Mainstream education has very clear cut times throughout the day scheduled for ‘learning time’, which takes up the majority of the day, and ‘play time’, usually 2 scheduled blocks of 15 minutes plus however long the child has left after lunch. For arguments sake, let’s say this is around 30 minutes.
That’s an hour of ‘play’ per school day.
Just 1 hour.
BUT, what if we turned this on its head?
What if, we turn the majority of a child’s day into ‘play time’ and let the children enjoy themselves? As the adults we can find the learning opportunities within that play and continue the natural curiosity and love of learning that I believe children are born with. As I have found more and more, there are learning opportunities in almost every situation in life.
Now obviously, there will be times when their play doesn’t fit your learning agenda. Side-stepping the arguments for and against exclusively child led learning, I suggest that it is our job as adults, role models, parents and/or educators, to make learning fun, so that even where children are to follow an educators lead, we turn that into playtime too.
Can you imagine the adults this kind of learning would produce? Would they be happier? More fulfilled? More confident, curious, creative?
I want to make learning time, playtime.
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