The story of work and play for children

During one of the interval breaks in the school, I noticed the kids playing this very unique game. They were trying to break the stigma of the flower by dicing it across in a very precise way. I have never seen such a game before, and I looked at them playing with awe and wonder! How different is their learning!

Rather than say — ‘How to teach children’, we should redefine it as ‘How do children learn’ as K B Jinnan, the creative education expert puts it.

It would have been completely different when the teacher explains to them parts of the flower one by one with all the necessary labels. With the children cramming to memorise the names of all these and forgetting it once the exams are done.

Now, compare this approach with the approach of the kids where they play with the parts of the flower observing and understanding the nature of the pollens through this game.

It is the knowledge that allows them to make sense of their environment, through mental models, they better understand their environment around them. They could name all the varieties of trees and herbs around them, could distinguish poisonous mushrooms and could also make fire if needed without matchsticks or lighters. This is true classification and resource utilisation in the truest sense.

The tribal kids could in a way extend the scope of this knowledge through play by retrofitting solutions to the problems surrounding them. They are truly the children of the soil!

It might perhaps be in this sense, that Nietzsche in Gay Science says —

“ It is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.”

To make their own thoughtful paths without any compasses to guide them. How can you say that they are getting lost, when they are charting their own paths, and reaching their own destination?