when do the children play?

A friend of mine sent me a  copy of a 2nd grade schedule from neighboring Berryville, Arkansas, which I share with you. I've removed the teacher's name, as generally teachers are not to blame for such things. Ask yourself whether 20 minutes of recess is reasonable for 2nd grade, or whether any child's life should be so tightly bound to a script or measured by worksheet. If the whole schedule is about reading and math, when do students learn about their community, the world and themselves? Can you understand why some students hate schooling right off the bat?

I was shown a copy of the Kindergarten schedule as well, and it too, showed only 20 minutes of unscripted time.

I do not blame the teachers for this. They are held to unreasonable and destructive standards that they often know to be wrong. Knowing the damage this does to children, perhaps teachers will at some point rise up, though it is more likely that they will leave (as they have done in large numbers) their professions in despair. I have hopes that the Kindergarten documentary series will help awaken parents to the wrongs of American education.

The following is from the Danish National Library Authority.

The Finnish brain researcher, Matti Bergström concentrates on the child’s inner life and its – as we see it – chaotic ’possibility space’. Professor Bergström maintains that it is not only a question of ’white games’. The white games are our pedagogical efforts trying to bring up children in our own image. But there must also be room for the ’black games’ where children test themselves and the world around them.They must be given space. At a recent conference, Matti Bergström posed the question: do children need a knowledge lift? His answer was no, they need a chaos lift. We must allow children space and opportunity for the black games which are created in the unorganized and unsupervised meeting with other children.

Very briefly, Matti Bergström’s reasoning can be boiled down to this: The core of culture is art. The core of art is creativity. The core of creativity is possibility. The core of possibility is play. The core of play is chaos. Therefore all culture is based on chaos. More than ever before do we wish to encourage each individual’s creativity and culture-creating ability. The skills of the agrarian and industrial society have long since become obsolete.

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