The RCEF Blog 博客

Happened to come across this interesting piece when I searched literature for the IM study writing….. and want to share it with you all. It is an academic paper published in Child Study Journal (1999). The title is “Play in the day of Qiaoqiao: A Chinese perspective”. Basically, the researchers depicted a typical day in the life of a 5-yr-old child (named QiaoQiao) enrolled in a Chinese preprimary school program in Xi’an. Her interview responses revealed that she had no difficulty in distinguishing which activities she perceived as play. She did not include preprimary indoor classroom activities as play. Even though her teacher wrote that teachers use children’s natural tendency to play as a motivator to engage in class activities, Qiaoqiao did not perceive the music or handwork classes as play activities. In her explanation, she stated that choosing, by herself what she wanted, was her rationale for marking an activity as play. The teacher directed both the music and the handwork classes and children did not choose whether to participate. It is interesting that Qiaoqiao marked the Children’s Palace activities (dancing, piano, painting) as play activities even though they were also teacher directed. Perhaps, she felt she had a choice in whether to participate in these activities. If this is true, choice was more of a determining factor than teacher direction. On the other hand, the teacher saw play primarily as recreational but wrote about its place in an academic setting. She thought it was a good way to stimulate children’s interest in learning.This explanation from the teacher suggests an emergent purpose for play from her perspective. It is as if the teacher saw a place for play in academic activities, thinking that play could be educational as well as recreational. Take this as a reflection on our volunteer program, with a heavy focus on incorporating “play” in class, if the teacher uses it to disguise the teacher-directed work, it may not be perceived as play by the child. Studies in the US and this study in China indicate that using play to motivate children, and to make learning fun without including the element of child choice, will not change children’s perceptions of activities as play, even though play is valued by teachers as an important medium for learning. This study provides some evidence that, for Chinese children, “play” means the opportunity to choose an activity. This has implications for curricular changes in early childhood education in China, from whole group teacher-directed activities to small group child-chosen activities. It also means embracing an academic purpose of play for advancing children’s intellectual development.