DRAKE BENNETT, BOSTON GLOBE - In recent years, noted architects have
turned their attention to designing playgrounds, even as public agencies
and private charities dedicated to expanding children's access to
playgrounds have sprung up. . . "There's a real international playground
movement taking hold around the world, and it's really very exciting,"
says David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University
and author of the recently published book "The Power of Play.". . .
This pro-playground vanguard, according to the child psychologists,
designers, architects, parents and teachers who form it, is motivated by
the conviction that play, in a larger sense, is under attack.
High-stakes testing has elbowed recess out of the school day, video
games keep kids indoors and sedentary, while parents, fearful of
pedophiles and abductions, no longer let children roam freely.
All in all, the average child's life is more regimented than it was 20
years ago, with more young children in day care, more lessons and
rehearsals and practices, and less free time. The fact that communities
are getting serious about play, proponents hope, means leaders recognize
the extent to which it is endangered in modern society.
At the same time, this reexamination of playgrounds is triggered by the
conviction that, in the United States in particular, playgrounds have
become rather unfun -- designed with only safety in mind, they've lost
the capacity to excite or challenge children.
Playgrounds have always been places where the need for free, even
rambunctious, play bumps up against parental fears about safety. The new
playground advocates are trying to find a better balance. "The history
of playgrounds," says Roger Hart, director of the Children's
Environments Research Group at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York, "is a history of containment.". . .
In the past 11 years, working with tens of thousands of volunteers and
various corporate partners, the nonprofit organization KABOOM! has built
nearly 1,200 playgrounds all over North America, using a collaborative
method in which local children help design the playgrounds that are
going up in their neighborhoods.
According to psychologists and specialists in early childhood education,
to be valuable, play needs to be creative, but there also has to be an
element of danger. "Children need vertiginous experiences," says Mary
Rivkin, a professor of education at the University of Maryland. "They
need fast and slow and that high feeling you get when you run down a
hill. They need to have tippy things."
If there's no challenge, no pain of failure, she argues, there's no
learning -- and less enjoyment. Indeed, according to Hart, one problem
with trying to child-proof playgrounds is that children, trying to make
the safer playground equipment interesting, come up with unforeseen and
often more dangerous ways of using it.
Some playground advocates also point to the rise in childhood obesity
and related diseases as a reason to get more kids playing, but they're
careful to point out that play is not just about physical activity.
"Play and sports are totally different," says Doris Bergen, a professor
of educational psychology at Miami University of Ohio. "When they play,
kids make their own rules -- then they have to negotiate to get others
to follow them. In sports, adults make and enforce the rules for them."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/04/15/
back_to_the_playground/?page=full
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turned their attention to designing playgrounds, even as public agencies
and private charities dedicated to expanding children's access to
playgrounds have sprung up. . . "There's a real international playground
movement taking hold around the world, and it's really very exciting,"
says David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University
and author of the recently published book "The Power of Play.". . .
This pro-playground vanguard, according to the child psychologists,
designers, architects, parents and teachers who form it, is motivated by
the conviction that play, in a larger sense, is under attack.
High-stakes testing has elbowed recess out of the school day, video
games keep kids indoors and sedentary, while parents, fearful of
pedophiles and abductions, no longer let children roam freely.
All in all, the average child's life is more regimented than it was 20
years ago, with more young children in day care, more lessons and
rehearsals and practices, and less free time. The fact that communities
are getting serious about play, proponents hope, means leaders recognize
the extent to which it is endangered in modern society.
At the same time, this reexamination of playgrounds is triggered by the
conviction that, in the United States in particular, playgrounds have
become rather unfun -- designed with only safety in mind, they've lost
the capacity to excite or challenge children.
Playgrounds have always been places where the need for free, even
rambunctious, play bumps up against parental fears about safety. The new
playground advocates are trying to find a better balance. "The history
of playgrounds," says Roger Hart, director of the Children's
Environments Research Group at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York, "is a history of containment.". . .
In the past 11 years, working with tens of thousands of volunteers and
various corporate partners, the nonprofit organization KABOOM! has built
nearly 1,200 playgrounds all over North America, using a collaborative
method in which local children help design the playgrounds that are
going up in their neighborhoods.
According to psychologists and specialists in early childhood education,
to be valuable, play needs to be creative, but there also has to be an
element of danger. "Children need vertiginous experiences," says Mary
Rivkin, a professor of education at the University of Maryland. "They
need fast and slow and that high feeling you get when you run down a
hill. They need to have tippy things."
If there's no challenge, no pain of failure, she argues, there's no
learning -- and less enjoyment. Indeed, according to Hart, one problem
with trying to child-proof playgrounds is that children, trying to make
the safer playground equipment interesting, come up with unforeseen and
often more dangerous ways of using it.
Some playground advocates also point to the rise in childhood obesity
and related diseases as a reason to get more kids playing, but they're
careful to point out that play is not just about physical activity.
"Play and sports are totally different," says Doris Bergen, a professor
of educational psychology at Miami University of Ohio. "When they play,
kids make their own rules -- then they have to negotiate to get others
to follow them. In sports, adults make and enforce the rules for them."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/04/15/
back_to_the_playground/?page=full
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