Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
TED Taken Over by Play

From KaBOOM! representatives, who are down in Long Beach right now at the TED Conference promoting their latest initiative – the Imagination Playground:

For the past two days, two sets of Imagination Playground blocks have been displayed in the plaza just outside of the main theater. Completely without context, conference attendees – ranging from business leaders to scientists to designers to actors to musicians – stopped to investigate the strange light blue structure that lay before them.

And then they started to play.

I’m happy to see smart adults getting into play, and KaBOOM! has always done great work at advocating for play. Still, I’m trying to bite my tongue about the Imagination Playground concept. It just doesn’t seem to quite get children’s play right: What KaBOOM! and the Rockwell Group have put together is an adult-designed, packaged, and ultimately commodified solution to play provision, when we don’t have to look far to find even better solutions that are inherently more sensitive and honoring of children and their communities.

But that’s a talk for another time.

Feb 12, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

A Look At Asia's First "Cyber Playground"

Another one of them thar high-falutin’, techno-woozical electronic playgrounds, I say.

Very novel and certainly entertaining, I suppose, but I’m wondering when we’re going to learn that the best playgrounds for kids will never be the ones that are designed by adults. If kids are an environment’s intended users, then why are we not simply yielding control of that environment directly over to them? Why must we introduce yet another layer of adult-derived complexity to get in their way?

(Via JC Boushh.)

Nov 07, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Banning Adults, