What a pleasure it was to participate in a conference in Arizona by TASP, The Association for the Study of Play. Every presentation was related to understanding play in human development and learning, and links with play in animals.
As I discovered, there are concerns in the US around the low status of play, especially in schools. There, too, a target-driven ethos has diminished the value of that which cannot be measured. There are battles to save 'recess' or playtime as we would call it, which has been given over, in an increasing number of states, to 'engagements' with literacy and numeracy. I say 'engagements' because there are those in the US who, as here, do not agree that extended exposure necessarily means effective learning, especially when motivation and age-appropriateness seem not to have been factored in.
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