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Learning from play: design

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Citation: PARKER-REES, 1997. Learning from play: design and technology,

imagination and playful thinking.

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1.3 Parker-Rees

Learning from play: design and technology,

imagination and playful thinking
Rod Parker-Rees
Rolle School of Education, University of Plymouth
Abstract
This paper considers what children can learn from play and explores what can be learned
from a comparison between play and design and technology (D&T) teaching. Three
fundamental functions which are common to childrens play and D&T are discussed: mastery
orientation and the development of autonomy; decentration and the development of flexible
thinking and, finally, mediation and the development of forms of representation. The High/
Scope approach is described as an example of an early years curriculum which actively supports
these functions of play and the relevance of this approach to the teaching of D&T is considered.
It is argued that D&T teaching, like play, can help to promote creative, critical and playful
thinking by helping children to internalise and develop their imagination. It is also argued
that the development of imagination is dependent on learning to use tools of thought and that
these tools evolve as they are used in playful, innovative ways.
Becoming social requires learning social
conventions and working within their
limits. This tension between the desire to
invent and explore and the need to share
and to work within social conventions
permeates all of our social life.1
Child-centred teachers may concentrate on
helping children to develop as individuals and
traditional teachers may emphasise the
learning of established disciplines but all
teachers have to find ways of coping with the
tension between established knowledge and
creative imagination; the given and the new.
It is this tension which fuels cultural evolution:
The very essence of cultural development
is in the collision of mature cultural forms
of behaviour with the primitive forms that
characterise the childs behaviour.2
Both play and design and technology (D&T)
require that children should be allowed to
make their own choices and decisions but this
can be difficult to accommodate within the
increasingly tight planning which many
schools have introduced to cope with the
demands of the National Curriculum. In
reception classes work and play have become
increasingly polarised, with little child input
in the former and little adult input in the latter3
and there is some danger of a similar division
in D&T.

20

My intention, in this paper, is to consider what

children can learn from play but also to
explore what can be learned from a
comparison between play and D&T teaching.
I will be considering three fundamental
functions which are common to childrens
play and D&T: mastery orientation 4 and the
development of autonomy; decentration5
and the development of flexible thinking and
mediation and the development of forms of
representation. I will show how these
functions can be supported by a curriculum
based on the High/Scope6 approach and I will
consider the relevance of this approach to the
teaching of D&T. I will argue that D&T
teaching, like play, can help to promote
creative, critical and playful thinking which
thrives on the tension between the ideas of
individuals and the evolving forms of social
conventions.
Autonomy and Mastery
John Holt defined intelligence as not how
much we know how to do but how we behave
when we dont know what to do7 and the
development of confident resourcefulness
appears to depend on opportunities to
experience autonomy in managing ones own
activity. Katz8 has suggested that children are
born with an innate disposition to learn
which, given appropriate encouragement and

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Parker-Rees 1.3

opportunities, will lead them to develop

mastery orientation - a positive response to
challenges and persistence in the face of setbacks and difficulties4. Jowett and Sylva9 have
shown, however, how the curriculum in some
playgroups can undermine this natural
development and encourage what Dweck and
Leggett referred to as helplessness - passive
dependence on extrinsic motivation and
readiness to give up when confronted by
obstacles4. Jowett and Sylva observed the
behaviour of children who had attended
playgroups which provided a see-saw
curriculum; alternating between free play with
little adult involvement and heavily adult
directed group activities. They compared
these children with graduates of nursery
classes where the teachers guided and
extended childrens own play with little use
of adult domination :
The nursery graduates were far more
persistent and less likely to ask for help or
give up .... They concentrated better, their
play was richer , and they approached
adults as resources for learning rather than
as sources of aid. Most importantly, they
opted for difficult, educational activities
when allowed to choose what to do.10
Several recent studies of the role of play in
childrens learning have adopted a Vygotskyan,
social constructivist perspective, recognising
that free-play which is not scaffolded by
sensitive adult support is not enough to
balance adult dominated activities and keep
the development of mastery orientation on
course11 . If they are left to get on with playing
on their own while adults devote all their
attention to work activities, children will soon
learn that play is not highly valued.
Kimbell et al have pointed out that the
different kinds of D&T teaching activities
specified in the new National Curriculum
orders12 have led to schemes in which Design
and Make Assignments (DMAs) are seen as
independent project work by pupils and
Focused Practical Tasks (FPTs) are seen as
instructional devices for teachers13 . This, they
argue, is desperately depressing because it
fails to recognise that DMAs and FPTs are
different points on a continuum of negotiated
handover of control:

