My Connections to Play

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.”

                                  Kay Redfield Jamison

               Contemporary American professor of psychiatry

“It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”

                                                                     D.W. Winnicott 

                                                                  British pediatrician

“When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit. It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.”                                                                       Fred Rogers

                                                     

                                                         

                                     Play!

We sometimes did our lessons outside.

          We lived in a large schoolyard that was a lodging house for teachers in it. My dad was a teacher and at the same time a school principal that is a small school which has only two classes. My sisters (have 4) and I played with friends when the school was closed after 3:00 pm. One upon a time, the children played outside all day long. We were absolutely fortunate to have been a child when it was seen as safe to roam around the neighborhood. It was a signal if the weather was getting darkened that it was time to go home after playing all day.

Small village school picture

Since it was a village school garden, we did not have a modern playground or some yard toys; we had only nature, trees, stone, and soil. We would use our creativity to the end; the house wall made of rocks, kitchen utensils we made from a few pieces of clay (soil), and the house games we set up were unforgettable. We created our games as we wish and rules, exploring natüre and visiting friends' houses or yards. We observed the growth of a seed and collected fruits or vegetables from the branch and we observed the hatching of the chick, that was a time of freedom that many children today do not have the opportunity to experience.

toys made of clay

Nowadays, play is different from when I was a child because technology is much various now, children get into technology at younger ages now. I hope for younger children and play is that they actually use and explore game and not just technology. Children's understanding of play has changed a lot. For me, my two sons who need to play outside, but they can join each other online and have fun in a game. Unfortunately, even though I do not accept this situation, there is such a fact.

Hopscoth

blind man's buff

There were many skills that the girl playing that free-spirited free games gained; problem-solving, resistance to difficulties, the dream of coming as a teacher in that schoolyard one day (not that village, but I was a teacher for one academic year in the nearby same kind scholl). These were the experiences that shaped my life.