Fantasy/imaginative play definitely occurs in regular schools in my experience. When I was at school I was involved quite often in these types of games until I went to high school. I've been in schools as a student teacher and seen lovely imaginative games being played. My 8 yr old daughter often plays these types of games too, last year I got cross with her putting holes in the knee of her pants, she said was because she was crawling around being a dog in their game. However the majority of the kids playing these games are female so that maybe where your experience has differed.
It's wonderful to hear and read about so many beautiful mixed-age interactions. Coming from a mixed-age preschool/long-daycare in Newcastle, Australia, I've loved reading and sharing the beautiful opportunities for children when in these settings. I, myself, have personally observed so many interactions such as these, and we are constantly inspired by the children's ability to adapt to the environments and who joins them. Our older children have increasing self and social awareness, and our younger children engage in vicarious play from such a young age, developing their abilities so naturally and comfortably.
It's got me also thinking about how we can broaden this to explore the impacts younger children could have on our 0-6 year olds; could we make connections with our local primary schools, the benefits this could have for both parties.
Sharing this information and research with our community is the first step in getting their support and engagement.
I'm finding the varied and complex descriptions of play here to be both delightful and a bit otherworldly. I'm 64 and my public school years were between 1964 and 1976, so I had the good fortune of growing up before the age of play deprivation, but still, I did not play like this ! We played games and simplified baseball (Pickle, 3 Flies Up), but while someone must have figured out how to adapt the rules, discussing the rules is something I don't ever remember happening. Nor do I remember anyone playing elaborate participatory fantasy games. True, I was a bit introverted so wouldn't have been inclined toward this myself, but I think I would have at least seen others so engaged.
So I'm a bit inclined to think something very special was happening at this Sudbury Valley School (although South Park does portray kids playing elaborate fantasy games, I would be very surprised if this was based on the actual experience of the creators - could I be wrong about that?). Age mixing at Sudbury might very well account for that, for while no one was going to stop us from playing with differently aged kids at my elementary school or in my neighborhood, the long experience we had at being age segregated would have made this seem a bit weird and somehow vaguely inappropriate.
What these descriptions really make me long for is a 4 part BBC style documentary on play (or perhaps 6 episodes, with the first 2 episodes being about play in animals). I did find a 2 part BBC series on animal play called "Animals at Play", made in 2022, which seems to indicate some willingness on the part of the BBC to treat this as a worthy topic. And there is also an episode of PBS Nature called "Animal Odd Couples" (1982) featuring animals of different species in captivity playing with each other, and seemingly just enjoying hanging out together.
Would you happen to know of anyone who might be interested in hosting such a series on play in animals and humans, and who has the requisite expertise :) ?
Mark, I appreciate all aspect of your comment here. First, my own memories of childhood play vary depending on where we lived and my age. My memories of lots of discussion about rules are mostly from two quite different times in my life. I played lots of pick-up baseball in age-mixed groups when I was 8 and 9 years old, and, although we often just fell into a game using rules we had already established, depending on conditions we usually had to create at least variations. Much later, when I was college student in New York City I would often join pick-up basketball games in a local school-yard, mostly with high school kids, and again we would sometimes have to figure out what we were doing before doing it. Sudbury Valley and schools like it really are special places, where there is much more opportunity for age-mixed play, over the whole range of childhood and teenage years, than occurs anywhere else in our culture that I know of. I love the idea of a BBC style documentary on play. If you have any sort of in on how to do that, send me an email (grayp@bc.edu). I know people who would be great participants. I've been in several documentaries concerned with play, done by independent filmmakers, but they haven't had a big audience.
Well Peter, I am just a nobody and so am not in a position to give you David Attenborough's phone number, alas. But I do enjoy giving advice to people who are far more knowledgable and competent than I am, so I will venture this: BBC makes Nature Programs, not (to my knowledge) educational programs, so a project of interest to the BBC should I think focus on examining play in animals and then generalizing to play in humans; that makes it not specifically about its educational consequences, but rather about what we can say about human nature from a biological, evolutionary perspective. Another thing the BBC is going to like, I think, is the opportunity to get film from different cultures. There is of course the Hadza; recently I viewed "Becoming Human" on Apple TV+ and there is some remarkable footage there of children in Borneo going off in a boat to gather crabs ... It was visually stunning, and it seems that Naturalists are the people who know where such footage can be found. I understand that baseball is a big thing in the Dominican Republic, and while some of this is surely organized now (MLB teams hunt for prospects there) it must surely be possible to get footage of pickup baseball games there, in an exotic and visually appealing environment.
Besides figuring out who to start talking to in order to find out how to make this happen, I would think that the most important thing is to keep working at getting this conceptually organized, so that there is a theme connecting all these different examples of play at varying levels of complexity - in other words, just keep doing what you're doing! Other than that, I was just hoping to get this on your radar as a possibility. I have viewed a number of your Youtube videos (which is how I found my way to Substack) and you are an excellent presenter; all the better I think if you can recruit a number of others able to provide comments and observations, so that it becomes presented as a newly emerging field with opportunities for further discoveries, rather than just the views of some maverick who wants to set children free.
