Does play belong in primary schools? Prince Planet’s on his way!
One of the biggest issues facing teachers is this – with such an intense curriculum, where do you find the time to play? If so, what form does it take?
Hundreds, maybe thousands of years from now I like to think that some young archaeologist will be sifting through the soil beneath my long-since demolished childhood home in Brisbane and excitedly recover an ancient Cottee’s jam-jar lid bearing the letter “P” cryptically painted on a white star c.1968.
That the discovery of the precious P-lid will excite the excavation team – and the world – to the extent that it will be the subject of numerous academic studies in relation to its insight into 20th-century human behaviour.
That the priceless circular treasure – destined, perhaps, for a travelling exhibition or a museum – will trigger endless debate. Who was “P”? What is “P”? Is it really “P”, or, when turned upside down, a lower-case “d”? Was “P” the first initial for the name of a specific society of humans? Were these the “P-people”? Or did the lower-case “d” represent a decline in the value of “d”, as in the crumbling of “democracy”?
I could tell these people that the P-lid was a replica of the powerful amulet worn by my childhood cartoon hero and the world’s first televisual Japanese anime star, Prince Planet. The amulet knock-off was made by myself and close kindergarten friend Timmy Thompson.
In the absence of “merch” back in the 60s, Timmy and I had hit upon the lid once the strawberry Cottee’s jam jar had been exhausted of its content, slathered liberally on countless winter crumpets.
My rational brain understands that a tin jam-jar lid just might not survive the ravages of soil and time. Irrationally, I still figure that given Prince Planet’s all-conquering energy pendant was from the powerful planet of Radion, it was indestructible.
Implausible?
Play and Childhood in Ancient Greece, published in the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise in 2010, reported that archaeologists had down the years discovered a myriad of children’s toys from the 5th and 6th centuries BC that included knucklebones, rattles and even miniature animals on wheels. Surviving writings and paintings also confirmed that these ancient kiddies played hopscotch, hide-and-seek, chased balls and spun tops. They played marbles with walnuts.
I vividly recall games of “knuckles” (albeit made of plastic, not animal bones) around the time of Prince Planet. And hopscotch, hide-and-seek, ball chasing, tops and marbles. So kids will be kids, no matter the century.
Which brings me, in a very roundabout way to the current debate within the Australian education community about the importance of integrating play into the official learning curriculum of youngsters.
A new report – Does Play Belong in Primary Schools? Australian Teachers’ Perspective – still doesn’t seem to have resolved an age-old question – should “play” play a part in the teaching of primary school students?
Study co-author Katy Meeuwissen, a doctoral lecturer in early childhood and primary education from the University of Canberra, reportedly said last week: “Play is one of the most important parts of early childhood education in Australia … there is … broad agreement among early childhood educators and policymakers about the importance of play from birth to five years. But once children start school, there is less certainty. Despite growing research about the importance of play in primary school, play is not often used for learning in these years. Our new study with Australian primary teachers highlights significant confusion about the role of play in their schools.”
Confusion? Really? Our primary school educators deserve nothing but limitless empathy and support, proper remuneration for their painstaking work and peerless dedication and generational gratitude, and in some extreme instances a gold-plated medal (let alone free-for-life trauma counselling).
But the matter of whether play is a worthwhile learning tool in school still hasn’t been settled?
As Meeuwissen said of the study findings: “The results revealed some inconsistencies in teachers’ views. Teachers strongly agreed play benefits children’s development. More than … 77 per cent strongly agreed students develop social skills through play, with similar numbers supporting play’s role in emotional, physical and language development.
“However, only 52 per cent strongly agreed students develop academic skills during play, revealing uncertainty about play’s educational value.”
She reported one teacher’s response to the study’s central question: “Play is something children do and it’s fun for them, however (it) should be out of school. School is for learning.”
One of the biggest issues facing teachers was this – with such an intense curriculum, where do you find the time to play? How do you fit it in? If so, what form does it take? Is it supervised or are the kids allowed to run amok?
A similar 2023 Queensland study mirrored the latest findings. It concluded: “The benefits of play to a young child’s social, emotional, language, physical and cognitive development are universally recognised yet a pedagogy supporting play has not received equal acceptance. In Queensland, PBL (play-based learning) is recognised as an age-appropriate pedagogy. However, the application of play to learning in the classroom appears less understood …”
Things were different back in the day. We had a teacher who diligently prepared the entire semester’s learning schedule, reading matter, assignment due dates etc., dropped this hefty and intense document, or “subject Bible”, on each of our desks on day one of the term, then disappeared for the next couple of months.
Rumour was he/she could be found each afternoon in the local betting shop, loudly riding home nags, trotters and dogs on the shop’s TV screens.
What happens when the teachers decide to play?
He/she was a rare example, though for many the teacherless subject was their favourite and in several instances their most academically successful.
Still, as Meeuwissen says: “Teacher education programs should include training in practical ways to use play as a teaching tool. Professional development should also help existing teachers understand how to structure meaningful play that supports the curriculum. At a policy level, we also need better alignment between the early education and primary years to ensure play does not disappear at the school gate.”
Hear, hear. Many of my contemporaries contend that the only significant things they remember about their school years were those that involved play, not that darned book learning.
How about the lunch hour bare-knuckle fight club that popped up in our school and lasted all of a single instance when Slugger Doherty, short but as broad as a Mack truck, put an uppercut on Dougie Doogle, tall but willowy, the punch so accurate poor Dougie was lifted off his feet and rendered unconscious mid-air before he dropped in a heap.
Just a bit of rough-and-tumble play right there. Talk about knucklebones.
Or surreptitiously racing Matchbox cars with a mate across the other side of a packed classroom under several rows of desks, the cars quietly gliding without catching the attention of Mrs Quinn, she of the monstrous beehive, the game only over when the cars returned dripping wet having sped through a rivulet of a chronic pant-wetter’s latest accident?
What did we learn from that moment of play? Matchbox cars function best without contact with human waste.
Look, we’ve all had exemplary teachers who’ve done their best even when they’ve been driven to the brink of mental collapse.
But none, through their entangled curriculum, offered the noble lessons of Prince Planet. We would don our “P” jam lids and launch ourselves into the schoolyard singing our hero’s anthem: “ … changing wrong to right, Prince Planet, he’s the best/ Now it’s no surprise, that he fights bad guys, and he makes the bad guys pay/ whether day or night, like a flash of light, Prince Planet’s on his way!”
We were out to save the world, shield the weak from bullies, ensure fairness and justice for all and protect Matchbox cars from unexpected and potentially catastrophic contact with urine.
Don’t we learn more when we’re enjoying what we’re doing? Or has that sort of thinking gone the way of roundabouts, marbles and knucklebones.
I think my fellow P-plater Timmy Thomson became a fireman. Or an accountant. Either way, whether battling fires or crook mathematics, he fought the good fight thanks to the wonderment of play.
Prince Planet’s on his way!
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