Let's Define Play

I write quite a bit, okay almost exclusively, about "play-based" education. That's the term I prefer because it tells me everything I need to know. Others prefer "child-lead" or "inquiry-based" or "hands-on" and while each of those terms (and others) gets at a piece of it for me, the word play is such a plump berry of a word, one from which a whole way of experiencing the world can be squeezed.

It's come to my attention, both recently and forever, that not everyone hears what I hear when the word is evoked. I know I'm probably dealing with this sort of person, for instance, when they use the phrase "it's just play" or "they're just playing." That, to me, is no different than saying, "it's just education," "it's just love," or "it's just life." It tells me they don't see the vital centrality of play, a word I've often used as a synonym for "love" or "life" or "education." I imagine that for some people, perhaps many people, play is something from childhood, a favorite stuffed bear they've boxed up to stash in a corner of the attic, only occasionally stumbled across, usually while looking for something else, an artifact being saved for the grandkids.

Of course, I know there are many who understand play the way I do, as life itself, but who are in a position in which they fear that the very serious people they must persuade, the ones who hold the purse strings or the authority to say "yes" won't understand, so they pack it with a padding of academic sounding jargon designed to make it sound a lot like something they already believe. It's clever salesmanship, of course, but it's also just one more kick of the can down the road, one more lost opportunity to have the very serious people begin to understand why play is so much more than childish frolic.

There is a sustained push from the "top" right now to make our schools into academic work houses, places in which children spend their days learning what committees and companies have determined they should learn via teaching methods that are actually proscribed within the curriculum, where there are longer days, larger classes, more technology and fewer teachers, where test scores and grades are the products, where the primary objective is to compete economically with the Chinese. It's the kind of top-down hierarchical approach favored by old-school CEOs and other dictators. Most of our high schools are already well along this road. It's not education, but rather a kind of machine that makes an assembly line product by rote, one that may look and feel like the real thing to reform dilettantes, but is seen by the rest of us as the plastic and saccharine education-like stand-in that it is.

And here we are at the "bottom," we early childhood folks. They're more or less leaving us alone right now, here in our ghetto where we rely on actual data and research that supports the centrality of play, but it won't be long before they've pushed their way down through middle school and start in on us. They hope (and we know it's a false hope, so expect them to turn instead to fear-mongering) that by the time they get to us they'll actually have some facts upon which to base their predetermined theories. Let's not wait. Let's call it what it is: "rote-based" education; the opposite of "play-based." It's time to start pushing back, up from the bottom, because like it or not we are on the front lines in what is truly a battle between ideology and reality.

And if I have any say, we will not back away from the word "play" as we do so. Play is our most important and persuasive tool. 

I'm going to try this without checking first to see what Webster or Oxford has to say about it. 

Play is open-ended. 

Play is what you do when no one is telling you what to do; it's self-selected; it's freely chosen. 

Play is the way the human animal naturally answers its own questions; play is how we satisfy our curiosity.

Play is science, exploration, invention, and discovery.

Play is taking risks, challenging authority, thinking critically, and questioning the status quo.

Play is an active engagement with the real world and the people we find there.

Play is how we learn about the link between failure, perseverance, and success.

Play is holistic, inclusive, universal.

The antonym of "play" is "rote," which stands at the heart of the assembly line approach. The most perfect synonyms for play are "art," "life," "love," and "education." For me, the word "play" encompasses everything worth knowing, and that's why I'll continue to use it.

And while you're here, how about dropping your own definition of "play" into a comment. I know I still have a lot to learn, because that's the most important thing play teaches us.

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