The Truth About Play

Here is some sobering information: there has been a steady, continuous increase in anxiety and depression in young people in America since the 1950's such that the rates of what we would now diagnose as generalized depression disorder and major depression are five to eight times higher today. The suicide rate for children under 15 has quadrupled. During a similar timeframe, researchers have recorded a decline in children's ability to empathize and a rise in narcissism.

Let that sink in for a second. This is not the result of us simply identifying previously overlooked mental illness: the same clinical questionnaires have been used, virtually unchanged, for the past half century, giving us the ability to genuinely measure these trends over time. According to Boston College psychologist and research professor Peter Gray, it is not a coincidence that we have also seen during that same timeframe a steady, continuous decrease in the opportunity for children to enjoy the freedom of play.

Before you respond with the doubter's easy cliche, "Correlation does not equal causation," please take a moment to read Gray's piece on Aeon, which is a kind of summary of his book Free To Learn (2013), a well-documented investigation of the centrality of play in human learning, and in which he convincingly argues that this rise in mental disorders in our children is a direct result of a dearth of unstructured play, or as Gray puts it "the decline in children's freedom." It's a great piece exploring the benefits of free play and the dangers of a lack of it.

Even today, the world of American children is becoming increasingly curtailed and restricted, with longer school days, and more homework, testing, and standardization. Even when not engaged in school, we are shuttling them off to other adult directed activities like sports teams, swimming lessons, and dance classes, leaving precious little time for the kind of free play that is the foundation of a real education, and a healthy psyche.

During the Victorian Era, the leading theory on the purpose of play was that it emerged merely as a result of excess energy, but by the turn of the century, researchers lead by the German philosopher and naturalist Karl Goos, began to study play, first in animals, then in humans, concluding that play is, in fact, "practice" for the skills most necessary for survival: in other words, real education comes through play. As a teacher at a school with a play-based curriculum, I see this every day, children, through their play, practicing such vital skills as negotiation, building relationships, and working together toward common goals, practicing the skills they will need to live productive, satisfying, creative lives. In contrast, our nation's schools, lead from the top by our president and his secretary of education, are implementing longer school days, shorter vacations, and more homework, the very things that compromise mental health.

Gray often writes about democratic free schools, holding them up as a model we should seek to emulate, but acknowledges that it's not going to happen in the short-run. The idea that play is the opposite of learning is just too well embedded in our collective psyche.

I don't expect to convince most people, any time soon, that we should abolish schools as we know them today and replace them with centres for self-directed play and exploration. But I do think there is a chance of convincing most people that play outside of school is important. We have already taken too much of that away; we must not take away any more.

I know that many of you who read my posts are homeschoolers and un-schoolers, parents who have seen the truth about self-directed play. I hear you, support you, and understand why you've made your choices, but this is simply not a choice for most people, even those who understand the centrality of play in a high-quality childhood. Last week I sat with a mother who cried over the inadequacy of the kindergarten her son attends, how he struggles with the lack of freedom, made worse by the recognition that economic realities put options like homeschooling or private schools out of her family's reach. She's not the first, nor will she be the last parent faced with that reality: most of us don't have the financial or constitutional resources to make an alternative education happen, at least not without the support of a community.

This is why we continue to need schools and why we must, as a society, stay engaged. There is an important school board election coming up here in Seattle -- there is an important one coming up in your city as well. And it's important even if you don't have a child in the public schools. But it can't stop at the ballot box. Not everyone is ready for the kinds of schools imagined by Gray, but we can have better schools if we stay engaged, not just with the school but with one another. A case in point is the B.F. Day Elementary School just up the hill from Woodland Park, where many of our alumni are enrolled. Three of our former parents are now on staff there, hired by a principal who shares many of our values. No, we're are not going to turn it into a democratic free school, but we are working together, all of us, parents, teachers, and the administration to make it a better public school, even an excellent one, despite pressures from outside our community. And always in the backs of our minds are the ideals of free play.

I will continue to work for the day when this is common knowledge, when we all know as a matter of course the truth that play is the core of how children learn, that we can trust them to learn what they need to learn, that they must have freedom in order to become their best selves, the mentally and emotionally healthy selves we all need them to be if humanity is to survive and thrive. In the meantime, I will stay engaged. I will not throw up my hands and retreat, leaving the field to those who will have kids spend their childhoods with their noses being worn down against the grindstone of tests, homework, rote memorization, and being expected to sit still and silent. We will never achieve perfection, of course, but I have no doubt that we can prevent things from getting worse, which is at least something. I have as much faith that we can actually make things better. I see it happening right up the hill from where I work every day.

To finish, I invite you to take a look at this short, simple, yet thought-provoking video. Imagine for a moment talking to your child this way. Imagine asking these questions of the children you teach. Imagine a world in which we were all free to live our lives according to our answers.

Imagine this world exists right here and now despite the doubts and objections running through your head. This describes the world of our greatest aspirations and highest human potential. It is not a world free from want, worry, or work: it is, however, the world of freedom. It's the world in which we will live when we finally accept the truth about play.

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