The future of our world depends on who ? The children. The way in which we educate the children will affect the young generations and will influence the strength of a country. Recently, in the American school system, more challenging curricula are imposed, and the kids have to sacrifice their playtime to finish all the academic work they are assigned. In my opinion, however, this method of depriving playtime for skill training will nonetheless produce results that counter the expectation of having more successful futures. In this essay, I will argue that schools should give children more opportunities to play instead of adding more academic works because play assists in their physical development, increases their cognitive and social skills,
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There are no doubts that the health is the foundation of life, and without a fine physical condition, the children cannot focus their attentions to enjoy the real childhood: playing with friends, learning by doing activities, etc. In this sense, play will provoke the development of physical strength as Anderson-McNamee and Bailey (2010) mentioned in their article that “when children run, jump, and play games such as hide and seek and tag they engage in physical play. Physical play offers a chance for children to exercise and develop muscle strength” (p. 2). Without play, the children have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activities since, in the majority of the school day, the students are required to stay in their seats. We wish our kids to be healthy and strong fighters who are energetic at facing the challenges and taking away their time to play, especially in the rapid growth phase, might create powerful influences on their bodily developments. However, some might argue that sports lessons will support the physical development even more than play since the lessons are designed to focus on certain specific parts of the body, such as muscles and endurance. And yet, because of they are so specific, the sports lessons cannot provide rounded and real-life like preparations as the play can. In the real world, people usually do not need the physical capacity that is trained for a marathon, but they do …show more content…
Even though the books might provide guidelines for daily behaviors, children are simply receiving all these information without full comprehension of why to follow these rules. However, when children are engaged in play, often in sociodramatic play which the kids are required to work together, they gain “lots of practice in independent, autonomous thinking, so they gradually develop decision-making skills and master self-discipline” as argued by Stephens (2010) (as cited in Prairie, 2013, p.3). In the game setting, the children have a more direct experience with the consequences of their actions, and some misconducts such as fail to corporate with the partners, fail to follow the rules, or not paying enough attentions to solve the problems presented in the game, will immediately allow the children to feel the negative effects of their actions, such as be kick out of the group, get involved in a huge fight, face a deadlock. Since the children do not want to decrease the fun they are having in games, they will try to follow the code of conducts, inhibit their self-desires, think about their roles in the group, work with each other, try to conquer the difficulties, and carry the game out. Compared to the imposed pressure to behave as instructed by the parents or the teachers, this motivation of self-regulation and critical thinking is much stronger and long lasting for children since the
There are no doubts that the health is the foundation of life, and without a fine physical condition, the children cannot focus their attentions to enjoy the real childhood: playing with friends, learning by doing activities, etc. In this sense, play will provoke the development of physical strength as Anderson-McNamee and Bailey (2010) mentioned in their article that “when children run, jump, and play games such as hide and seek and tag they engage in physical play. Physical play offers a chance for children to exercise and develop muscle strength” (p. 2). Without play, the children have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activities since, in the majority of the school day, the students are required to stay in their seats. We wish our kids to be healthy and strong fighters who are energetic at facing the challenges and taking away their time to play, especially in the rapid growth phase, might create powerful influences on their bodily developments. However, some might argue that sports lessons will support the physical development even more than play since the lessons are designed to focus on certain specific parts of the body, such as muscles and endurance. And yet, because of they are so specific, the sports lessons cannot provide rounded and real-life like preparations as the play can. In the real world, people usually do not need the physical capacity that is trained for a marathon, but they do …show more content…
Even though the books might provide guidelines for daily behaviors, children are simply receiving all these information without full comprehension of why to follow these rules. However, when children are engaged in play, often in sociodramatic play which the kids are required to work together, they gain “lots of practice in independent, autonomous thinking, so they gradually develop decision-making skills and master self-discipline” as argued by Stephens (2010) (as cited in Prairie, 2013, p.3). In the game setting, the children have a more direct experience with the consequences of their actions, and some misconducts such as fail to corporate with the partners, fail to follow the rules, or not paying enough attentions to solve the problems presented in the game, will immediately allow the children to feel the negative effects of their actions, such as be kick out of the group, get involved in a huge fight, face a deadlock. Since the children do not want to decrease the fun they are having in games, they will try to follow the code of conducts, inhibit their self-desires, think about their roles in the group, work with each other, try to conquer the difficulties, and carry the game out. Compared to the imposed pressure to behave as instructed by the parents or the teachers, this motivation of self-regulation and critical thinking is much stronger and long lasting for children since the