Play Has No Plan or Purpose

The children who have discovered the power of saying, "Let's play!" are invariably the most popular playmates in preschool. 

Not that everyone accepts their invitations. After all, play is a self-actualizing activity, one that can really only be undertaken once the foundational levels of their Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs are met. Not every child is feeling safe or together enough to engage in play at any given moment. But those that are, know that the response to "Let's Play" is to enter into negotiations.

In our wider society, the word negotiation carries with it a connotation of butting heads, but really it's just another word for collaboration. The response to "Let's play!" is to agree upon a starting point. 

"Let's dig a hole."

"Let's go to the swings."

"Let's play princess."

From there, the game can go anywhere, one "I have an idea" at a time. In fact, that's the point of play: it's pointless and unpredictable. No one knows where it will lead and what, if anything, will be learned. And that's what motivates children, or any of us, to continue playing, this quest for novelty. The opportunity to discover and interact with something new under the sun. Some play theorists assert that one of the primary reasons that play exists at all is that is how we prepare ourselves for dealing with the unexpected, which, after all is one of the principle features of life.

As the old Yiddish saying puts it, "Man plans and god laughs."

I was recently meeting with early childhood educators in Connecticut, a place that has persuaded state legislators to codify "play" as the primary pedagogical mechanism for leaning in preschool and kindergarten, with further support play up through elementary school. Indeed, the host organization of the event at which I was speaking, the Connecticut Education Association, has been instrumental in making the legislation happen and several of the women to whom I was speaking were key players in the effort.

But they recognize that getting the legislation passed was only a beginning. Their work, in many ways, still lies ahead of them. They told me, for instance, that some veteran teachers, in their efforts to adopt a more play-centric approach, were requiring the children to "make a plan" for their play which the teacher has to approve before allowing them to proceed. That's not play. Play doesn't have a purpose or plan. 

Those of us who are familiar with play based, or self-directed, learning understand this, but it's an alien concept to educators who have bought into the notion that children need adults to take charge of their learning. Requiring children to "plan" renders it another adult directed activity.

In a famous study, researchers showed groups of children a set of pictures of children engaged in a variety of activities. They then asked them if what they saw was "play" or not. The researchers found that the primary indicator that any given activity was play is the absence of adults. When adults were present, the children tended to label the activity, whatever it was, as "work" or "learning."

The educators of Connecticut have their work cut out for them because play is a notoriously difficult thing to define. I've read countless studies on play and rarely do any two define play in the same way. This is what makes play difficult to research. It's like love in this way. Or art. Or morality. Or even life itself. Perhaps the great truth is that the most important things are impossible to define, even if we know it when we experience it. 

In his book The Kingdom of Play, author David Toomey, draws parallels between culture and play. Neither play nor culture "enable survival or reproduction in any immediate way." Neither starts with a plan. "(T)hey cease playing only when they are injured, exhausted, or simply become interested in something else. So it is with culture. 'No work of art is ever finish,' says the aphorism. 'It is only abandoned.' . . . (T)he more open-ended a cultural practice is, the more play-like it is."

"Let's play" is an invitation to create something together. It has no plan or purpose beyond, perhaps, fun. That novelty is discovered or created, that human's are connected, that learning results, is all a happy accident. As adults, we are responsible for helping them satisfy their physiological, safety, emotional and esteem needs, but but as far as the children are concerned, self-actualization can only happen, play can only happen, when the adults are out of the picture.

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If you want to transform your own space into a full-capacity learning environment that gives children the freedom to self-actualize through play, please join the 2026 cohort for my course, Creating a Natural Habitat for Learning. This is a  deep dive into transforming your classroom, home, or playground into the kind of learning environment in which young children thrive; in which novelty and self-motivation stand at the center of learning. In my decades as an early childhood educator, I've found that nothing improves my teaching and the children's learning experience more than a supportive classroom, both indoors and out. This course is for educators, parents, and directors. Group discounts are available. You don't want to miss this chance to make your "third teacher" (the learning environment) the best it can be. I hope you join me! Registration closes soon. To learn more and register, click here.

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