Let the Children Play

The definitive account of how educational policy-makers, presumably well-intentioned, have gone completely astray, in the United States and elsewhere, along with a vivid and convincing account of how to restore play to its proper place in the lives of children. -- Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education Inspirational, well written, and superbly documented, this book is a gift to the next generation. Adding play back into children's hurried and stressed lives might just be the elixir that will help them thrive in a workforce of thinkers, innovators, and collaborators. Thank you Doyle and Sahlberg for giving us a road map so that we can put our educational systems back on course. -- Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in Psychology at Temple University Sahlberg and Doyle whack us in the head with the reality that 21st Century skills require old-fashioned learning as children. Play is the analog of life - observing the world, identifying challenges, taking risks, failing, problem-solving again and again, struggling to find consensus with others, absorbing defeats with grace and celebrating victories with exuberance. What builds successful adults is the ability to rise undaunted to opportunities, build relationships, feed curiosity and seize the joy that is at the heart of learning and of living! -- Michael Rich, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and author of Ask the Mediatrician Let the Children Play should be in the hands of every single teacher, parent and policy maker who touch the lives of the children they serve. Sahlberg and Doyle clearly articulate and demand that we wake up and finally acknowledge that children have the fundamental right to play in school. This is a compelling vision of the power of play and what we can do to ensure it comes off the 'endangered species' list and back into every school around the world. -- Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools for the Patchogue-Medford School District in New York Let the Children Play is a passionate, eloquent and substantiated argument for a radical change of priorities in how many parents, educators and policymakers provide for the education, health and well being of children. -- from the Foreword by Sir Ken Robinson We have undervalued the role of play in school to our own detriment as educators, and that of our students. In a culture where standardized testing has crowded out inquisitiveness and play, our students don't get an opportunity to tinker and experiment without high stakes judgments. Without play, teachers don't get to learn from watching their students be unbound by their inner creative selves. When children play, we observe the possibility of their imagination, and retool our structured classroom learning to create activities that model the authentic play and joy of students. It's a missed opportunity to learn from a feedback loop on what comes naturally to children. Play can liberate the power of inquiry in classrooms, that ironically can produce better test scores. Kudos for being so bold with this book! -- Eric Contreras, Principal, Stuyvesant High School, New York City Play develops our imagination and capacity to collaborate and is what makes us human. Sahlberg and Doyle have written a brilliant and compelling manifesto for bringing play back into the lives of children. Let the revolution begin! -- Tony Wagner, best-selling author of The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators.