What is play?

I have really strongly moved away from writing an IEP goal for “play”. What do I mean? I mean things like this:

• Play functionally with X number of toys for X minutes
• Engage in cooperative pretend play for X number of minutes
• Appropriately play with XYZ toys

Basically, anything that includes “functional” and “appropriate” and dictates HOW a child should play. Because that’s not play.

Play is, by definition, self-directed and for the purpose of joy. It is not what someone else thinks we should be doing. It is not for some practical purpose. It is not limited to one (neurotypical) way of interacting with materials.

Lining up trains is play.

Stacking and knocking down blocks repeatedly is play.

Waving a ribbon is play.

Filling and dumping a cup of rice, creating L’s out of Legos to stack on the corners of tables, jumping on a trampoline, sitting by yourself to examine letters for extended periods, linking little cars and big cars by yarn, sticking glow sticks in any spot you can find… It’s all play.

What is the purpose of forcing a child’s play to become something other than it is? To become “normal” and “functional”? (Who defines functional, by the way?) What do we think we are teaching? And what is the child learning?

I don’t know that I can answer “what we think we’re teaching”. I’m really not sure. Because everything I think is important can be taught and experienced through the child’s own play: curiosity, exploration, creativity, shared enjoyment, communicating your likes and dislikes, learning about the world… Imitation, language, and academic skills can all be modeled and experienced without forcing the child to switch from play to work. Because play done in a specific way with specific materials is work. So I’m not sure what the answer to that is.

But I do know what the child is learning: that the things they find enjoyable are not okay. That there is one way of being in the world, and they do not know it. That being themselves is not okay.

Do I think that most professionals or families have the intent to teach this? No. Do I think most students and children are learning that anyways? Yes.

It comes back to this: we need to re-think what skills we are teaching and why. There are often other ways to get at what’s important, ways that don’t involve shutting down a child’s unique way of being in the world. Dig deeper. Ask yourself: what am I really trying to get at? What’s actually important in this moment? How can our classroom environment be changed to better accommodate this need? How can we teach peers and ourselves to better accommodate this need or celebrate this difference?

Different doesn’t mean wrong. Different doesn’t mean it must be changed. Different just means different.

 

 

 

This is part two in a series on selecting what’s important in our special education classrooms. Check out the first post here. Future posts will selecting target goals and teaching social skills as a form of code-switching.