Kids today have far less time for play than some of us
remember having in our youths. Between the curtailing of school recess periods,
participation in after school and weekend activities and the reluctance of
parents to leave their children unsupervised, kids seem to have next to no time
for unstructured play. What little time is available is often spent on video
and computer games, rather than on playing with toys. What effect has this had
on children’s creativity?
To find out, Sandra Russ and Jessica Dillon of Case Western
Reserve University compiled data on children at play. Fortuitously, Russ has been
conducting studies on children’s play for decades and has videos of children’s
play sessions going back to the ‘80’s. The sessions were all administered and
scored the same way using the Affect in Play Scale (APS). The APS correlates
well to creativity, divergent thinking, coping ability and emotional
understanding, though not to intelligence.
Each study followed the exact same protocol so that results
could be compared over the years. A 6 to 10 year-old child is presented with
two neutral-looking human hand puppets and three wooden blocks to use as she
likes. The child is told that the researcher is hoping to learn about play, so
please play with the toys and have the puppets speak out loud for the video
camera. I’m sure those instructions weren’t at all off-putting for the kids.
In any case, comparing fourteen studies done from 1985 to 2008,
the children’s APS scores slowly but steadily increased. In particular,
imagination and enjoyment scores have been going up.
Clearly, the lack of free time has not been detrimental to
children’s imaginations. Nor has the increased usage of electronic games. That
said, I wouldn’t like to see unstructured playtime diminish any further. I’m
sure the kids are with me on that one.
Watch Russ describe her research below:
I'm a strong advocate of of the Finnish education system which doesn't see children attending school until the age of seven. Do you think imagination in American children would suffer any from entering into grade school at age seven?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm sure it wouldn't. However, it seems unlikely that the U.S. will adopt that approach. We seem keen on starting academics earlier and earlier.
ReplyDelete