Zoom Out: A Telescopic View of the Education World.

Discover: A Scientific Principle of Learning Worthy of Children. Educators and media gatekeepers disparage Play. They treat the subject dismissively, as they might a child. After all, how can Play have anything to do with the serious business of academics? Play is on the fringe. Play is only for very young children. In the pre-K classroom is where the powers that own Education would keep Play. Sometimes play gets lip service. But even if you support the notion that play is somehow good, how do you get play past the walls and into classrooms?

To me, Play is both an organizing principle and a source of world-moving communication energy. Find a way to systematically inject play energy into the flow of communication in classrooms, and you will have harnessed important raw chemicals from the brain—needed for thinking and communication—energy by which to warm and propel learning experiences. Make playful communication second nature on a systematic scale, and you possess a strategic means to transform the learning culture. For Play is many things: the primary learning modality of mammals, the biological foundation of education, a core focus of brain science, and the state of a brain that is fully engaged. Play is a powerful catalyst for change in the learning culture. As an education reformer, scientist, and visionary, uninhibited by an advanced degree, I believe that we can tap into the power of Play as a tactical advance for change. These are big picture ideas about Education. But Play is even bigger. Want change? Only Play is big enough to bring about the depth and scope of change most of us would like to see.


What would you want, teacher? Didn't the love of the idea of teaching get you into teaching in the first place? Boy, did that disappear fast, right? If you want more happiness, satisfaction, and freedom in your teaching, you will want the harvest of play in your classroom.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• puppet techniques
• play in learning
• play in communication
• brain-based learning
• education reform
• school reform
• innovation in education
• motivation in learning
• innovative teaching
• puppet play in learning
• applied brain science
• the science of play