Playing for Keeps: Life and Learning on a Public School Playground

by Deborah Meier, Brenda S. Engel, Beth Taylor

Why is play important in the lives of children? What crucial aspects of learning are being neglected in the current near-elimination of recess time in public schools? Playing for Keeps, co-authored by the well-known writer and educational leader Deborah Meier and two colleagues with equally long experience in schools, explores these questions. Based on close observations on a public school playground, the book shows children at play in a relatively natural, unstructured environment. The reader is virtually there, seeing, listening in, able to appreciate the children's curiosity, humor, intelligence, and inventiveness. Readers will recognize the children's voices and ways of thinking, and perhaps be reminded of their own childhood, their own children, or the children they teach. The authors comment on the observations, adding to the reader's own perceptions . This lively, engaging book makes a strong case for the importance of free exploration, wonder, imagination, and play to the learning and growth of children. It should contribute significantly to the understanding of all those concerned, professionally or personally, with the welfare of our school-age population.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2010

Reviews

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based around excerpts from Beth Taylor's columns of play on the Mission Hill school playground. Engel and Meier then make commentary about the role that such play played in their lives and learning.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book, making a compelling case for the importance of PLAY in development of both intellect and social relationships. Children playing together negotiate fairness and equity and freedom - all important aspects of living in a democratic society. Through play children "pretend and imagine, rethink and revise, argue and demonstrate, create and design, negotiate and compromise, laugh and cry, build structures and enact dramas . . ." (p. 69) They build the "habits of mind" important for any intellectual pursuit.

The message is this: Let them play. Let them play in unstructured situations. Let them play with elements of nature - wind, water, dirt, sand, sticks, stones. Let them figure out what to do and how. Let them work out the rules.

Not that we didn't already know this, but a revisit is refreshing in this day of high-stakes testing pushing academics throughout the school day.