Let the Children Play

Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education Review from previous edition The definitive account of how educational policy-makers, presumably well-intentioned, have gone completely astray, in the United States and elsewhere, along with a vivid and convincing account of how to restore play to its proper place in the lives of children.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in Psychology at Temple University Inspirational, well written, and superbly documented, this book is a gift to the next generation. Adding play back into children's hurried and stressed lives might just be the elixir that will help them thrive in a workforce of thinkers, innovators, and collaborators. Thank you Doyle and Sahlberg for giving us a road map so that we can put our educational systems back on course.

Michael Rich, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and author of Ask the Mediatrician Sahlberg and Doyle whack us in the head with the reality that 21st Century skills require old-fashioned learning as children. Play is the analog of life - observing the world, identifying challenges, taking risks, failing, problem-solving again and again, struggling to find consensus with others, absorbing defeats with grace and celebrating victories with exuberance. What builds successful adults is the ability to rise undaunted to opportunities, build relationships, feed curiosity and seize the joy that is at the heart of learning and of living!

Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools for the Patchogue-Medford School District in New York Let the Children Play should be in the hands of every single teacher, parent and policy maker who touch the lives of the children they serve. Sahlberg and Doyle clearly articulate and demand that we wake up and finally acknowledge that children have the fundamental right to play in school. This is a compelling vision of the power of play and what we can do to ensure it comes off the 'endangered species' list and back into every school around the world.

Sir Ken Robinson Let the Children Play is a passionate, eloquent and substantiated argument for a radical change of priorities in how many parents, educators and policymakers provide for the education, health and well being of children.

Eric Contreras, Principal, Stuyvesant High School, New York City We have undervalued the role of play in school to our own detriment as educators, and that of our students. In a culture where standardized testing has crowded out inquisitiveness and play, our students don't get an opportunity to tinker and experiment without high stakes judgments. Without play, teachers don't get to learn from watching their students be unbound by their inner creative selves. When children play, we observe the possibility of their imagination, and retool our structured classroom learning to create activities that model the authentic play and joy of students. It's a...

Pasi Sahlberg is Professor of Education Policy at Gonski Institute for Education, University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is a Finnish educator who has studied education systems around the world. His work on learning through play has brought him the 2013 Grawemeyer Award, the 2014 Robert Owen Award, and the 2016 Lego Prize. His interests include teaching and learning in school, teacher education, and equity and quality of education. Former Senior Specialist at World Bank, Director General of the Ministry of Education in Finland, and Visiting Professor at Harvard University, he now lives with his family in Sydney. William Doyle is a New York Times bestselling author and TV producer for networks including HBO, The History Channel, and PBS. Since 2015 he has served as Fulbright Scholar, Scholar in Residence and Lecturer on Media and Education at University of Eastern Finland, a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellow, and advisor to the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland.

Sir Ken Robinson: Foreword 1: The Coming Golden Age of Childhood 2: A Tale of Two Fathers 3: The Learning Power of Play 4: The GERM that Kills Play 5: An American Tragedy: The Death of Recess 6: The Global War on Play 7: The Great Play Experiments 8: Play in the Schools of Tomorrow 9: The Global Play Summit Appendices 1: The Declaration of Play - Call to Halt the War on Childhood 2: The Play Stages of a Child's School Life 3: 7 Steps to Help Children and Schools Thrive 4: Play Recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics