The Disappearance of Play in Early Childhood Education Policies

Research, identify and rationalise a position on play approaches in teaching and learning.

Most research claim that young children especially the ones in their early childhood learn in the most effective manner through experiences of play that are meaningful. However, over the years, the trend has arisen that demonstrates a decline in learning through play and instead a more academic nature of the preschool curriculum has become prominent. This is mostly because parents, teachers and other education officials have shifted their focus from learn-through-play to a more organized and academic learning for the children in their early childhood. In fact, playing outdoors has become a less prioritized experience even though children are more probable to gain and build the foundation of their academic and practical knowledge through free and active playing. In this context, the thesis statement of the paper is that there has been a steady decline in the provisions and policies for play in early childhood education. To this end, the paper examines Sophie Alcock’s academic paper on ‘Searching for play in Early Childhood Care and Education Policy’, published in the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies in the year 2013. The paper provides a critical analysis of the stance of Alcock that despite much emphasis that is given on the importance of including play in the early childhood curriculum, the Ministry of Education (MoE) of New Zealand and the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) does not provide much importance to the implementation of play in the early childhood education.

There has been an evident disappearance of children’s play from the current policies, documents and curriculum of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). However, there has been a prominent growth in the global transformation of children’s learning into highly academic dimensions. This is demonstrated in the recent policies of the ECCE. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) states that it is the inherent right of children to play (Alcock 2013). In the recent times, a report by the International Play Association demonstrated that neglect of play for children has become a rising global concern providing excess pressure on the children towards academic achievement (Alcock 2013). The cause for this neglect has been identified as a lack in the awareness among the adults of the necessity for play in the development of children. Alcock (2013) is of the opinion that the neglect in the realization of the importance of play in the ECCE stands on an illogical ground, as it is a known fact that initiative and imaginative play contributes highly towards the development and learning of children. She demonstrates how in the past decade, notwithstanding the growth in the scholarship of educational play, the freedom of the children especially in their early childhood has been endangered more than in the 1990s. Alcock (2013) presents a wide view on the complex nature of play and playful attitude and identifies it with the ways of adults for connecting, understanding, creating and relating with children. According to Alcock (2013), learning is a process that is relational and is associated with work, play, care, development and love all of which are important to the concept of play in the sense of a verb. Hence placing this statement in context of the settings of the ECCE it can be stated that play forms its ways in enabling the children to demonstrate playful curiosity and to be creative and imaginative collectively.

Global Trends Towards Learning in Highly Academic Dimensions

Alcock (2013) discusses on the various stances of the ECCE theorists regarding play. These theorists can be generally divided into two categories of different understanding of the nature and importance of play. These two categories are sometimes contradictory and overlapping. While one group supports and promotes all play forms, the other category is more inclined towards concentrating on the educational and instructional play. The second category of theorists focuses on the necessity of the creation of situations and environments offering extensive opportunities for imaginative play supporting the development and learning of children (Alcock 2013). In this context, it is important to note that teachers play a key role for the promotion and creation of play that is appropriate towards the development of children. This can be done by the creation of environments that engage children in play through play spaces that are rich in literacy and supports the imagination of the children while keeping in mind the learning outcomes. Such a method also requires teachers to engage in playful activities with the children ensuring success in the educational agendas (Alcock 2013). The first category of the theorists consider the rights of the children to play to be an aspect of fundamental freedom that is related with both the physical and emotional development in children. These theorists stand for the importance of play of all kinds while not undermining their educational aspects as well. They consider play to be inclusive of more agendas other than  just learning. They are of the opinion that play is an integral element of most of the creative processes.

Keeping in mind the above-stated contradictions in the nature and importance of play it can be stated that theorists of educational play have often been under misinterpretation and under-presentation due to their narrow and limited understanding of educational play associated with the trends in policies and curriculum that place its focus mostly on the academic and cognitive aspects of learning. Alcock (2013) is therefore, of the opinion that confining play within the dynamics of control transforms it into a play-less educational process by resisting freedom that is the fundamental essence of play. Moreover, given to the recent trends, active and free play does not fit with the educational agendas easily. Moreover, the theorists who accept all forms of play for children to ensure physical and emotional development fails to align children’s play within an academic framework (Alcock 2013). To state the obvious, children’s play faces possible danger when placed in the sense of a right in simplistic terms as well as when placed as the natural being of children.

