Play Held Hostage by the Bully Excellence

Linda Cameron
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Ins

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     Last modified: March 13, 2007
     Presentation date: 07/21/2007 11:55 AM in Coast Hotel Barclay Room
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Abstract
Play is gone...missing...held hostage! And the reason...we are all caught up in striving for excellence, hyper-parenting, educational tested standards, corporate growth, globalization, competing for a high score in the current standards of life, ravaged by the torment to be the best. Toys are marketed to assure that children will learn something. Kids' time is usurped by lessons and their responsibility is to win, to perform, to be the best at everything. Schools are measured. Kids are tested. Homework is escalating. There is no time to play. Creativity does not matter. Fun is not an important factor. Inquiry, imagination and interaction are limited by the constraints of the pursuit of excellence.

My mantra: Let's free Play!


Play…I looked but couldn't find it.

Childhood stuck to chairs
Pushing buttons to grotesque approximations
Look, push, look, wait

Wonder-full ideas?
Lost in other worlds
Solving dilemmas without reality controlling
Being anything
Doing everything
Full of wonder?

Not so!!
Facts, plugs, instant gratification
Marketed learning
Mutilated childhood
Masked by Barbie
Run by battery
Fully programmed

Structured, stressed,
Static.
Stunned by theta
Spectators!

Look, push, look, wait


Childhood lost
Doomed by undo demands
Stilted by standards
Play invisible
Wonder wasted
Look, push, look, wait.

Lego!(Play well)
Just IMAGINE!

Please forgive me if I sound more passionate than rational. This hostage-taking signals a much, much larger movement that is causing the loss of childhood. Where is childhood I ask? Where are the children? Where is the child in us?