Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Our topic is play. Before we begin discussing the five books you’ve cited, I thought it would be useful to establish what we mean when we talk about play. My three-year-old daughter offered the following definition: “Play is doing lots of stuff that’s fun, sometimes with friends.” Can you refine her definition? What is play?
Play is something you do for pleasure. It is not task-oriented; it’s not necessary. Some people refer to it as children’s business or children’s work. But I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as children exercising their inner self, imitating behaviours around them and acting out something that is new to them. In play, children miniaturise the world, reducing it to size within their intellectual grasp.
There are different forms of play. Physical play uses your hands, your muscles, your body to feel, touch, slide, run and ride a tricycle. Imaginative play begins around the age of 18 months – a child will take a teddy bear and pretend to feed it. Three-, four- and five-year-olds focus on imaginative play. As far as I’m concerned that’s the most charming age for a child. I love five-year-olds – their imaginations are in full blossom and they have the vocabulary for elaborate make-believe.
Is play just for kids?
No, we play all our lives. It takes different forms – adults play board games, organised sports or act in amateur theatre. Play goes on throughout life. We don’t lose the capacity or the need for play – it just takes different forms.
Is play just for humans?
No, animals play. Studies of animal life show chimps, cubs and young animals of all sort engage in rough and tumble tousling, which is not designed to hurt, it’s definitely play.
Each of the books you’ve cited helps us understand the benefits and uses of play. Let’s begin with the work of Kurt Lewin, the German-American founder of social psychology. What do you draw from his Dynamic Theory of Personality, first published in 1935?
When my husband was earning his dissertation, I took a course on learning theory and the instructor assigned A Dynamic Theory of Personality. By the time I finished it, I decided to switch career paths. I had wanted to be an archaeologist but Lewin’s work made me see that psychology is much more interesting. I wanted to deal with real life rather than old bones.
Lewin is well known for a number of experiments that found people who worked in a democratic way were more productive. He conducted studies in factories that showed groups with autocratic leadership had much more aggression and hostility among workers. So democratic society tends to be more productive. That was one aspect of his work. And he inspired a lot of work on integration, which led to my own dissertation, looking at what educational settings engendered tolerance – all white, all black or integrated schools. I found integrated schools were much more accepting than either all white or all black schools.
You’ve cited his work in your work on play. What does he teach about our topic?
When children play in a democratic way – in other words, when they share their ideas and decide on the direction of their play together – there is much more acceptance than when one child simply tells the rest what to do. Constructive play is cooperative play. If one child starts to get bossy and doesn’t allow others to voice their opinions, pretty soon the others don’t want to play with that child. Bossiness doesn’t really bode well for the game to continue. But if the leader listens to others and shows more fairness, play continues longer. Teachers can help this democratic play along if they listen and suggest alternative ways to play.
Does play teach us to be more cooperative and democratic?
Play has so many positive effects. When children play they become much more flexible. If they don’t have a particular object they need in their make-believe, they repurpose what they can find. For instance, if a child needs a horn for a pretend bus, he can grab a ball and make believe. So play builds nimbleness and creativity.
A great deal of research shows play enhances vocabulary. When children play they adopt new words. If they’re playing pirates and an adult gives them the words for eye patch, the words will stick with them.
The other thing that’s very important, as they play they’re learning self-control. They learn not to hit but instead to use words. They learn delayed gratification. You can’t have a tea party until you boil the water. Pretend preliminary steps teach them patience in real world interactions. So play has scores of positive effects.
Dorothy Singer is a senior research scientist emeritus in Yale’s psychology department. She is the author of more than 20 books and 150 articles on play and child development, and received an award from the American Psychological Association for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions
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