Let Our Kids Play

We need less school not more, and let me explain why. There is so much more to a healthy education that just what happens at school. What happens at home and during “free time” is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. The studies back it up too. Children who are nurtured in strong families and have plenty of play time do better in school.

Despite the overwhelming evidence policy makers continually implement policies that erode the foundation of our society by separating children from parents and leaving less and less play time for kids to run free and “keep important appointments with themselves and with their families to learn lessons” (John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down) that can only be learned in the childhood expressions of play. When we continually lengthen the time our kids spend in school we cheat them of this critical development.

A report by the American Academy of Pediatrics underscores the importance of self-directed child play and personal free time for kids and youth and the damage that is done to our kids when they are over-scheduled in constant institutional settings. The study specifically addresses the damage done by the modern pressures of ever increasing instructional time and higher educational standards among middle class youth who have plenty of opportunity for constant activity. The study underscores that even children who attend daycare and after school programs benefit from this time in which they are free to engage in child directed play and exploration.

Our kids today are already over-scheduled and spending less and less time in creative play and family centered time. What will be the result of children spending most of their lives in an institutional environment; daycare, pre-school, school, soccer, basketball, football, dance, art, music, etc; and after a day of organized activity returning home to spend the rest of their time doing homework and indulging in media?

We don’t need experts to tell us what mother’s intuition already knows that between the seven plus hours at school and the endless after school activities followed by the isolation of vegging in front of the television, our kids are left with hardly any quality play time or family time and this is stunting their growth. This self-time is a critical piece in the healthy development of individuality. Experts agree, “Private time is absolutely essential if a private identity is going to develop…we have to give kids independent time right away because it is the key to self-knowledge” (John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down)

The role of the family is being stripped away in the name of modern progress and family centered communities are a relic of the past. Kids who could explore, build, and tumble around on the floor with dad are something you see in re-runs of "Leave it to Beaver". People talk about the days of American innovation with a wisp of nostalgia and tell us that our schools today aren’t up to the challenge; they say we can’t produce the next Henry Ford or Edwin Hubble. Didn't the great American innovators and scientist come out of the Andy Griffin days when boys ran free for hours after school ankle deep in mud catching bullfrogs at the river banks?

According to Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, those days are over! He was totally serious when he said, "The days of telling kids to go home at 2:30 and having mom there with a peanut butter sandwich, those days are gone." In all seriousness it is preference that our kids spend “12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year.” If this is the unavoidable trend, as MPS school board president Dave Anderson said last year in response to parents concerns, then America is headed for a heartbreaking wake-up call when the fuel of American greatness runs out. Individualism and hard work built on the bed rock of strong family centered communities and a moral society has been the fuel of American greatness. Greatness that didn't come out of high tech high schools or Ivy League halls; it comes from the solid character that is built in the halls of a happy home.

If American students are "falling behind" it isn’t because they don't spend enough time in school or because there’s not enough money in education, there is already plenty of both. Our student population today suffers from chronic apathy and lack of self-motivation among other decays of character and life skills that are the result from being constantly programmed, entertained, and supervised. When you compound this with the social disintegration of the family and the culture of entitlement it is a deadly poison and the only antidote is less school and more family time.

The stresses particular to two-income or single-parent families combined with the unsupervised exposure our kids have to television, gaming, and social media has swallowed up most of the family time needed to build good character and replaced it with influences that seriously undermine the moral fabric of our society. This is a huge factor to our "failing education". Kids today are starving for nurture at home which is essential to a bright mind and a strong work ethic. Whatever the obstacles that threaten your family time, a greater focus on giving your kids free time and quality family time, will be well worth any financial sacrifice.

If we concern ourselves only with the secular schooling of our children and forget to what end it is given, all the education in the world will be utterly wasted for them. What good will it do our children to be able to provide for a family someday if they are incapable of forming solid bonds and family fidelity, if they miss key developmental benchmarks that develop critical thinking, initiative, and hard work? What good will their intellect be if their lives lack the fulfillment of happy family life.

We need to “force open the idea of “school” to include the family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents…we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now… [Because] the “curriculum of the family” is the heart of any good life. The family is central to the strength and success of our communities and nation and we must consider how these types of decisions will impact the family unit.