The Power of Play Might Be Different Than We Thought

Play is an increasingly popular tool in early education, but we may need to dramatically redefine how we view it and use it in classrooms to help children succeed in school and life, a New York Times Magazine article suggests.

This Sunday, the magazine explored the Tools of the Mind teaching method that relies on structured and directed play to help students learn cognitive control - a big part of how to think - which holds the promise of better math and literacy scores that are in demand today. Without getting too simplistic, with Tools of the Mind kids can learn self regulation through long periods of complex scenario-based play, according to the in-depth story. Essentially, play is hard work.

Especially these days, they contend, when children spend more time in front of screens and less time in unsupervised play, kids need careful adult guidance and instruction before they are able to play in a productive way.

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For (Lev) Vygotsky (whose work Tools of the Mind is based on), the real purpose of early-childhood education was not to learn content, like the letters of the alphabet or the names of shapes and colors and animals. The point was to learn how to think. – “Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?,” New York Times Magazine, 9/27/09.

The story raises fundamental questions about education, early, elementary and even secondary. Is education supposed to emphasize development of skills, whether it’s reading or writing software code, or how to think? Of course, education develops both, but it’s a question of emphasis.

While The New York Times story reports it’s too early to determine how effective Tools of the Mind is there are encouraging signs.

After a year in the program, students did significantly better than a similar group on basic measures of literacy ability. And more recent studies, including one overseen by Adele Diamond, a professor at the University of British Columbia who is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of cognitive self-control, have shown that Tools students consistently score higher on tests requiring executive function. – New York Times Magazine.

It is unlikely that Tools is a magic key, or at least the only magic key, that unlocks the power of play. But, the story left me thinking it could be a dramatic and important step in that direction.

Still, helping early learners boost their executive function – basically the ability to think clearly and in a directed way - isn’t easy, says University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, according to the story.

“It’s not impossible,” she concludes, “but it’s damn hard.”

by Paul Nyhan, Birth to Thrive Online