Power of Play
Understanding kids evolutionary need and desire to develop survival skills through play
I feel extremely lucky to be attending this 6-week class ("Mother Nature’s Pedagogy: How Adults Can Facilitate Children’s Natural Ways of Learning ") by a thought leader in the field, Peter Grey. I hope to able to blog about this class every week and share with you the gems of his teachings.
Peter has conducted and published research in neuroendocrinology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and education. He is the author of an internationally acclaimed introductory psychology textbook (Psychology, Worth Publishers, now in its 7th edition, with David Bjorklund as co-author), which views all of psychology from an evolutionary perspective. His recent research focuses on the role of play in human evolution and how children educate themselves, through play and exploration, when they are free to do so. He has expanded on these ideas in his book, "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life" (Basic Books, 2013). He also authors a regular blog, called "Freedom to Learn," for Psychology Today magazine.
This week Peter talked about “Why all animals play?” Play for animals uses up energy, attracts predators and at times puts them in harm’s way, but then why do all animals, especially mammals, choose to play?
Peter’s argument is based on the scholarly work of a famous naturalist in the 1900s, Karl Groos. His book is called, The Play of Animals, and his theory is well known as the Practice Theory of Play.
What Karl and Peter argue is
Play is a child’s way of mastering skills necessary for their survival.
You can almost accurately predict what an animal is going to play at based on their constraints. For example, a wolf cub will be found playing sneaking and pouncing games while a gazelle calve can be found playing chasing, darting, dodging, and getting away games.
Since human beings have the most to learn, young humans, play the most. Humans not just have to master skills needed by their species (walking, running, language, social competence) but they also have to learn skills specific to their culture. For example children of farmers, need to learn farming tools and children of hunter-gatherers need to learn how to use a bow and arrow.
Pretend play is a way for kids to master skills they will need in their adult life.
Kids are biologically primed to look around and observe what others are doing and incorporate it into their play. We call this pretend play.
Our kids came into this world biologically wired to EDUCATE themselves.
Education in the literal sense means the ability of humans to transfer knowledge, skills, and learning from one generation to the other. Education for humans has been going on for millions of years, schools however are a relatively new concept, about 120 years old.
Through evolution and natural selection, humans have shaped their instincts and drive to acquire knowledge important for their survival. Each generation strives to acquire the knowledge and skills most important for their survival in this world. Hence the strong desire for the current generation to master computer skills.
Peter talks about the 7 basic human drives for survival:
First: Curiosity
As Aristotle rightly said, “Human beings are curious animals”. Peter argues that Curiosity is the utmost important driving force for our survival as a species. Hence human babies can’t stop exploring, banging, mouthing, squeezing, shaking, and throwing things. It’s their curiosity to know what happens if I…
Second: Playfulness
Kids practice all the skills they need for survival through play.
Physical Development: Wrestle, chase, climb trees, push, pull… Kids are not meant to practice them through organized games or running around the track but by exploring and challenging themselves through self-directed play.
Risky Ways: Playing risky plays and pushing your limits during play is a child’s way of developing courage. Peter argues that this generation of kids are a lot more anxious and panic easily because we have not allowed them to play in risky ways. Most of the child play these days are organized, managed, and observed by adults, leading to a more anxious and less risk-taking generation. If you have never experienced FEAR, you will never develop COURAGE.
Language Development: Kids develop language through play, by experiencing the joy of naming things, exploring sounds, and creating gibberish words. Kids explore the properties of language by talking to themselves and by talking to others.
Builders: Kids are born with a natural desire to build things because the building is a very important skill needed for survival.
Following rules: Societal rules are created for human beings to be able to control themselves in expectation from society. Kids practice creating rules, following rules, and adapting and modifying rules all through free play.
Imagination: Imagination is the ability of human beings to think of things that don’t actually exist. Develop theories and build hypothetical reasoning. Kids practice these skills during play, imagining a world that doesn’t actually exist. Imagination is the highest order of human thinking.
Play with tools that are a part of their culture: Kids are drawn to learn, practice, and imitate the most important tools of their culture. Little kids pretend to cook, clean, talk on the phone, take care of baby dolls, play with computers because their natural instincts tell them that learning these tools is important for their survival.
Play Socially: Through messy peer play, kids learn how to exert themselves, express themselves, collaborate, create, care for, and build empathy for their peers. We deprive kids of opportunities to learn to self manage by inserting ourselves to manage their play.
Third: Sociability
Peter argues that humans are naturally social beings and human babies have a natural drive to know what other people know. Little kids always have an ear out for overhearing what you are talking about and how you are conducting yourself. That’s their natural drive to learn more about the safety of their environments.
Hence, the way you conduct your life is far more important for your kids than what you tell them.
Peter talks about the Hole in the Wall experiment that was done in India in 1999, where slum kids were given access to a computer without any instruction on how to use it. By the end of the experiment 1 computer had touched the lives of 300 kids and all the kids were as proficient in computer skills as the kids who were taught how to use a computer in a classroom. The kids had collaborated with each other and taught each other different skills they had explored to create a sense of shared learning. This experiment was termed Minimally Invasive Education.
