Child's Play

Have you sat down lately to just watch the children around you? When you see them on the playground or at shopping malls or at swimming pools or in the bus or MRT or on the streets, or in the classroom, what do you see them do? I see them actively playing. They do not necessarily need to have a toy with them to play. They play with the escalators in shopping malls, with water in the pools, with the handles hanging above them in the bus/MRT, with pebbles or cans they find on the streets, with their pencils in the classroom and the list goes on. What does this tell us about children? That play is an integral part of their lives.



So why then are we (adults) so set in taking it away from them too soon? We reckon that play would interfere with their studies. We possess the mindset that play and learning are mutually exclusive activities, ie. if a child plays, he cannot learn and if he learns, he cannot play. In the last decade or so early childhood experts tell us otherwise. That children can learn and play at the same time. In fact, they go a step further to say that young children learn through play. It is a truth that is rather difficult for us to embrace. But, nonetheless, that is how children operate. Now, most, if not all kindergartens are taking this route to educating young minds.

So the next time you see children hanging on the handles in the MRT trains or stepping on puddles of water on the streets, remember that they are learning. Remember the saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?” How true!