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It would be very dangerous for the future

development of Design and Technology if
these two categories of tasks were seen as
separate and that teachers completely
control one and pupils the other. It is the
messy middle ground that is critical to
pupils learning. Through negotiation and
discussion with teachers, pupils must
progressively learn for themselves the art
of deriving sensible and manageable
tasks13
Both DMAs and FPTs can provide
opportunities for children to develop mastery
orientation but only if bridges are built from
both ends14 ; if pupil autonomy is scaffolded
by support and guidance from the teacher and
if teaching encourages and acknowledges
childrens active involvement. Autonomy is a
product of social interaction, it cannot be fully
developed by children who are left to their
own devices.
Decentration and Generalisation
When they play, children are freed from the
functional pressures and fear of failure which
may constrain real life activity15 . Sutton-Smith
suggested that the uselessness of play frees
children to take risks, recombine elements of
their experience in creative ways, explore
possibilities and invent new ways of doing
things and that this variability training
promotes flexible and adaptable responses to
problems16 . The assimilatory function of play
can also help children to decentre5; to loosen
the grip of their immediate sensory
perception. Finding out what can be done
with objects, situations and roles by trying
them out in different combinations and
contexts can enable children to abstract
general concepts from their experience of
particular exemplars. Using a seashell as a cup
may help a child to become more aware of
similarities and differences between seashells
and cups but the experience will also help the
child to develop a slightly more abstract
concept of cup in which information about
particular cups is supplemented by a
generalised awareness of cup-ness.
It may very well be the ability to take leave
of the world-as-it-is that provides the space
through which new possibilities for
thought emerge. Relinquishing the

21

1.3 Parker-Rees

constraints of convention in order to

explore in the minds eye the
unconventional might provide one of the
most important arenas in which creativity
itself could be generated.1
Baynes has observed that manipulation of
objects is a way of having new ideas: it is part
of the equipment which supports the
imagination17 . By using objects in playful,
creative ways children develop their
understanding both of the objects and of the
ideas they are used to represent. The looser,
more generalised concepts which are
developed in this sort of play also enable
children to internalise their imagination,
reducing the need for concrete props.
Knowledge and imagination develop each
other as children play.
Davies has pointed out that this interaction
between things and ideas is similar to the
model proposed by the Assessment of
Performance Unit (APU) which represents the
designing and making process as an
interaction between hand and mind 18 .
Designers develop their ideas through a
dialogue between the internal images and the
external models19 and just as childrens ability
to internalise their imagination is assisted by
the modelling of ideas in their play, so
designers ability to visualise design proposals
is increased by experience of modelling ideas
in drawings and prototypes:
...the act of expression pushes ideas
forward. By the same token, the additional
clarity that this throws on the idea enables
the originator to think more deeply about
it, which further extends the possibilities
in the idea.20
Mediation and Representation
Describing the development of imagination in
Piagetian, constructivist terms, as above, fails
to acknowledge the part played by social and
cultural factors. Our ability to think and
imagine is vastly increased by our ability to use
socially evolved structures and disciplines of
knowledge; tools of thought which enable us
not only to process information but also to
free ourselves from what is so that we can
imagine what might be. Donaldson has
shown how learning to read and write

