, Susan Isaacs, Anna Freud and David Winnicot. Their ideas were innovative and transformational: they generated new ways of understanding childhood and how children should be treated in society. Until the nineteenth century, childhood was seen as an immature form of adulthood and children from all social classes had little status and few legal rights or protection. For many, childhood was cut short by the need to work in the home or in factories, often for long hours and in dangerous conditions, leading to exploitation and abuse. The concept of original sin meant that children were regarded as naturally sinful, and needed to have moral rectitude instilled in them by whatever means adults thought acceptable, whether in the home, school or workplace. The child’s mind was seen as an empty vessel, or a blank slate, which could be filled with the knowledge, skills and behaviours deemed valuable by society. Froebel and Pestalozzi took the opposite view: children’s natural goodness could be harnessed through nurture, care, play and appropriate education. Along with social reformers such as Charles Booth and Charles Dickens, the early pioneers changed attitudes towards children and developed better provision for their development, care and education, where freedom to play and learn could be combined with appropriate nurturing and guidance. Intrinsically bound with this movement were ideals about social justice and a more egalitarian society.

The pioneer educators established the concept of childhood as a distinct stage in human development, and emphasized children’s natural affinity for play. However, they did not demonstrate consistent agreement in their principles or practices. Although play was valued differently by each of the pioneers, they harnessed its educational potential in different ways (Saracho, 2010). The Romantic, child-centred ideology advocated the enabling of children to follow their natural development through free play and structured activities. Although the pioneers recognized that play allows children to express their inner needs, emotions, desires and conflicts, in terms of their educational recommendations it was not always the dominant activity. Montessori did not believe that children need to play, and did not value play as a creative force in itself. In designing special child-sized environments, she was not directly stimulating imaginative role play, but encouraging practical independence and autonomy. She had an instrumental view of play as a means to cognitive, social, moral and emotional development. The curriculum models devised by Froebel and Montessori were based on specific materials to be used in particular sequences, in carefully structured environments and sometimes with adult guidance. The curricula designed by Margaret and Rachel MacMillan and Susan Isaacs included pragmatic adult-directed elements such as sense-training, language and speech training, self-discipline, orderliness, cleanliness and the formation of good habits and dispositions (Boyce, 1946).

These curricula were socially, culturally and historically situated: they were designed with reference to particular values and purposes within rapidly changing societies. For example, the Progressive movement, which developed in the USA at the turn of the twentieth century, criticized the programmes of Froebel and Montessori as being highly structured, formal and ritualized. Montessori’s emphasis on sensory training, individualism and academic learning was considered to be at odds with notions of freedom, creativity, play, fantasy and self-expression. We might also consider whether Romantic notions of childhood freedom and innocence remain relevant in contemporary society: a Reception class teacher questioned why she taught nursery rhymes when children know all the words, actions and dance routines of the latest pop idols.

These ideologies and theories melded with those of the Progressive movement in early childhood and primary education, which emerged in the early twentieth century, informed by the work of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Susan and Nathan Isaacs and their followers. Progressivism rejected the formality and instrumentalism of established approaches, and argued for child-centred approaches and greater autonomy for children by enabling them to play and follow their interests through topics or projects. Progressivism created new ideas about the nature of childhood, how children learn and develop and the developmental processes of building knowledge. Education was conceptualized not as something that is done to the child, but as a complex process within which the child is an active participant, through agency, choice, control and ownership of play and project work. This orientation was theoretically seductive, because it reflected powerful notions of choice, freedom, autonomy and empowerment through education, all central tenets of the social and educational reform movements. These assumptions were a direct challenge to established behaviourist and instrumental discourses which positioned the child as a blank slate or empty vessel.

The work of the early childhood pioneers influenced a psychological view of play, which in turn laid the foundation for ‘educational play’. The work of Jean Piaget (described in Chapter 2) has been influential in early childhood education, partly because his theories of play were interpreted alongside the ideals of Progressivism, and resonated with the liberal ideas of the 1960s. Thus a ‘universal discourse’ was created which positioned play as essential to children’s learning, as a developmental need and as a fundamental right. Within this discourse, key ideas about child-centred education, choice and freedom, hands-on activities, exploration and discovery, and the primacy of play were taken up with enthusiasm but with little critical engagement (Bennett, Wood and Rogers, 1997).

Activity

O’Brien (2010) poses some challenging questions about play, which prompt us to think critically about these ‘universal discourses’ and whether these serve to marginalize or include children who have disabilities. Consider these questions in relation to your own experiences of play as a child/adult, and in your professional practice:

Can all children play? Should all children play? Do all children learn from play? And if they do learn, what do they learn? Must all children play in order to develop fully? Is, in fact, access to play one of children’s rights? And, if many of the most prominent researchers in the field of child psychology … have viewed play as endemic to the human species, why did they so rarely address children who appear to be outside the parameters of typical development? (O’Brien, 2010: 183)

Although many of these theories remain part of the discourse of early childhood education, there have been significant changes in the field, with play now being validated within many national policy frameworks (Broadhead, Howard and Wood, 2010; Brooker and Edwards, 2010; Pramling Samuelsson and Fleer, 2009). However, policy versions of play are explicitly educational, because play is expected to lead towards (or at least contribute to) the learning goals or outcomes in curriculum frameworks. In Chapter 3 we will see that ‘educational play’ has its own purposes, but throughout this book research from the field of play scholarship will show that there are different ways of understanding the complexities of play, which reflect children’s purposes and meanings. This is because play is a distinctive form of human activity which has its own rules, rituals and cultural practices, and is not always amenable to overly structured forms of social control within the educational/pedagogic gaze.

