I recently read an article Tom posted on Twitter about children's play. The article was by Valerie Strauss and she shared some interesting facts about play. As a lower elementary teacher, I see on a daily basis the hard work my students put towards their education. I have students who are in every small group possible, intervention groups and after school clubs. Their one and only break is our lunch recess which as of last year was cut by three minutes. The reason for the recess cut was so that we could be back in our classrooms ready for instruction at the exact time our recess was over.
My question is at what point do we do what is best for children beyond their academic performance? We continue to push and push our students to meet a level of proficiency but do we ever stop to think that maybe pushing less and allowing more time for play which allows creativity may push our students past proficiency. Children are not given enough time to be creative in school and when they are asked to be creative they don't know where to begin.
Jeremy tweeted to me that creativity is now the highest level on Bloom's Taxonomy. So when we are not allowed children the opportunities to be creative such as in play, are we setting our students up to fail??
I agree, there is not enough time given to kids to play and have fun. I think we are making kids grow up too soon. More than ever before, kids are dealing with serious issues at such young ages. Lets let kids play and have fun.
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