22

supports the process of disembedding

thinking 21 but before the vicars of the
culture 22 can induct children into the
mysteries of literacy they have to help them
to master spoken language. Play can help
adults to mediate childrens learning of
language by providing a window into the
childs mind23 which enables sensitive adults
to guess at what the child is thinking and to
represent these ideas in words. Jones and
Reynolds argue that supporting childrens
own attempts to verbalise their play ideas is
not enough; adults also need to model the
verbal representation of events by themselves
telling the story of childrens play 14 .
Wasserman 24 recommends building adultsupported representation of play into a cycle
of play-debrief-replay so that children can
continue to work on the development of ideas
which the debriefing has made more
accessible to conscious thought and reflection.
Language is just one of many tools of thought
that can enhance our ability to imagine and
speculate. Archer and Roberts have described
the ability to form images in the minds eye
as cognitive modelling:
Its strength is that light can be shed on
intractable problems by transforming
them into terms of all sorts of schemata ...
such as drawings, diagrams, mock-ups,
prototypes and of course, where
appropriate, language and notation.
These externalisations capture and make
communicable the concepts modelled.25
These schemata have to be learned and, like
play, they begin as concrete thinking outside
the head but, also like play, they can then be
internalised, enabling the minds eye to see
more and to see more clearly. Imagination
may feel intensely personal but it is dependent
on tools of thought that can only be learned
from others.
High/Scope: one way of helping children
to learn from play
The High/Scope approach to early years
education provides a useful example of a
curriculum which promotes mastery
orientation, flexible thinking and the
mediation of forms of representation6. In a
High/Scope nursery opportunities for children

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Parker-Rees 1.3

to plan their own use of time are balanced by

activities which are planned by adults to
ensure that children experience a range of key
experiences. Considerably more time is
devoted to child initiated activity than to the
adult initiated small group times and circle
times but adults have a very important part
to play in the childrens work time and
children are encouraged to take an active role
in the other activities which, though adult
initiated are not exclusively adult controlled.
High/Scope is based on a Piagetian model of
cognitive development so active learning
through direct manipulation of materials is
encouraged in small group times as well as in
work time but this approach can also
accommodate Vygotskys ideas about the
importance of adults mediation of tools of
thought such as language, mathematics, logic,
drawing etc.
Children are encouraged not only to make
their own decisions but also, through adult
mediation of the planning and reviewing of
their play, to become increasingly aware of
their thinking. The plan-do-review cycle of
work-time ensures that children are helped
to develop their ability to represent their
actions in the disembedded there and then26
as well as in the here and now of their play
with materials and objects:
...children learn to be self-critical, without
shame, to set high goals while seeking
objective feedback on their plans. There
is a deliberate modelling in using language
to guide action.
There is also
encouragement to develop persistence in
the face of failure and calm acceptance of
errors or misjudgement. Todays feedback
informs tomorrows plan.10
While planning and reviewing in groups may
mean that each child has less individual
attention, this is compensated for by the fact
that each child can learn from the other
childrens efforts to communicate as well as
from the modelling and support offered by
the adult to each of the children. This group
process can be used to promote the
celebration of diversity and this can support
the development of flexible and creative
thinking as each child recognises that if other
children can have different ideas it might be

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possible to have different ideas of ones own.

