Early years practitioners and Government still need to reflect on what is really meant by 'learning through play', says Jacqui Cousins
In England, to speak of 'play' at school is still emotive and controversial, despite a broadly international recognition of young children's 'Right to Play'. It is curious why a nation that values freedom and fairness so highly should remain so rigid and puritanical in its attitudes towards play and fun in early education. Do we really believe that if young children are enjoying themselves, then they can't be learning?
The educational and developmental value of play is certainly not fully understood or implemented in our society. While we celebrate many of the early childhood initiatives of 'New Labour' and congratulate them on the emphasis they have placed on the early years, there is still much work to do to help them appreciate what is meant by child-initiated play.
Under Article 31 of the UN Convention ('The Rights of the Child') governments everywhere have had a golden opportunity to build integrated and coherent childcare and education services that capitalise on a shared understanding of the crucial role of play in young children's development.
Such services have been developed most notably in Denmark, but in England, instead of putting autonomous play into action, the Government has compartmentalised the curriculum.
As a result, the process model of learning that we used to share with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, France and Italy, has been replaced by overconcern with end-products.
We watch young children at play and divide what they do into distinct areas of learning. We measure only what we can observe on the surface and see whether it matches our planned learning outcomes.
This tendency to compartmentalise was brought home to me strongly when a German friend saw one of my students observing the play of children aged five in his kindergarten. He read her notes and heard her comment, 'What a lot of number experiences... that's good for scientific thinking.'
So, he challenged us. 'Why can't you just look at them playing and think about their inner needs like you used to in England? Ask what those playful and natural experiences are doing for the children's spirits and emotions, as well as for their learning. Be careful ... you are in danger of closing your minds. By focusing only on the cognitive, you are ignoring serendipity - those magical moments when young children's curiosity leads the way and they make unplanned discoveries.'
Learning processes
A major casualty of this trend to compartmentalise, to neglect the process of learning and to ignore young children's talents, has been in the creative arts. For example, 'dance', which is a natural and spontaneous voice of childhood, has been absorbed into PE. That subject cannot provide opportunities for imaginative improvisation, response to music and self-expression.
Other playful processes, such as gardening and construction, which need time and concentration, are cut short or neglected, despite their ability to motivate and enthuse children as they learn.
Despite the excellent Foundation Stage guidance written by experienced colleagues, the plight of play within the early years curriculum has been made all the worse by SATS and league tables, which are education department inventions to convince the Treasury of the cost-effectiveness of spending more on education.
If 80 per cent of the 240 early years practitioners who have contributed to my research into the world of four-year-olds are to be believed, many children are being excessively constrained and over-directed by a 'top-down' curriculum. The practitioners admit they have adopted a more tense and dominating teacher role when engaged in structured play. 'We cut it short... stop them... interrupt... it must be irritating for the children.' Yes, it is.
Pressure from above
At recent early years conferences, reception teachers have voiced a dilemma: they know how crucial play is for the development of four-year-olds, but feel too pressurised to allow them time for sustained play of their choice. One is reminded of the desperate little girl reported in Listening to Four-Year-Olds with her 'Hurry up! Hurry up! It time! What it time for?'
They continually referred to the 'top-down' pressure and anxiety they felt if, for example, they didn't have little neat writing to put on the wall for parents' night. Without the support of other staff with an early years specialism, they heard colleagues denigrate their work and criticise them for encouraging play and allowing their children to make too much noise.
One was heard to say to her head teacher, 'Good job she's only got Receptions. I'll get them into shape for their SATs.' What a hurtful attitude towards a novice teacher whose room was like wonderland and whose children were some of the most enthusiastic learners I have ever seen.
Early years workers were also agitated by the lack of space for the children, both inside and outside; by parents already worried about SATs; by heads and colleagues worried about results and league tables, and by mountains of paperwork.
New entrants to the profession who understood developmental approaches to young children's learning and were familiar with research into brain development, knew the crucial importance of observing children and providing things for them to explore that lead naturally to problem solving.
As Professor Colin Blakemore described at a North Tyneside conference recently, the more exercise young children's brains have in thinking and problem solving, the more neurological connections are securely made and the better the brain works.
As a result of these pressures, many of the families I interviewed over the past two years believed their older children failed their first exam at seven, despite teachers' best efforts to convince them otherwise, and were suggesting extra tutoring for their four-year-olds.
Those of us working with families in areas of disadvantage often hear them talk about their failures, yet a more accurate observational assessment of those same children's holistic development revealed how many of them were exceptionally creative. For example, I watched one four-year-old blowing musically on a kazoo and then beating rhythmically on his brother's steel drum, but he had already begun to play truant at school.
Such children had already become discouraged by a system that placed too great an emphasis on narrow skills, rejected their innate talents and deprived them of the opportunity to express themselves through their own creative voices. Without experiences that keep them switched on to learning, those young children who bunk off school at four are likely to cost our nation a fortune in their later lives. Early failure often sows the seeds of anti-social behaviour, which costs society dearly in human terms.
So how has this come about? Perhaps it is because early childhood in our society is regarded as a curtain raiser, a preparation for a later, adult, stage. Adults (particularly those in education) try to mould young children into what the Government of the day decides will be needed in future; rather than looking at young children and providing what they need now, which will lay strong foundations for their later life.
We should be listening to our early years colleagues in other countries and ensuring that our brightest children are encouraged to retain their interest and the most vulnerable are given a chance to succeed.
Rigid modes of thought and mechanistic ways of working will never solve any of the enormous global problems which we the adults have created. NW
Jacqui Cousins is an early years consultant and family service worker
More information
- Listening to Four-Year-Olds by Jacqui Cousins, priced 7 NEYN members, 9.50 non-members, National Early Years Network, tel 020 7607 9573
- 'It takes time' by Jacqui Cousins, Nursery World, 10 June 1999, pp10-11