Christopher Pouncy's List: HISTORIES AND PERSONALITIES

• Unoccupied play: the child is relatively stationary and appears to be performing random movements with no apparent purpose. A relatively infrequent style of play.

  • Krause's son Trevor comes to mind.
• Solitary play: the child is are completely engrossed in playing and does not seem to notice other children. Most often seen in children between 2 and 3 years-old.

  • Maddox. Definitely.
• Onlooker play: child takes an interest in other children’s play but does not join in. May ask questions or just talk to other children, but the main activity is simply to watch.

  • Mylee around that age.
• Parallel play: the child mimics other children’s play but doesn’t actively engage with them. For example they may use the same toy.
• Associative play: now more interested in each other than the toys they are using. This is the first category that involves strong social interaction between the children while they play.

  • First grade mentality
• Cooperative play: some organisation enters children’s play, for example the playing has some goal and children often adopt roles and act as a group.

  • Me, Toogie and Davey as kids.

4 more annotations...

• Attunement play
• Body Play & Movement
•  Object Play
• Social Play
•  Imaginative and pretend play
•  Storytelling-Narrative play
•  Transformative-Integrative and Creative play

5 more annotations...

• 1. The Joker -- makes people laugh, plays practical jokes.

  2. The Kinesthete -- loves to move, dance, swim, play sports.

  3. The Explorer -- goes to new places, meets new people, seeks out new experiences (physically or mentally).

  4. The Competitor -- loves all forms of competition, has fun keeping score.

  5. The Director -- enjoys planning and executing events and experiences, like throwing parties, organizing outings, and leading.

  6. The Collector -- loves the thrill of collecting, whether objects or experiences.

  7. The Artist/Creator -- finds joy in making things, fixing things, decorating, working with his or her hands.

  8. The Storyteller -- loves to use imagination to create and absorb stories, in novels, movies, plays, performances.

  • Earlier in life (age 8 -) The Kinesthete, The Competitor, Collector.The Artist/Creator
    Adult years: The Joker, Explorer, The Storyteller.
    
    Combination of the both: I still Collect, Create, Joker, Explorer and I like to think I still Create.

• The only kind [of play] we honor is competitive play
• Play brings joy. And it’s vital for problem solving, creativity and relationships.
• “Defining play is difficult because it’s a moving target,” Eberle said. “[It’s] a process, not a thing.”
• Play is the purest expression of love.

2 more annotations...

• The emphasis on standardized testing, on attempting to constantly monitor, measure, and quantify what students learn, has forced teachers to spend more of the school day engaged in so-called direct instruction and has substantially reduced or eliminated opportunities that children have for exploring, interacting, and learning on their own.
• Recess has, in many districts, vanished from the schedule entirely.

  • Used to be mandatory in grade school. BUt I guess gym class is where they consider play to be and not in the actual classroom, anymore.
• Even researchers who've devoted much of their careers to studying play question the more inflated claims of its importance.
• Free Players, who argue that play is a human right
• Play Skeptics, who see play as useful for blowing off steam but are dubious about its cognitive upside.
• Play Moderates, who advocate a mix of free play, adult-guided play, and traditional classroom instruction.
• the behavior of primitive man

  • ancient
• Zone of Proximal Development: the idea that children are capable of a range of achievement during each stage of their lives.
• In the right environment, and with the right guidance (which was later dubbed "scaffolding"), children can perform at the top of that range.

  • Keep a memo for your kids.
• when a child can pretend that a broomstick is a horse, he or she is able to separate the object from the symbol. A broom is not a horse, but it's possible to call a broom a horse, and even to pretend to ride it. That ability to think abstractly is a huge mental leap forward, and play can make it happen.
• frivolous

  • joking.
• If it's true that children who spend too little time playing struggle with executive function, then we may be raising a generation of kids with less self-control, shorter attention spans, and poorer memory skills.
• Hirsh-Pasek hired a public-relations agency and drummed up big-name corporate sponsors.
• There were also decidedly less-profit-driven booths, like the one run by the New York Coalition for Play. Rather than whiz-bang gadgets, they offered cardboard boxes and tubes, lots of fabric, ribbon, empty wine crates, and assorted items that would otherwise be found in a recycling bin.
• We're also concerned about the overcommercialization of play," he said. "The right answer is less programming and more opportunities for kids to make up things on their own."
• In one group, the blocks had already been assembled into a heliport. A second group was given blocks, and adults helped the children follow directions to build a heliport. A third group was given blocks and told to do whatever it wanted. The researchers then listened to the language children were using as they played. Those who were building a heliport with an adult used the most imaginative and spatial language (like "below," "on top," "next to"); the kids who were playing with the preassembled heliport used the least.
• Hirsh-Pasek says, she turned down millions of dollars from a corporate sponsor (which she declines to identify) that requested the right to name the Ultimate Block Party.
• Time magazine published an article with the headline "Free Play Won't Make Your Child Smarter." The article was prompted by a study that looked at how 2,751 preschoolers fared in programs with a variety of approaches, including free play and traditional group instruction. That study concluded that "more quality instructional time" and "less free play time" would better prepare kids for school.
• But the study's case against play in school isn't entirely persuasive. It's true that the kids who spent the largest chunk of their school day (41 percent) engaged in free play were behind their counterparts on skills like naming letters, naming numbers, and writing their names. But those who spent 29 percent of their time in teacher-guided play actually performed at the same level as the kids who played much less
• In junior high, play is more likely to be called "discovery learning." When professors try to get college students to look up from their iPhones, it's probably referred to as "active engagement."
• Learning doesn't happen only in a classroom. They contend that the "evidence tells us that less can be more.
• recess breaks maximize children's cognitive performance and adjustment to school," and that it may be

20 more annotations...