CURIOSITY brought the kids to the computer, PLAYFULNESS made them skilled in the art and SOCIABILITY made them spread it to 300 kids.
Fourth: Helpfulness
All kids are born with an inert desire to help the adults around them, to practice and learn the skills the adults around them seem to know. Little kids voluntarily want to help but they are hardly given the opportunity. As they grow older the desire dies down and that’s when we start forcing them to help.
Fifth: Willfulness
Willfulness is the drive that gets most kids in trouble. The purpose of childhood for all kids is to become more skilled and capable in their lives.
Kids are biologically wired to want to make their own decisions, exert themselves and take charge of their lives.
That’s their way of getting ready to become independent adults.
Sixth: Make Plans
Kids practice this very important survival skill, Planning, through play. They make elaborate plans of how their play would proceed, assign roles, create stories, build, and collaborate during play.
Seventh: Desire to Grow Up
Kids are born with this desire to grow up and act like and behave like the adults around them. Hence they incorporate adult tasks into their play and they pretend to be like adults. Through play, they practice what it’s like to be an adult.
Hence, Peter concludes that depriving our kids of free play and pushing them into organized adult run classrooms deprives them of their chance to learn the very important skills essential to their survival.
Some References
General. Peter Gray. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Live. Basic Books.
Hunter-Gatherer Education
Gosso, Y., Otta, E., de Lima, M., Morais, M., Ribeiro, F. J. L., & Bussab, V. S. R. (2005). Play in hunter-gatherer societies. In A. D. Pellegrini & P. K. Smith (Eds.), The nature of play: great apes and humans, pp. 213-253. New York: Guilford.
Gray, P. (2009). Play as a foundation for hunter-gatherer social existence. American Journal of Play, 1, 476-522, 2009.
Gray, P. (2011). The evolutionary biology of education: How our hunter-gatherer educative instincts could form the basis for education today. Evolution, Education, and Outreach, 4, 428-440.
Gray, P. (2012). The value of a play-filled childhood in the development of the hunter-gatherer individual. In D. Narvaez, J. Panksepp, A. Shore, and T. Gleason (Eds.), Human Nature, Early Experience and the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hewlett, B. S. (2016). Social learning and innovation in hunter-gatherers. In B. S. Hewlett & H. Terashima (Eds.), Social learning and innovation in contemporary hunter-gatherers: Evolutionary and ethnographic perspectives. Tokyo, Japan: Springer Japan.
Education at Democratic/Free Schools
Gray, P., & Chanoff, D. (1986). Democratic schooling: What happens to young people who have charge of their own education? American Journal of Education, 94, 182-213.
Gray, P., & Feldman, J. (2004). Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development: Qualities of Self-Directed Age Mixing Between Adolescents and Young Children at a Democratic School. American Journal of Education, 110, 108-145. Greenberg, D., & Sadofsky, M. (1992). Legacy of Trust: Life after the Sudbury Valley School experience. Framingham, Massachusetts: Sudbury Valley School Press.
Greenberg, D., Sadofsky, M., & Lempka, J. (2005). The pursuit of happiness: The lives of Sudbury Valley alumni. Framingham, Massachusetts: Sudbury Valley School Press.
Surveys of Unschooling Families and Grown Unschoolers
Gray, P. & Riley, G. (2013). The challenges and benefits of unschooling according to 232 families who have chosen that route. Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, 7, 1-27.
Gray, P., & Riley, G. (2015). Grown unschoolers’ evaluations of their unschooling experiences: Report I on a survey of 75 unschooled adults. Other Education, 4(#2), 8-32.
Riley, G., & Gray, P. (2015). Grown unschoolers’ experiences with higher education and employment: Report II on a survey of 75 unschooled adults. Other Education, 4(#2), 33-53, 2015.
How Self-Directed Education Works
Gray, P. (2016). Children’s natural ways of learning still work—even for the three Rs. In D. C. Geary & D. B. Berch (eds), Evolutionary perspectives on child development and education (pp 63-93). Springer. Gray. P. (2016). Mother Nature’s pedagogy: How children educate themselves. In H. Lees & N. Noddings (eds), Palgrave international handbook of alternative education. In press, for 2016 publication. Gray., P. (2017). Self-directed education—unschooling and democratic schooling. In G. Noblit (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of education. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Rise of Imposed Schooling
Gray (2008). A brief history of education.
Gray (2013). Why schools are what they are: A brief history of education. Ch 3 of Free to Learn. Mulhorn, J. (1959). A history of education: A social interpretation, 2nd edition.
Pathological Consequences of Forced Schooling and Restricted Play
Gray, P (2011). The decline of play and the rise of psychopathology in childhood and adolescence. American Journal of Play, 3, 443-463.
Gray, P. (2016). What if medicine’s first principle were also education’s?
Olson, K. (2009). Wounded by school. NY: Teachers College Press.
Vision for Education’s Future