Download the article: An Update on the Alliance of Childhood
When the Alliance for Childhood formed in 1999, we had one major goal in mind: to address the declining health and well-being of children and help restore many of childhood's healthy essentials such as play, the arts, story telling and strong relationships with caring adults. I often ask myself, how are we doing?
There is certainly a much wider recognition now than there was then of the growing stress children face and of problems like obesity that plague many children's lives. The awareness is not yet deep enough, but the beginnings have been made. We are working toward a "tipping point" when the public awakens enough to the problems and becomes committed to taking action. Impossible? We don't think so, but it is certainly challenging.
Meanwhile, we are working on several fronts: the excessive use of computer technology and other media in children's lives; the commercialization of childhood, and most actively now on the restoration of creative play in childhood.
We often hear that children don't know how to play anymore. The Alliance takes this seriously, and we realize that getting adults to value play will not be enough, important as that is. We also need to find ways to help children play again in many different venues: in homes, schools and neighborhoods, in parks and in children's museums, in zoos and all the other places where children go for fun and recreation.
Fortunately, we had met a highly creative playworker from London, Penny Wilson, at a play conference in Baltimore. Playworkers are trained to help children of all ages play. They work primarily in Adventure Playgrounds, and these often resemble a big Waldorf kindergarten where school-age children are free to build and play creatively within boundaries of safety. For an overview of Adventure Playgrounds and links to organizations and playgrounds, go to http://adventureplaygrounds.hampshire.edu/.
At the same time that we were trying to find a reason to bring Penny to the U.S., we heard from the head of a parks department in Franklin Park, a small community outside Chicago. The parks director is committed to play and wanted to make his programs far more playful. The result is that we have invited Penny to the States twice to help train staff in the Franklin Park parks department as well as individuals from nearby children's museums, local zoos, and other venues. The reports from Franklin Park are very heartening as the staff brings creative play into their programs, and the children and parents are responding deeply. We've just received a grant to bring Penny over two more times this year.
We have also grown deeply concerned about recent developments in early childhood education. Virtually all public kindergartens are now highly academic with no time for child-initiated play or hands-on learning. The trend is moving strongly into preschools, and at both levels schools are using scripted teaching more and more. In this approach teachers are not only handed a curriculum, they are handed a daily script for part of their day and must follow that script to the letter. They are even told what questions children are most likely to ask during a particular lesson and how to answer them.
The Alliance is planning a campaign to help restore creative play and hands-on learning to preschools and kindergartens. Part of this campaign is based on a Call to Action we issued last year and which has been signed by many leading authorities in this country. You can find it and other new materials at our website at www.allianceforchildhoood.org.
We have also commissioned two studies about the status of play vs. academic instruction in kindergartens and preschools in the New York area. One is a qualitative study being conducted by professors at Sarah Lawrence College. They will visit a number of public schools this year, including one in the South Bronx where Susan Kotansky and Monica Alexandra are bringing Waldorf approaches to young children. After the researchers visited Susan's preschool last spring, they sent a jubilant email saying, "Play is alive and well in the South Bronx!"
We will have more to report on this campaign as the year progresses, and we hope that Waldorf teachers and parents will take part.
On a personal note, I miss my work within Waldorf education very much but also feel gratified that the work of the Alliance is progressing well. With our new focus on play there may be increasing ways to work together. I'm looking forward to focusing on play at the February WECAN Early Childhood conference in Spring Valley and hope to see many of you there.