Playtime has long been important for child development, but what if we said students of all ages could benefit from a bit more play?
When did we decide that playing was reserved only for infants? Society would have us believe that life must get more serious as we age, because playtime doesn’t make the world progress the way that work does. Yet playing necessitates and develops creativity, an essential 21st century soft skill.
Perhaps this is where we should say ‘society has got it wrong’.
Did you ever think play could be more valuable than just helping to pass the time? When we drew other children into our make-believe worlds as kids, what were we doing? Being leaders, working in a team! When we drew ships and airplanes to replace a holiday spent at home, we were being creative and ingenious.
If International Baccalaureate (IB) students are to incorporate the various elements of the IB learner profile, such as risk taking and inquisitiveness, into their everyday behaviour, re-learning how to play could help them to do so.
Fortunately, we at Haut-Lac International Bilingual School are not the only ones re-evaluating the importance of being playful. The World Economic Forum is embracing it too. They claim that playtime could be the thing that differentiates us from machines in the workplace, thanks to our most human of assets – our imaginations.
A story about the past, playtime and the future
History is the proof that playtime can spur immense productivity. Writer Steven Johnson discovered that many of the modern technologies we now take for granted have origins in pleasure and amusement. Many are explored in his book Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, and some are more surprising than you think.
Dolls and Computers
The first thing to spark the ingenious mind of young Charles Babbage, the father of our early computers, was a mechanized doll he was shown by a prolific automation tinkerer. So taken was he by the toy and the movement that gave it a life of its own that he set his mind to understanding automation, eventually developing two machines which are now considered our earliest computers. Who could imagine the modern world without them?
Dice Games and Probability Theory 
Dice games hover near the top of the list of the world’s oldest pastimes. An Italian, Girolamo Cardano, was spurred to action by his interest in the addictive and risky nature of betting and in the various possible outcomes each roll of the dice could produce. Thanks to his fascination with dice, he worked out the fundamental principles of probability theory, without which we would not have been able to design airplanes or develop clinical drug trials.
Play encourages soft skills
These are only a few notable examples, yet they are enough to make us ask ourselves – why should we discourage students from playing as they grow up, when it has the power to stimulate their imaginations and channel their creativity into great projects?
‘Soft skills’ are a buzzword nowadays, and encompasses all the skills that will be valuable to our children in the future. Playtime is a way to develop many of these abilities naturally and may be the best means of pushing our under stimulated imaginations. As Neville Scarfe, author of The Scarfe Papers and Play is Education, said, “all play is associated with intense thought activity and rapid intellectual growth”. In more basic terms, playing is an excellent way to increase our own productivity and stimulate our brains.
If playing was essential to the inventors and great minds of the past, then perhaps it is time to bring it back, and not just for infants. Let’s celebrate the fun, creative side of ourselves that makes humans human and sets us apart from the machines.
Katie Harwood
