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Two Exchange writers and World Forum presenters, Betty Jones and Renatta Cooper, have produced a provocative challenge to teachers and parents showing why play is the most effective way for children to develop critical life skills.  In their new book, Playing to Get Smart (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006), Jones and Cooper observe…

“To survive and thrive in a changing world, people need to think creatively.  Social-problem solving is a necessary life skill.  Representing experience in symbolic ways, including through language and literacy, is a necessary life skill.  Play is the most basic way children develop these skills.  Teachers of young children need to provide opportunities for quality play within the learning environment.  Teacher education and staff development need to support teachers in valuing play for themselves and children and in educating parents on the benefits of play.

“This vision of early schooling contradicts political pressures for standardized education.  Schooling is basically a conservative activity, designed to socialize children into the status quo.  It ensures that most children of poverty won’t become smart;  if they were smart, they would start demanding more opportunities.  Such demands discomfit those who benefit from power and privilege �" including power over the educational system.  Universal standards measured by testing guarantee winners and losers….

“If we pay attention to children, we rediscover that they are not all alike, nor should they become so.  Young children are active learners, eager to make sense of their world.  And, fortunately, they’re not good at sitting still and listening.  In self-defense, then, almost everybody responsible for the care of the very young lets them play, at least some of the time.  Play is what young children do best.  Skillful young players can do it for a long time, without interrupting adults to complain, in words or actions, of boredom. It’s through play that young children get smart.”

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