Playtime is when a child is made

     When I was a child, I would get excited when a new TV is delivered to our house. It is not because I can watch my favorite shows in a clearer version but because I would have a new toy: the cardboard box. A giant box is my best playground. It is like a traveling machine which takes me to anywhere I want: the beach, a beautiful garden, the outer space and even a world my imagination created. Those were the times when I can say my creativity was at its very best. If it weren’t for those years of playing, I never would have outgrown it and would not be interested in learning.

     In the article by Whitebread and Bingham (2013), the argument about when a child should start formal schooling was raised. In the Philippines, formal schooling starts at the first year of elementary school in which kids ages 6 or 7 enroll. Lifting a quote from the said article, “AT WHAT age should children start formal schooling? England is one of a few countries to say the answer is as young as 4 years old.”

    Going to the field of developmental psychology, proponents of well-known theories, like Piaget, will disagree upon hearing this. Reviewing one of the hallmark cognitive theories, Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory, children between the ages of 2 to 7 are not fit for formal schooling. This theory is comprised of four (sometimes, five) stages, two of which will be cited here. Formal school includes complicated topics, for children at the age of 4, like mathematics. Children at this age are in the Preoperational stage. “Preoperational” because children at this age cannot perform operations, which are reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what before they could do only physically (Santrock, 2013). Adding and subtracting are operations. Children at this age are exposed to their weakness, centration, which is the tendency of a young child to focus only on one feature of an object while ignoring other relevant features (Ciccarelli & White, 2009). This is brought about by their lack of conservation, which is the awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties (Santrock, 2013). In a nutshell, children will have faulty reasoning when it comes to patterns. They will only start to practice to overcome these weakness when they are in the Piaget’s third stage.

     In the Concrete Operational stage, children of approximately 7 to 11 years of age enter this stage. This is also the time when Filipino kids enroll in grade 1. At this age, they will start to develop skills like seriation and transitivity. They also start to overcome (or have overcome) their past weakness, centration (Santrock, 2013). In the grounds of Piaget’s theory, I believe that children should start formal school at the age of 7.

     So what should children of ages 4 to 7 do? In the Philippines, we also have nursery and kindergarten, which aim to prepare children before entering formal school. These programs usually focus on colors, numbers, and playtime. The importance of playtime in a child’s physical and mental development was also mentioned in Whitebread and Bingham’s article (2013). According to Carandang and as cited in Lolarga’s article (2011), play is the child’s most natural medium of expression and play lightens one’s load. Carandang also stated that playing gives the child a sense of power over his environment. In a sense, it is empowering; play is the time and space to be. Quoting more from Carandang’s brochure, playing gives the glorious sensation of autonomy, of freedom. “Simply, we all need to play (Carandang, 2013).”

    Also, according to Vygotsky’s theory, there is something called the zone for proximal development, wherein a more knowledgeable person can aid and help the child learn activities that the child cannot previously perform (Santrock, 2013). This can be facilitated through scaffolding.


    To put it simply, playtime should be the pinnacle of every man’s childhood, taking it away means depriving him of his youth. It is during these years that a child’s abilities are determined. It is during his playtime that he is made.


Blogpost by: Franzelle P. Padilla


References:

Carandang, L. (2012). Philplay Brochure. Philippines: Philplay. Retrieved on November 30, 2013, from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxwaGlscGxheXRoZXJhcHl8Z3g6NmRhNjg4MzE3M2Q5NGQ0Mg

Ciccarelli, S., & White, N. (2009). Psychology, 2nd ed. Singapore: Pearson Education, Inc.
Lolarga, E. (2011, October 7). Child psychologist stresses importance of play. Yahoo! News. Retrieved on November 30, 2013, from http://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/the-inbox/child-psychologist-stresses-importance-play-204430090.html

Santrock, J. (2013). Life-span Development, 14th ed. NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Whitebread, D., & Bingham, S. (2013, November 13). Too much, too young: Should schooling start at age 7? NewScientist. Retrieved on November 30, 2013, from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029435.000-too-much-too-young-should-schooling-start-at-age-7.html#.UpmU_MQW1UX