The Importance of Play in Children’s Learning and Development

The Early Childhood Curriculum of New Zealand, Te Whariki,  includes implicit play within the curriculum definition as the collective response of both indirect and direct activities, experiences and event occurring within an environment created for the development and learning of children. The official webpage of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) of the Ministry of Education (MoE) provides a very narrow understanding of the curriculum. The ECE curriculum demonstrates focus on the early childhood learning assessment as preparing the young children for school (Alcock 2013). It states its emphasis on the development of children through literacy and numeracy. This demonstrates a bleak future for the Early Childhood Education Curriculum (ECEC) that is evidently play-less. The development of children demands growth in all spheres –social. Emotional, cognitive, cultural, spiritual and physical. The concepts of play, care and development have been under and misrepresented in ways that are reductionist as demonstrated in the curriculum and policies of the ECCE (Alcock 2013). Although, a discourse of learning dominates the framework of the policies and curriculum of the ECCE, the understanding of the policy-makers of the concept of learning as a holistic development has degraded into a narrow domain of academic focus reluctant of including appropriate play in the children’s curriculum.

The curriculum for early childhood learning in New Zealand, Te Whariki, mentions play on a minimal and superficial level as one of the other 22 goals that it propagates as part of the curriculum (Alcock 2013). It mentions that the children will be enabled to experience an atmosphere where play will be identified as important and associated with learning that is meaningful and that the necessity of spontaneity will be realized. At this point it is important to mention that the concept of play and playful attitude include much more than exploration that is future-focused. Many of the other 21goals of Te Whariki do not even indicate the involvement of play (Alcock 2013). In fact, it is evident that not one play scholar was involved among the developers of the curriculum while structuring the curriculum. ‘Kei tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars’ are assessment examples in early childhood curriculum of New Zealand that demonstrate the value of learning helping the community of learners to gauge the diverse and ongoing pathways of learning (Alcock 2013). Most of the books included in this series of examples place priority on the learning dispositions of each children and hence ignores the complex understanding of children playing and connecting with each other while creating relational meaning. Alcock (2013) states that the weakness of the Te Whariki is that it fails to use the word ‘play’ appropriately and efficiently which makes its position and approach towards play vulnerable. However, it provides a framework that might be able to involve the concept of play as an activity especially if the concept of playfulness is applied relationally to the learning process and attitude.

Contradictions in the Theories of Educational Play

Bearing with the above stated arguments put forth by Alcock (2013) in her paper, it will not be incorrect to say that there has been a decline and degradation in the understanding of including play in the early childhood learning curriculum. Losing sense of the necessity of play in the learning programs of the children in their early childhood is a rising global concern. Educational authorities fail to provide as much value and emphasis on the importance of playfulness and play in children’s learning as is placed on the importance of development of literacy and numeracy among children. Most of the research conducted have proven and established a relation among play, literacy and numeracy as it is widely believed that educational creativity, curiosity and collaboration are effectively induced in children by ensuring their engagement with others through play. The strength of Alcock’s paper lies in the firm affirmation of the problem of declining implementation of play in the early childhood curriculum. Alcock impressively presents in an organized manner the importance of including play in children’s education policies. However, despite such firm evidence and organized presentation of the paper, it must be noted that Alcock fails to provide a detailed and practical solution to the problem as well as provides a vague overview of the problem on a global level.

The arguments placed by Alcock can be supported by the views of other scholars as well who have equally addressed the problem of the disappearance of play from early childhood learning. Darbyshire (2007) claims that with the rising understanding in technological and instrumental knowledge, parents have been highly influenced towards a performance oriented upbringing of the children that is highly driven by results and solutions. Children are confined within a structural and active discourse that prevents them from just playing. That is to say, children are no longer allowed to play in their free mind just for the sake of playing. Children are no longer free to imagine and fantasize just for the sake of dreaming (Darbyshire 2007). The present educational curriculum demands high and adequate productivity form the children as evident from the rising shift and transformation of the toy shops into centers for early learning. It is a rising trend that children are often trapped indoors in a harmless environment. Moreover, any outdoor activity of the children is closely supervised by parents and adults. Hence, it is realized that the childhood of the young children are bound within strict adult confines that simulates an adventurous playground where the harm is minimized (Darbyshire 2007). This hinders the free emotional, cognitive, physical and practical development of the children. Children’s play have lost its fundamental essence due to the continuous efforts of the adults of turning play into a purposeful and meaningful activity.

