The article about Creative Play for Kids by Alix Spiegel was an eye opener for me. I don’t recall hearing of Tools of the Mind program. The idea of having all play time organized kind of freaked me out. The purpose of having organized play has the goal of learning time for these 3 or 4 year old preschoolers. The children sit with the instructor and sign up for something to play with. Then students may play in a certain area or with a certain toy. These students are working on a cognitive skill called executive function.
It was mentioned in this article that a child with good executive function is a pre-determiner of how successful he or she will be in school. This program also helps children have practice of regulating themselves instead of an adult. These children who think ahead or plan for what they are going to do are scoring higher on tests. Also some believe children that have good executive function are less likely to have ADHD.
This seems to be a good possibility I think. But I wonder as we train small minds to micro manage their time, if we might end up with adults that can’t cope well situations that they can’t plan for. Perhaps the type A personality to the extreme? I certainly understand that children and adults can learn more with play time that is pre-arranged for them. Don’t we all learn with organized play such as karate? How does this fit in with the creative side that all of us need to nurture? Do children feel that the Tools of the Mind program give them “safe” boundaries? I would think this is an important element of this particular program. Overall, I think it might be a worthy program for children to engage in.
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