The erosion of play

The Paradox of Contemporary Play: The Dangers of Framing Play

“…The perception that children under the age of five need to be implanted with learning from every discipline through planned and purposeful activities have left many playgrounds of preschool services quiet through the day (Miller & Almon, 2009). A similar picture is observed at schools where every minute of the school day is being utilized with purposeful adult-guided learning to meet the requirements of the curriculum, resulting in break times that used to be dedicated to free play becoming shorter and scarcer (Lewis, 2017). In schools, short term gains in standardized testing now outweigh the need to acquire long term educational gains which are directly reflected in ece institutions as an unsubstantiated need for setting goals of readiness.…”

“…Play is regarded as being universal, broadly identifiable, but very difficult to explicate; therefore it is perceived as an elusive term which defies all conceptualisation (Lewis, 2017). These challenges of the multifacetedness of play are also reflected in the educational practice as Whitebread & O'Sullivan note: 'The field of early childhood education is permeated with ambiguity around how adults should engage in child-initiated play, ' (2012, p. 207).…”

“…Ironically some researchers who are examining the clockwork of play (Butler, 2010; Lewis, 2017;Whitebread & O'Sullivan, 2012) are calling it the 'play frame' , as framing play has been attempted numerous times, yet the possibility that play is framing itself was not considered. It is this self-established frame that reflects the gaze of the observers with a misapprehension like a protective shell.…”

“…Freedom to exercise play is therefore of the outmost importance for a normal developing mammal from infancy to adulthood. Yet humans are restricting its young in this basic form of activity and engagement, hindering their normal development, and ignoring that play carries vital epistemological and ontological human significance (Lewis, 2017). Play has a multitude of important developmental functions, over 30 possible ones currently identified, enabling children to become competent and confident within the embrace of play's universal cultural right (Lancy, 2007).…”

“…Yet it is not due to ignorance that humans defy nature, as there is a great deal of empirical and scientific evidence stressing the importance of unobstructed child-led play; nevertheless, play has been severely eroded over the past two decades in the western world giving rise to an ambiguous paradox of contemporary play. Lewis (2017) offers four reasons as to why play is being eroded: commercialization of play through media; fear and safety concerns; standardisation of the curriculum; and ideological struggles around play. While the erosion of play is happening through a multitude of landscapes and while some kinds of play are more affected than others, the following sections will argue that these reasons for decline in time and space for play can be associated with play's ambiguous nature.…”