I read "Free to Learn" shortly after it came out and at that time was mainly just gratified that someone was around to follow upon and even expand upon the work of John Holt (although I understand you actually came to your views independently). But now I've become more interested in looking more deeply into the nature of play - its moved right to the top of my TBR - and its just remotely possible that I'll be able to contribute some helpful comments, but I still need to spend some more time thinking about it.
About South Park :) They incorporated aspects of the gaming culture in some episodes especially Pen & Paper role-play games and video games like the World of Warcraft episode. The creators seem to enjoy these type of games themselves... Some of South Park is inspired by their experiences in youth, at least that's what they say in numerous interviews. Some of these games have more of an adult player base and are of course satirical commentary. I remember that in my youth we actually played sometimes in a similar manner then depicted in South Park, for example being superheroes and so on... I guess Comics, TV shows and movies had quite an impact on what we played... and it seems to me that it could have been similar for them. Kids I get to play with often create very elaborated fantasy games with complex sets of rules often very much inspired by modern video games I guess.
Thanks! It seems to me now that I was more play deprived than I suspected. Interestingly, it was reading science fiction (a form of play, surely) in my preteen years that opened the way for me to have an interest in science. At the same time, the bookstore that I walked for science fiction books had psychology in the next aisle, and one day a little paperback titled The Psychology of Intelligence caught my eye - and ever since I've had an interest in what I now identify as learning how to learn (incorporating many aspects of attitude, emotion, and mental state). In fact, although it would be pleasant to see a world in which children had opportunities for free play again, my primary interest here is a selfish one: I want to learn how to incorporate strategies for engaging a playful state of mind into strategies for learning. The natural way to begin would be to simply reflect upon my own experiences of engaging in play, but I dont seem to have any! So, I guess I will just have to see to what extent I can learn from the experiences of others, vicariously.
Fantasy/imaginative play definitely occurs in regular schools in my experience. When I was at school I was involved quite often in these types of games until I went to high school. I've been in schools as a student teacher and seen lovely imaginative games being played. My 8 yr old daughter often plays these types of games too, last year I got cross with her putting holes in the knee of her pants, she said was because she was crawling around being a dog in their game. However the majority of the kids playing these games are female so that maybe where your experience has differed.
Fantasy/imaginative play definitely occurs in regular schools in my experience. When I was at school I was involved quite often in these types of games until I went to high school. I've been in schools as a student teacher and seen lovely imaginative games being played. My 8 yr old daughter often plays these types of games too, last year I got cross with her putting holes in the knee of her pants, she said was because she was crawling around being a dog in their game. However the majority of the kids playing these games are female so that maybe where your experience has differed.
Thank you for these letters Peter.
It's wonderful to hear and read about so many beautiful mixed-age interactions. Coming from a mixed-age preschool/long-daycare in Newcastle, Australia, I've loved reading and sharing the beautiful opportunities for children when in these settings. I, myself, have personally observed so many interactions such as these, and we are constantly inspired by the children's ability to adapt to the environments and who joins them. Our older children have increasing self and social awareness, and our younger children engage in vicarious play from such a young age, developing their abilities so naturally and comfortably.
It's got me also thinking about how we can broaden this to explore the impacts younger children could have on our 0-6 year olds; could we make connections with our local primary schools, the benefits this could have for both parties.
Sharing this information and research with our community is the first step in getting their support and engagement.
Thank you for these insights.
Hi Peter,
I'm finding the varied and complex descriptions of play here to be both delightful and a bit otherworldly. I'm 64 and my public school years were between 1964 and 1976, so I had the good fortune of growing up before the age of play deprivation, but still, I did not play like this ! We played games and simplified baseball (Pickle, 3 Flies Up), but while someone must have figured out how to adapt the rules, discussing the rules is something I don't ever remember happening. Nor do I remember anyone playing elaborate participatory fantasy games. True, I was a bit introverted so wouldn't have been inclined toward this myself, but I think I would have at least seen others so engaged.
So I'm a bit inclined to think something very special was happening at this Sudbury Valley School (although South Park does portray kids playing elaborate fantasy games, I would be very surprised if this was based on the actual experience of the creators - could I be wrong about that?). Age mixing at Sudbury might very well account for that, for while no one was going to stop us from playing with differently aged kids at my elementary school or in my neighborhood, the long experience we had at being age segregated would have made this seem a bit weird and somehow vaguely inappropriate.
What these descriptions really make me long for is a 4 part BBC style documentary on play (or perhaps 6 episodes, with the first 2 episodes being about play in animals). I did find a 2 part BBC series on animal play called "Animals at Play", made in 2022, which seems to indicate some willingness on the part of the BBC to treat this as a worthy topic. And there is also an episode of PBS Nature called "Animal Odd Couples" (1982) featuring animals of different species in captivity playing with each other, and seemingly just enjoying hanging out together.