The Role of Teachers in the Promotion of Play-Based Learning

Brooker and Woodhead (2013) argues in support of the importance of play in childhood. Supporting Alcock’s case in this context, Brooker and Woodhead (2013) claim that the importance of play in childhood is seldom recognized by the government despite the repeated emphasis on the necessity of play regarding the development of children health, learning and well-being. The children of the present generation fail to recognize their right to play on a complete level. Brooker and Woodhead (2013) argues that the children brought up in Europe and North America are primarily occupied in playful activities. However, in the larger part of under-developed and developing countries, play is considered to be a secondary requirement. Instead, children are expected to help with the common chores of the household (Brooker and Woodhead 2013). It must be realized that playing ensures emotional regulation among children enabling to handle stress in the future. Furthermore, the universal conceptualization of play leads the playful activities to lose their vitality. In order to overcome such challenges of universalizing the concept of play, the importance of play must be understood in cultural contexts understanding the potential of play in promoting the development and well-being of children in both encouraged as well as restricted environments. Brooker and Woodhead (2013) argues that the present generation views the time in which children engage in playful activities as non-productive and deficit. In fact, the increasing pressure on children to achieve academic success is reducing the legitimacy of the necessity of play in the curriculum. In fact, the early childhood curriculum focuses widely on formal learning and academic targets at the cost of the engagement of children in play to achieve wider learning outcomes (Brooker and Woodhead 2013). Moreover, children are often engaged in homework and extracurricular tuition providing them no free time to initiate playful activities.

Nicolopoulou (2010) argues putting forth the scenario of the United States of America (U.S.A.) that play is being driven out of the early childhood education in America. The scholar argues that the facilities of play in the preschools and pre0kindergarten have been significantly replaced by the focus on providing direct instruction to the children towards inculcating academic skills. The focus on the content-based and academic approach to pr-school learning has been brought about at the cost of an approach that is more children and play oriented as well as is more constructive and have been dismissed and ignored as obsolete (Nicolopoulou 2010). These tendencies towards a play-less children’s learning have grown with the support of the parents, administrators of school, politicians and professional s of child service. Moreover, there is evidence that the resources available in the preschool training aims mostly at a formal education preparing the children for school. For example, the early childhood curriculum usually maintains an emphasis on the early attainment of literacy skills that are trending. This is usually supported by parents who desire their children to get the best training preparing and getting them ready for school. Nicolopoulou (2010), however, argues that although free play initiated by a child is important for the necessary development of the child, it is necessary that there must be some guidance offered in that context. What he means to say is that free play does not essentially mean enabling the children to play without any adult supervision and guidance. Additionally, the solution to the increasing academic instruction that is imposed upon the preschool children is not to engage them in periods offering free play. According to Nicolopoulou (2010), it is important to design an organized educational plan that would incorporate the play element in a systematic manner into the curricular plan such that it would promote development and learning among children. It is possible to make this happen by the adults without hampering the natural and initiative engagement of children. To state in simpler terms, free play as well as meaningful learning through play both should be implemented centrally in ensuring appropriate and high-quality preschool education (Nicolopoulou 2010). This is because the shifting nature of the preschools into academic dynamics helps in the identification of the importance of literacy for the long-term academic success of children (Nicolopoulou 2010). Moreover, it is also important to note that cognitive development is not sufficient and that social competence is also important for the holistic development of the child which can be brought about through playful activities that also contribute towards the cognitive accomplishments of the children.

Conclusion

In conclusion, after examining the academic paper by Sophie Alcock and other arguments by different scholars supporting either completely or partially with Alcock’s arguments, it can be stated that play is an important element contributing towards the effective development and learning in children in their early childhood. It is evident from the above arguments that there has been a steady decline in the implementation of playful activities in the early childhood education curriculum hindering the free development of the children. It is also evident that the present time preschool education demonstrates and focuses widely on imparting formal education developing academic readiness for school among children and paying little or no attention to the need for a playful environment for the development of cognitive, intellectual, emotional, cultural and social development of children

References

Alcock, S., 2013. Searching for play in early childhood care and education policy. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 48(1), p.19.

Brooker, L. and Woodhead, M., 2013. The right to play (Vol. 9). The Open University with the support of Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Darbyshire, P., 2007. Childhood’: are reports of its death greatly exaggerated?. Journal of Child Health Care, 11(2), pp.85-97.

Nicolopoulou, A., 2010. The alarming disappearance of play from early childhood education. Human development, 53(1), pp.1-4.