I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Christie Duncan-Tessmer of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting:
Children in elementary grades and younger don’t have the same kind of definitional boundaries that adults frequently have between time for work, time for play, and time to be connected with a sense of wonder and awe. For them, work, play, and a sacred space or sense of wonder are all the same thing and it doesn’t have to be named….
The rigid boundaries between “work time,” “study time,” and “play time” are arbitrary and socially constructed. For a young child, they don’t see or perceive the differences. A parent mowing the lawn isn’t doing “yard work” until the child is told that is what it is. For them, it could just as easy as be their mom or dad playing outside with a fun, noisy toy.
Kids often “play” at doing adult things like cooking, shopping, and building. The pretend “work” is fun for them.
Learning isn’t necessarily a chore or a burden for children, and in fact can be fun and pleasurable. Think of all the learning it takes to become acquainted with a new game like “Go Fish,” its rules, strategies, and different variables. Only later they learn that “study time” isn’t the same as “play time,” which happens only during recess or after school.
From Christie Duncan-Tessmer, 2009, former General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers).