Active, Joyful Engagement

“To learn the word ‘the,’ Kristen Bauter’s kindergartners used to sit at their desks with a worksheet and circle words scattered across the page. Now, the 5-year-olds stand at a station digging through shredded blue paper to find cardboard fish marked ‘the.’It’s a change for the Watertown City School District in far upstate New York, where Bauter works. This year, the district has implemented a play-based learning curriculum for kindergartners and first-graders in its five elementary schools, an effort to make learning more developmentally appropriate and to cultivate students’ social-emotional skills.” So begins an article by Kate Stringer on the website, the74million.org.

“It’s also in alignment with the state of New York’s new standards for early learners,” Stringer explains, “which encourage play and ‘active, joyful engagement’…

That makes sense to early-learning researchers, who have long argued for play-based education for young students. Years of research have demonstrated the importance of play for childhood development, yet the ‘either/or’ argument between play and academics, with their strict standards and assessments, has inhibited making playtime more prominent in the early grades.”

In the popular book, Really Seeing Children, Deb Curtis writes about how important it is for educators to truly understand and respect children’s play-based learning. She explains:

“Seeing children is about seeing the details of their remarkable ideas and actions. Studying what you observe and seeing yourself as a teacher-researcher to find children’s skills and competencies enhances your own professional development and informs your practice when responding and planning for children. Seeing children’s astonishing ways brings the joy and wonder back to your teaching.”

Source: “A New Push for Play-Based Learning: Why Districts Say It’s Leading to More Engaged Students, Collaborative Classmates … and Better Grades,” by Kate Stringer, the74million.org, February 6, 2018

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