Saturday, March 17, 2012

The No Play Doctrine « Cooperative Catalyst

The No Play Doctrine « Cooperative Catalyst:


The No Play Doctrine

After reading the recent posts in the play and recess campaign on the Coop I began to notice the common denominator in every argument agreeing that play is crucial to a suitable public education system. We, the American public, have slowly become a society that praises and emphasizes conformity and standardization in the ultimate goal of being the “best and brightest” and that praise and emphasis has spilled over into our education system. We have so heavily praised and emphasized conformity and standardization with our nation’s children over the past few decades that they have essentially moved to remove every vehicle that inhibits a sense of altruism and individualism within their developing minds. In retrospect, it seems that society and the socially sensitive education system has started to move toward creating a second “Silent Generation”, but this time by different means.
If one were to look at the downward path that the American public and its education has taken the developing and furthering of today’s “Silent Generation” has everything to do with our twisted idea of being a smarter nation at a reduced price. Once we moved toward creating a sense of uniformity in schools that went beyond just