Would you happen to know of anyone who might be interested in hosting such a series on play in animals and humans, and who has the requisite expertise :) ?
Mark, I appreciate all aspect of your comment here. First, my own memories of childhood play vary depending on where we lived and my age. My memories of lots of discussion about rules are mostly from two quite different times in my life. I played lots of pick-up baseball in age-mixed groups when I was 8 and 9 years old, and, although we often just fell into a game using rules we had already established, depending on conditions we usually had to create at least variations. Much later, when I was college student in New York City I would often join pick-up basketball games in a local school-yard, mostly with high school kids, and again we would sometimes have to figure out what we were doing before doing it. Sudbury Valley and schools like it really are special places, where there is much more opportunity for age-mixed play, over the whole range of childhood and teenage years, than occurs anywhere else in our culture that I know of. I love the idea of a BBC style documentary on play. If you have any sort of in on how to do that, send me an email (grayp@bc.edu). I know people who would be great participants. I've been in several documentaries concerned with play, done by independent filmmakers, but they haven't had a big audience.
Well Peter, I am just a nobody and so am not in a position to give you David Attenborough's phone number, alas. But I do enjoy giving advice to people who are far more knowledgable and competent than I am, so I will venture this: BBC makes Nature Programs, not (to my knowledge) educational programs, so a project of interest to the BBC should I think focus on examining play in animals and then generalizing to play in humans; that makes it not specifically about its educational consequences, but rather about what we can say about human nature from a biological, evolutionary perspective. Another thing the BBC is going to like, I think, is the opportunity to get film from different cultures. There is of course the Hadza; recently I viewed "Becoming Human" on Apple TV+ and there is some remarkable footage there of children in Borneo going off in a boat to gather crabs ... It was visually stunning, and it seems that Naturalists are the people who know where such footage can be found. I understand that baseball is a big thing in the Dominican Republic, and while some of this is surely organized now (MLB teams hunt for prospects there) it must surely be possible to get footage of pickup baseball games there, in an exotic and visually appealing environment.
Besides figuring out who to start talking to in order to find out how to make this happen, I would think that the most important thing is to keep working at getting this conceptually organized, so that there is a theme connecting all these different examples of play at varying levels of complexity - in other words, just keep doing what you're doing! Other than that, I was just hoping to get this on your radar as a possibility. I have viewed a number of your Youtube videos (which is how I found my way to Substack) and you are an excellent presenter; all the better I think if you can recruit a number of others able to provide comments and observations, so that it becomes presented as a newly emerging field with opportunities for further discoveries, rather than just the views of some maverick who wants to set children free.
I read "Free to Learn" shortly after it came out and at that time was mainly just gratified that someone was around to follow upon and even expand upon the work of John Holt (although I understand you actually came to your views independently). But now I've become more interested in looking more deeply into the nature of play - its moved right to the top of my TBR - and its just remotely possible that I'll be able to contribute some helpful comments, but I still need to spend some more time thinking about it.
About South Park :) They incorporated aspects of the gaming culture in some episodes especially Pen & Paper role-play games and video games like the World of Warcraft episode. The creators seem to enjoy these type of games themselves... Some of South Park is inspired by their experiences in youth, at least that's what they say in numerous interviews. Some of these games have more of an adult player base and are of course satirical commentary. I remember that in my youth we actually played sometimes in a similar manner then depicted in South Park, for example being superheroes and so on... I guess Comics, TV shows and movies had quite an impact on what we played... and it seems to me that it could have been similar for them. Kids I get to play with often create very elaborated fantasy games with complex sets of rules often very much inspired by modern video games I guess.
Thanks! It seems to me now that I was more play deprived than I suspected. Interestingly, it was reading science fiction (a form of play, surely) in my preteen years that opened the way for me to have an interest in science. At the same time, the bookstore that I walked for science fiction books had psychology in the next aisle, and one day a little paperback titled The Psychology of Intelligence caught my eye - and ever since I've had an interest in what I now identify as learning how to learn (incorporating many aspects of attitude, emotion, and mental state). In fact, although it would be pleasant to see a world in which children had opportunities for free play again, my primary interest here is a selfish one: I want to learn how to incorporate strategies for engaging a playful state of mind into strategies for learning. The natural way to begin would be to simply reflect upon my own experiences of engaging in play, but I dont seem to have any! So, I guess I will just have to see to what extent I can learn from the experiences of others, vicariously.
Fantasy/imaginative play definitely occurs in regular schools in my experience. When I was at school I was involved quite often in these types of games until I went to high school. I've been in schools as a student teacher and seen lovely imaginative games being played. My 8 yr old daughter often plays these types of games too, last year I got cross with her putting holes in the knee of her pants, she said was because she was crawling around being a dog in their game. However the majority of the kids playing these games are female so that maybe where your experience has differed.