Linus Pauling is reported to have said that the
best way to have a good idea is to have lots of
ideas27 and a good way to learn to have lots
of ideas is to share ideas with lots of other
people.
Lessons for D&T teaching?
Like work-time and small group activities,
DMAs and FPTs can be seen as breathing out
and breathing in 28 or as turns in a
conversation between children and teacher in
which both are actively involved. If children
are to develop mastery orientation they need
help in their struggle to achieve autonomy.
They need to play with new materials, tools
and techniques so that they can discover their
possibilities for themselves but they do not
have to reinvent the wheel; sensitive adults
can scaffold their learning and introduce them
to tools of thought which will help them to
handle ideas inside their heads.
The flexibility of thinking which active
learning or play with objects and materials can
help to develop can be further advanced in all
kinds of D&T activity but it may be particularly
well served by Investigation, Disassembly and
Evaluation Activities (IDEAs) in which children
can be encouraged to play with products in
their heads as well as in their hands. Imagining
how things could be done differently draws
on existing knowledge but it is also an effective
way of exploring the hidden intelligence of
made things; recognising why an alternative
possibility was not adopted can help one to
understand the thinking behind what was
chosen.
Learning to model ideas in play, words and
pictures as well as in 3-D helps children to
develop ideas but it also introduces them to
powerful tools for organising information;
tools which can enhance childrens ability to
develop and manipulate ideas in their
imagination and which continue to evolve as
they are used creatively and innovatively.
Play is quickly marginalised in the first years
of compulsory education but it need not
disappear entirely if children can be helped
to develop playful thinking. Playful thinking
is characterised by openness to existing ideas,

23

1.3 Parker-Rees

tools, systems and resources combined with

a confident willingness to imagine ways in
which things could be done differently, to play
with a wide range of alternative possibilities
and to model those which seem most
promising in forms which open them to
scrutiny and comment from others. Design
and technology shares with play many of the
functions which promote playful thinking and
it may prove to be an excellent vehicle for
smuggling play beyond Key Stage 1.
References
1 Eisner, E. W. The Role of Art and Play in
Childrens Cognitive Development. In: E.
Klugman and S. Smilansky eds Childrens
Play and Learning: Perspectives and
Policy Implications, New York, Teachers
College Press, 1990, p.46.
2 Vygotsky, L. S. The Genesis of Higher
Mental Functions. In: K. Richardson and
S. Sheldon Cognitive Development to
Adolescence, 1988, New York, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, p.64.
3

OFSTED First Class: The Standards and

Quality of Education in Reception Classes,
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4 Dweck , C. S. and Leggett, E. L. A SocialCognitive Approach to Motivation and

Personality, Psychological Review, vol. 95,
no 2, 1988, pp.256-273.
5 Johnson J. E. The Role of Play in Cognitive
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6 Hohmann, M., Banet, B. & Weikart, D.
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Scope, 1979.
7 Holt, J. How Children Fail,
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8 Katz, L. G. Talks with Teachers of Young
Children. Norwood, NJ, Ablex, 1995, p.61.

24

9 Jowett, S. and Sylva, K. Does Kind of

Preschool Matter? Educational Research
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10 Sylva, K. Conversations in the Nursery:
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11 e.g. Bennett, N., Wood, L. and Rogers, S.
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Fisher , J. Starting from the Child,
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13 Kimbell, R., Stables, K. and Green, R.
Understanding Practice in Design and
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18 Davies, D. 1996 (ref. 15 above), p. 51.
19 Baynes, K. Children Designing, 1992 (ref
17 above) p.20.

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Parker-Rees 1.3

20 Kimbell, R., Stables, K., Wheeler, T., Wozniak,

A. and Kelly, V. (1991) The Assessment of
Performance in Design and Technology:
The Final Report of the Design and
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Kimbell et al,1996 (ref13 above) p. 23.

21 Donaldson, M. Childrens Minds, London,

Fontana Press, 1978, pp. 88-95.
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25 Archer, B. and Roberts, P. Design and

Technological Awareness in Education. In:
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26 Jones, E. & Reynolds, G. 1992 (ref 14
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27 Fisher, R. Teaching Children to Think,
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23 Bennett et al, 1997 (ref 11 above) p.38.

24 Wasserman, S. Serious Players in the
Primary Classroom, New York, Teachers
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Reynolds, G., 1992 (ref 14 above), p. 103.

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28 Jones, E. & Reynolds, G. 1992 (ref 14

above), p.6.

25