The purposes of play

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In spite of positive endorsements from different theoretical perspectives, the definitions, purposes and value of play continue to be debated. These debates have had positive outcomes because they have kept play high on educational agendas in policy, research and practice. These trends can be seen in different countries as national policy frameworks are extended to early childhood provision with the aim of laying foundations for learning, improving children’s life chances and raising achievement. Play continues to be taken seriously in the academic community, as evidenced by the scope of play scholarship across the human life span (Holzman, 2009; Hughes, 2010; Kuschner, 2009; Smith, 2010), across different contexts such as hospital and therapeutic play, and across different academic disciplines (Henricks, 2006; Saracho, 2012). Play and playfulness are considered to be lifelong activities: far from tailing off towards the end of childhood, play continues to develop in complexity and challenge (Broadhead, 2004). Thus in order to understand these complexities, this book will draw on the international field of play scholarship and on different theoretical perspectives. The first question to be addressed is how can we define play?

Defining play

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In defining play, there are different emphases on functions, forms, characteristics and behaviours. Two questions continue to challenge the research and practitioner communities: what is play? And what does play do for the child? Chazan (2002: 198) takes a broad and positive view of the functions of play:

Playing and growing are synonymous with life itself. Playfulness bespeaks creativity and action, change and possibility of transformation. Play activity thus reflects the very existence of the self, that part of the organism that exists both independently and interdependently, that can reflect upon itself and be aware of its own existence. In being playful the child attains a degree of autonomy sustained by representations of his inner and outer worlds.

This definition indicates the potential variation and complexities of play as a social and cultural practice. Play activities involve a wide range of behaviours, actions and interactions, which may have multiple meanings for the players. Play can be regarded as deeply serious and purposeful, or trivial and purposeless. It can be characterized by high levels of motivation, creativity and learning, or perceived as aimless messing about, as shown in the following vignettes.

Case study

Neill and Jamel: Play is serious or trivial?

Neill and Jamel (both aged five) did not settle immediately to a maths activity, but began play-fighting, using their pencils as swords. Their play was not aggressive, but as it became more noisy they fell off their chairs, were reprimanded by the teacher and separated for the rest of the session. In contrast, deep and serious play can be respected and encouraged by teachers. In a nursery, some boys were playing with Duplo™ and made a large layout on the floor. As the complexity of their play developed, they used other resources to create a town, including Playmobil™ figures that were used to act out various scenarios. The teacher realized the need to ‘go with the flow’ of their ideas and asked other children not to cut across their space or take away their equipment. The children were not interrupted to join in with mid-session circle time as their play continued to evolve over two hours. At review time they proudly explained their layout to the whole class, and dismantled it only after it had been shown to parents and caregivers.

It is not surprising that there are ambiguities about the definitions of play. Hutt et al. (1989) argue that play is a jumbo category that encompasses a multiplicity of activities, some of which are conducive to learning, but many of which are not. Garvey (1991) suggests that not everything that young children do together can be classified as play: there is a continuous moving back and forth among different activities with different modes of action, interaction and communication. Garvey regards play as an attitude or orientation that can manifest itself in numerous ways, according to what children play with, what they can play at, and the imaginary worlds and scenarios they create. These possibilities expand as new areas of experience are encountered, and as children’s skills as players develop through childhood and into adulthood. Thus what play is, and what play does, cannot be constrained by theoretical or temporal definitions. Smith (2010: 4–5) identifies three ways of looking at play. In the functional approach, researchers focus on what the purpose of the behaviour is, or appears to be, and what are the potential benefits. In the structural approach, researchers focus on the behaviours themselves, the ways in which they are organized and sequenced, and what distinguishes play from non-play activities. The third approach is criteria-referenced, and is based on the observer’s perspective for defining whether a behaviour sequence is play or not play. The more criteria that can be identified, the more likely it is that the activity or behaviour can be seen as play. In each of these approaches, play is defined by the researcher from a theoretical position, and not from the children’s perspectives or the play context.

Meckley (2002) has drawn on Garvey’s definition of play characteristics to provide qualitative descriptors of play, taking into account children’s perspectives and the influence of the play context. Meckley’s ideas are elaborated in Figure 1.1 to make links between what play is, what players do and what purposes play serves.

Figure 1.1 The characteristics of play

Research studies that use play functions, behaviours and characteristics tend to reduce complex activities to component parts in terms of what play is and what play does. However, play is complex, variable and paradoxical, and always depends on the context in which it takes place. Play can be orderly and rule-bound or free and spontaneous; it can appear chaotic, but there can be rules and patterns within the activities that emerge over time. The purposes and goals of play often shift as children manipulate play and non-play situations because they understand implicitly that, in certain contexts, different types of behaviour are permitted, whereas others, such as rough and tumble and play-fighting, are often banned. Play does not take place in a vacuum: everything that children play at, or play with, is influenced by wider social, historical and cultural factors, so that understanding what play is and learning how to play are culturally and contextually situated processes. There are family, cultural and personal variations in approaches to l...