Play Event Reflection - Adult Intervention?

Last Saturday, We J762ers had a wonderful play event with around 10 lovely children from age 6 to 11 in the school of education. We provided plenty of materials, such as papers, beads, hardboards, lids, and all other stuff like that and art supplies.

At first, I was standing aside watching them playing. A lovely sweet boy and girl twins caught my attention. They were active but polite and always being together. Once they made a progress in their project, they would eagerly went to their mom's office, on the same floor, to show what they have made to her. Another thing that impressed me a lot is that the six-year old boy Q had been focused on a jigsaw puzzle for a considerably long time and not been distracted at all. After he finished the puzzle, he even went further by decorating it. Finally, the puzzle turned out to be an amazing art work.

Unlike Q's attentiveness, the 6-year old boy J is comparably easily to be distracted. I noticed that he have tried making several projects but always ended in the middle. Watching him lingering around his companions, I though maybe I should help him. I started to make a scale using a round plastic tray and asked him to come to me. He seemed quite interested in the project I was doing. "Do you wanna try?", I asked him and gave him the half finished project. J nodded his heads and took it over and started working on it. To help him, I Googled a picture of the scale to show him what it should be like. With my help, J finally finished the scientific project and did highly focused on it for quite a long time. However, after it's completed, J just put it down and walked away to try other projects. It seems J didn't gain much joy during the process as I expected him to.

I began to question my intervention. The project I chose to work with him may be beyond his current cognitive development since it involves scientific knowledge such as balance. Therefore, everytime he came across problems, I need to step in to help him out. Vygotsky has suggested that there was a zone for proximal development for young children, as adults we need to offer a bridge for him to reach the next level. However, in my case, I didn't find a proper way to help him forward (Maybe there is a construct); what I did is to directly show him what do to and thus J's activeness in the process is weakened to a large degree. Therefore, when he finished the project, he didn't enjoy the fulfillment caused by conquering the cognitive puzzles.

Or even if I adopted a proper way to work with him, would it be better than just not intervention at all in the very first beginning and leaving him walking around. So there is a value judgement, I, as the adult, assumed that J's walking around is absent-mindless and purposeless and thus he could lose the opportunity of playing and learning. However, it could also be possible that J was trying to figure out his own way to experience this play event while my intervention rudely intruded his own world and interrupted this process which might be quite valuable.

Intervene or not?

The Value of Play

For the past week, I didn't do any "valuable" play. I got up late and grabbed some fastfood to eat. I was supposed to do some reading; however, I wasn't in the mood of study at all. Therefore, I decided to just relax and do whatever I want.

I opened my computer and surfed on the internet to see if there is anything interesting to watch. And then I found there is a new Chinese TV program called 'I am the singer' in which some singing stars are invited to compete singing. Honestly, it is an excellent TV program which soon attracted me and I almost lost the track of time. After I finished several periods of the program, I realized I almost spent the whole afternoon and evening watching it. I didn't feel relaxed as I expected to; rather I felt empty and guilty for wasting time. Later I called my boyfriend. Coincidentally at that time, he was also watching the same TV program. I talked to him about my guilty of wasting time watching entertainment program rather than doing exercise or watching TV programs of culture, art or history as a way of recreation. He could not understand my feeling. For him, it was really a relaxing period of time watching the show and thought I was thinking too much.

Based on our different reactions to the same type of play, I am wondering why I lost the joyfulness of the play? Is it really because of the frivolity of the play itself or due to my prejudgment of the value of the play? It seems that I need to go back to the pretty fundamental question of the value of play. For me, adult play is value based and should serve as some functions. For example, doing exercises or outdoor activities are benefit to health and thus can make us more efficient; and watching TV programs on culture, history and art can nurture the soul and cultivate the mind. While entertainment programs, for me, just satisfy our vulgarity. However, when I retrospect the play experiences of my childhood, there is no such distinct categorization of play as frivolous or valuable. At that time, all play experiences are joyful and valuable. Therefore, what potential factors could contribute to the evaluation of the value of play? Is the value of play socially constructed?

Babysitter One Day

Huan is the daughter of my friend Dr. Du. She is a sweat 7-year old girl full of curiosity. Everytime when Dr. Du needs to go to Indy to attend conference on Saturdays, she'll entrust Huan to my care. There is an old saying in China that "Even dogs will not like 7 or 8-year old kids", meaning that children at the age of 7 or 8 are most naughty and annoying; however, Huan is a lovable and sensible girl, although sometimes her insatiable curiosity really makes me unable to parry.

Normally when Huan is with me, I'll take her to Kroger or ride bicycle in the yard near my apartment, or just leave her alone watching cartoons on ipad which really makes me feel guilty. This time, I decide to take her to the movie theater to watch the newest animation "The Croods" which I already watched with my
roommate several days ago.

In the projection room, more than half of the audience are children together with their parents. And watching cartoons with those innocent kids are really sweat experience although sometimes a little bit noisy. They are so free to express their inner feelings and so easy to be touched. Immersed in the world of children's simplicity, I totally forgot about my stress and worries. When the movie is showing how much the dad missed his family and drew their pictures on the rock of the cave, I heard Huan crying. At first, I thought it was because her legs were caught in the chair and tried to help her out; and then Huan told me in a tearful voice that she cried because she was so touched by the scene. I was suddenly enlightened and took her in my arms to comfort her.

I enjoy being with kids. My roommate once asked me how to communicate with young children since for her they are different creatures coming from another star. I told her based on my own experiences that while you communicate with them, looking straight into their eyes, blocking the outside world and listening to what they are saying seriously. Playing with children is not just a relaxing but also a learning experiences. Their questions always remind me the simple beauty and miracles hidden in my daily life which I just ignored for a long time; their straightforwardness always makes me thinking why we adults make their life so complicated? Maybe we really need to play with young children more not because we need to carry out the obligations as parents or caregivers, but because we can learn the play "skills" from them.