Play and playfulness in early childhood education and care

Abstract

This article is a modified version of a previous paper Singer, E. (2013). and playfulness, basic features of early childhood education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 21, 172-184. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1350293X.2013.789198?journalCode=recr20#.VZ0Mal_tlJAIntroductionThe founding parents of early childhood education, such as Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, and Lev Vygotsky, focused the active playing and learning child (Singer, 1993). and learning go hand in hand in young children. Formal aimed at instruction and the transmission of knowledge are seen as teacher-centered. Play curricula were, and are, seen as child-centered and developmentally appropriate for young children. Many developmental studies have demonstrated the educational benefits of play (Walsh, Sproule, McGuinness, Trew,& Ingram, 2010). Neuropsychological studies have given new scientific arguments for the belief that play and learning are closely related in young children (Panksepp, 2012). During play, intense positive emotions, actions, and sensory experiences go hand in hand. experiences have a major impact learning. But play in which play is used as an educational tool can have drawbacks. According to Sutton-Smith (1997), the belief in play as an educational tool has become so dominant that we tend to forget the playing child. Children's ideas of play generally center on having fun, being outdoors, being with friends, choosing freely (p. 49). But teachers tend to behave too teacherly and misuse children's play to attain their own educational goals, thus spoiling children's fun (Pramling Samuelsson & Asblond Carlsson, 2008). In this article I rethink the importance of play from the perspective of children and the perspective of teachers. I argue that play and playfulness are a resource of shared pleasure and creativity for teachers and young children. The playfulness of teachers helps to prevent young children from becoming overburdened with strict rules and group discipline.What is play?In Homo Ludens the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1938/1955) analyzes the phenomenon of play in human cultures. His play theory is still acknowledged as a ground-breaking study for modern theories about play. He writes: First and foremost, all play is a voluntary activity. ...Child and animal play because they enjoy playing, and therein precisely lies their freedom (p. 8). The basic motive for play is the experience of pleasure that it affords. Huizinga gives the example of two puppies involved in play-fighting. keep to the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard, your brother's ear. They pretend to get angry. And what is most important -- in all these doings they plainly experience tremendous fun and enjoyment (Huizinga, 1955, p. 1). Humans also play for pleasure. These experiences can be captured only in qualitative descriptions of feelings like excitement, tension, release, uncertainty, togetherness, surprise, risk, balance. Children do not play for some educational benefit that is more valuable than play. For instance, 3-year olds do not jump up and down to practice motor skills but because jumping up and down is fun.The play-world: rhythms, repetition, roles, and rulesPlay presumes an intense relationship with the immediate social and physical environment. Children play with a friend or an adult, and they play with objects. In relation to other people and the surrounding environment, the playing child creates a play-world that is different from the ordinary world. The child and play partner create a shared play-world by using rhythms, rules, and roles. Detailed analyses of parent-infant interactions, for instance, show how a shared play-world is created. The infant and parent communicate by imitating each other, through eye contact, by taking turns, and by repeating, varying, and improvising sounds and gestures (DeZutter, 2007; Trevarthen, 2011). …