Play's Place? In the Classroom!

It was so refreshing to read about the success of a class in which play is a focus!  All too often, it seems like the “c[h]ool” is being taken out of school, leaving behind assessments and the rigorous curricula deemed necessary to prepare students for them.  As recess shrinks to an infinitesimal speck on the daily schedule and the so-called “specials”—music, gym, art, library—disappear altogether, children spend an ever-increasing amount of time in an environment in which they’re expected to sit quietly and focus on whatever task is at hand, be it listening to the teacher, working on projects or worksheets alone or in a group, reading, or writing.  And teachers are told that this is what we have to do in order to keep up with the expectations laid out by the standardized tests of the hour.  But is it really?  Is sitting in straight rows, silently listening then working on assignments really what’s best for our students?  Is that how they learn most effectively and engage best with the material?  Karen Wohlwend’s (2011) book Playing Their Way into Literacies:  Reading, Writing, and Belonging in the Early Childhood Classroom makes a case for play as a frame for early childhood learning, and makes it quite convincingly.  In the second chapter, Wohlwend cites multiple instances from her case study of a class taught by Abbie Howard, and focuses on a group of students styled the “Abbie Wannabes”:  these students routinely choose to participate in teacher/student modeled play during choice time, drawing on the strategies they have been explicitly taught or have picked up on from their surrounding contexts in order to help themselves and their playmates successfully engage in their play.  And perhaps most heartwarming for me, the students were able to help each other to become better navigators of the literacies surrounding them.  Even students who were independent readers in the kindergarten context could learn from their peers who may not have been reading as readily, but who were experienced and confident storytellers.  This kind of natural give-and-take and sharpening of skills by peers is something exciting to see.