Even more fascinating to young children than the physical environment is the social environment. Children are naturally drawn to others, especially to those others who are a little older than themselves and a little more competent. They want to do what those others do. They also want to play with others. Social play is the primary natural means of every child's social and moral education.
It is through play that children learn to get along with others. In play they must take into account the other children's needs, learn to see from others' points of view, learn to compromise, learn to negotiate differences, learn to control their own impulses, learn to please others so as to keep them as playmates. These are all hard lessons, and they are among the most important lessons that all of us must learn if we are to live happy lives. We can't possibly teach these lessons to children; all we can do is let them play with others and let them experience themselves the consequences of their social failures and successes. The strong innate drive to play with others is what motivates every normal child to work hard at getting along with others in play. Failure to get along ends the game, and that natural consequence is a powerful learning experience. No lectures or words of advice that we can provide can substitute for such experience. I'll not elaborate further on this now; it will be the topic of future installments.
What Happens to Motivation at Age Five or Six?
Once, when my son was about seven years old and in public school, I mentioned to his teacher that he seemed to have been far more interested in learning before he started school than he was now. Her response was something like this: "Well, I'm sure you know, as a psychologist, that this is a natural developmental change. Children by nature are spontaneous learners when they are little, but then they become more task oriented."
I can understand where she got that idea. I've seen developmental psychology textbooks that divide the units according to age and refer to the preschool years as "the play years." All the discussion of play occurs in those first chapters. It is as if play stops at age five or six. The remaining chapters largely have to do with studies of how children perform on tasks that adults give them to perform. I imagine that the teacher had read such a book when she was taking education courses. But such books present a distorted view of what is natural. In the next two installments I will present evidence that when young people beyond the age of five or six are permitted the freedom and opportunities to follow their own interests, their drives to play and explore continue to motivate them, as strongly as ever, toward ever more sophisticated forms of learning.
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And now, I invite you to contribute your own thoughts in the comment section below. What have you observed about young children's activities that either fits with, or runs counter to, the gist of the argument I have presented here? What do you think of the growing tendency to deliberately teach young children, and even test them, in kindergartens and preschools? What in your view is the ideal learning environment for young children?
PS: Because of my own summer play, I'll be away from my computer for a bit, beginning this coming weekend. I believe I will be able to post Part III of this series on self-education on Sunday, August 3, and Part IV on Wed., August 13. After that, I'll return to my every-Wednesday schedule.
