Biophilia

Biophilia. Love of life. Is there a better definition of what we do?

"Biophilia is the passionate love of life and of all that is alive; it is the wish to further growth, whether in a person, a plant, an idea, or a social group. The biophilous person prefers to construct rather than to retain. He wants to be more rather than to have more. He is capable of wondering, and he prefers to see something new rather than to find confirmation of the old. He loves the adventure of living more than he does certainty. He sees the whole rather than only the parts, structures rather than summations. He wants to mould and to influence by love, reason, and example; not by force, by cutting things apart, by the bureaucratic manner of administering people as if they were things."

Psychologist Erich Fromm wrote this in 1973 and had he only not cut out half the human population by his use masculine pronouns, he could have been writing a job description for every play-based educator I know.

This is what we do as we strive to set children free to play, to grow, to become more, to be full of wonder, as they fall in love with the world. It's why we resent it when education dilettantes, be they policymakers, bureaucrats, or businesspeople, pat us on the head as they explain all the precious "efficiencies" we'll gain by administering to children as if they are things. As biophiles, we know that grades and tests and out-of-the-box curricula miss the point as they cut things apart.

Play is a flourishing of life's impulse to fully embrace the adventure of living. Our job isn't to manage that impulse, but to join in it, to nurture it, to make room for it, in ourselves as much as in the children. We are not here to administer children as if they are things. We are here to fall in love with the world alongside them.

Biophilia. Love of life. Is there a better definition of what we do?

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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