EDUCATION: Constant Learning

Here’s an article on the reevaluation of playgrounds, and a subsequent plan put into action based on activities that enable learning during play. 

I’m kinda torn on this.  My initial reaction is:  Why can’t they just let the kids have fun, why do they have to learn something every minute?  On the other hand, even a slide, a swing, monkey bars do teach kids something and kids tend to absorb automatically.  They don’t need, at age three, to understand the theory of gravity; they do learn that when the let go at the top of the chute, they’ll slide down.

The new playground, however, aims to do better: Developers of the Lower Manhattan project envision groups of children collaborating, for instance, loading containers with sand, hoisting them up with pulleys and then lowering them down to wagons waiting to be wheeled off to another part of the park.

What may sound like a training ground for tiny construction workers actually holds huge developmental benefits, backers say. “You have a level of interaction that you would never have with fixed parts,” Mr. Hart said.

Jeez, I don’t know.  Don’t they have toy dump trucks at home?  I sure did.  And when my little man fell off his tractor and got run over, I found a little box and buried him.  How would these playground supervisors handle that bit of fantasy I wonder.  Likely they’d call in a grief counselor.

But I don’t have children so it’s unfair of me to raise these questions, I suppose.  I can’t help it though:  I keep thinking about all the kids raised up thinking that kitchen cabinets were toychests, pulling out the colorful Tupperware and building cities on the kitchen floor.

Thanks to Cosmic Variance for the link.