Is Childhood Endangered?
When I was young, decades ago, everyone went through a stage called childhood. During this stage, it was our job to have fun, use our imaginations, and explore the world around us. It was a magnificent period of our lives. We learned so much!
We learned social skills as we interacted with our friends (some of the friends were real, some imaginary). We learned to communicate, negotiate, argue, and how to share. We learned about perspective, compassion, teamwork, and creativity. But, it wasn’t all fun and games…. actually it was mostly all fun and games. Is that a bad thing?
Being a child wasn’t always easy, though. It involved a lot of thinking, learning, creating, building, and physical exercise. Eventually childhood had to end, I suppose. At least that is what we were told.
There isn't time for childhood anymore.
This point is summed up well in a song by Twenty One Pilots titled
Stressed Out:
We used to play pretend, give each other different names
We would build a rocket ship and then we'd fly it far away
Used to dream of outer space but now they're laughing at our face
Saying, "Wake up, you need to make money"
Today, however, things are much different. Childhood, much like the panda bear and mountain gorilla, has nearly disappeared. It seems to be endangered and on the verge of extinction. There isn’t time for childhood anymore. Instead, we've replaced this critical period of development with a new phase called college & career ready. I’m not exactly sure what this phrase means, but apparently it is REALLY important. It seems to require a lot of conformity, rules, homework, and testing. Over the past couple of years I have been watching this new phase evolve and it continues to begin at an earlier age in humans. Currently, it starts around 1st or 2nd grade.
I like to think that unstructured play, and our experiences during childhood, were preparing us for our futures. I would argue that we would have been less prepared if the system had taken away our childhood, and the unstructured play time which defined it. I cannot imagine that shoving more homework, grades, or standards down our throats at these early ages would have led us to be more prepared for life, or somehow more appreciative of learning. Somehow in our society, the word “play” has become the opposite of “work”, which I think is incorrect and unfair. Play is work. Very important work.
I am not implying that I’m against education & learning. Quite the opposite. I’m extremely passionate about education and have dedicated my life to improving it. I now have children of my own, and I want them to have social skills, imaginations, growth mindsets, and big dreams. I want them to be passionate lifelong learners. I want this for every child. In order to achieve this, we need to embrace the power of unstructured play and give our children a little more room to explore the world.
Ironically, by giving children more time to be children, and engage in unstructured play, they will likely become more college and career ready than we ever could have imagined.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. We need this conversation.
Please check out some of my other LinkedIn posts:
The Most Important Thing I Learned at ISTE, was in a Taxi - why we teach.
62% is a Scary Statistic - about the negative effects of grades.
What is the Purpose of School? - the most important question in education.
I am an equity and future focused educator, bringing strategies, solutions and support to help schools improve, innovate, and meet the needs of ALL learners.
8 年Yes, We DO NEED the conversation! Kids must be able to be kids, and as a Elementary School Principal, I can't emphasize the importance of play enough! I especially love unstructured, pure organic play...the thing called imagination? remember that? My kids at home still play with home made toys, no devices, and just go for hours. WE NEED THIS! no hurry to rush in and go "Career" on our youth!
Director @MET Inst. of Mgmt, Founder@ULTA School, Founder@Life Lemonade, Author, Daughter- Wife- Mom, Lifelong Kindergartener.
8 年I call it a Compressed Childhood, packed with enormous activities and expectations. It is curtailed childhood because what teens did, now tweens are doing. Parents need to raise themselves rather than raising the kids.
I don't think it helps with the early introduction of technology either, children don't seem to be using their imaginations constructively within a 3-d world as much as what would have been say 20 years ago. Even children in younger end of primary school are using technology - parents may use it as a stop gap to settle children down after a chaotic day and teachers may use it more in activities and to do math and science etc. (I'm not a parent or a teacher but I have worked with children in the ages of 1-11) I might be the only one that thinks this but the 90's and early noughties was truly the best time to be a child and have a childhood - today children don't know what the game Kirby is anymore and it's sad but ask them about mine craft and oh boy can they tell you how to build a sword or what all the monsters are called.
Senior Designer
8 年So what if play isn't educational anyway? A kid can just have fun. All a kid wants to do is be happy and play. It's a very pure and inspiring thing in itself. Any rich old person would give everything they have to be a kid again anyway.