Play is Learning

I've just relocated from Auckland, New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia. To familiarise my self with the Australian early childhood curriculum, I researched on line and, interestingly, found that "play is learning" is clearly stipulated in the Australian National Quality Standard. All early childhood teachers believe in the value of play, but it seems parents are still not totally convinced.  For a long time, it has also been a common concern among many early childhood teachers in New Zealand.

In New Zealand, it is quite common for teachers to communicate through wall display the value of various types of pay. For instance, to dispel parents' worry that their child is just running or climbing up and down all day, my head teacher devoted the whole wall space listing out in bullet points what learning is happening in outdoors play. She also reinforced the value of play with photographs and child's voices to capture the thoughts and ideas in the child's perspective.

In addition, learning stories are often used to communicate to parents. We, teachers deliberately describe a play scenario as an "learning activity or learning experience".   Yes, we have to state the obvious, as parents are usually performance/ results oriented and may not be aware of the learning process. In the eyes of a trained teacher, a child who playfully mixed the paint from various paint pots were exploring the hues and transformation of colours, whereas parents sometimes just saw a mess. While I was impressed by the persistence of a child in hammering over ten nails into a piece of wood, the parents simply thought her child was just playing and did not make anything meaningful or useful.

I think, personally, it requires professional knowledge and confidence of the teacher to explain what learning is happening in play. When I was a beginner teacher, I was shy to talk with parents about the play and learn concept. Having worked in the field for nearly ten years, I am now more confident and fluent in describing the learning happening in a child's play. At pick up time, I always initiatie conversation with parents about what their child did during the day, and what I found interesting and meaningful in terms of learning and development. So, a parent eventually appreciated the learning happening during a simple drawing of a superhero, when I pointed out that her child paid attention to details when drawing flames for the motorbike of his superhero, which also showed great concentration the
child had.

It's a challenge for teachers to step forward to advocate for the importance of play in children's learning and development.