What If Everyone Understood Play?
We tend to ascribe wisdom to those who have lived longest. And that's valid: the longer someone has lived, the more mistakes they've made, and therefore, the more experience they have. But there is another type of wisdom -- if wisdom is the right word -- with which we are born, and that we proceed to "unlearn" as we get older.
Specifically, I'm thinking about play. We are born knowing not just how to play, but with the wisdom to know that play belongs at the center of our lives. We are born with all the wisdom we will ever need about eating, sleeping, and snuggling as well, but by the time we're all grown up, most of us have forgotten our store infantile wisdom.
We eat too much or not enough. Western society is plagued with poor dietary habits. Most of us don't get enough sleep either, and what we do get is so often interrupted and fitful due to stress and anxiety, not to mention the poor diets and lack of physical exercise. Snuggling might be a little easier for us, especially if we have young children in our lives, but I would assert that most of us don't get enough human touch as we go through our days.
And most adults have no idea what we're talking about when we talk about play. Of sure, they remember play, like a teddy CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: What If Everyone Understood Play?
