Through play, learning becomes natural and fun. Learning becomes free of stress, control and authority. Play is a pathway to a more humane and enlightened culture of learning and teaching. Learning is accelerated because children can follow their own individual roadmaps, and still return to the group to share what they are learning. There is room for collaboration and room for self-navigation; there is no need for the 30-child horse race.
The benefits to the parent and the teacher include the freedom from teaching, and the freedom to accompany, journey, and share. The days of factory lockstep can be seen in the rear-view mirror; the evolution of the ‘learning habitat’ is just ahead, welcoming, inclusive, and shaped by the energy of young minds.
Don’t we all deserve a little freedom and joy in the short time we have with our children? Play delivers a catered feast of this gift. The play-informed mind grows in the individual child like the rings within a tree trunk, and can be documented in a hybrid of hard copy and digital portfolios. In time, these personal papers map a detailed journey of productivity for the individual child and family, and set the stage for lifelong learning.
Thanks to play, a rich foundation of research, discovery, and life-long learning evolves in school which adults can access and contribute to in their roles as learning coaches and care-givers who no longer need to carry the weight of curriculum as the sole deliverers of the daily education menu. Instead, they follow a life-affirming principle that helps them to navigate and share their knowledge and wisdom with the children in their care. The vast majority of teachers start out with a strong wish to love and guide the young. Play is the way to nourish and sustain that ideal.
Under the civilizing influence of play, behavior problems-- especially those that evolve to terrorize and do harm to our society -- do not grow and become the exception. Positive energy-- social, intellectual, reflective-- leads the way. As more kids are reached and included in the world of play-based learning, it becomes clear that play produces consistent and predictable results, not just in the productivity of learners but in the way teachers are perceived in the public eye. Play is all about harnessing and leveraging brain power and contributing to the empowerment, health and well being of children, clearly a result that we have universally hoped for and, on the pathway of play, we should rightly anticipate every day.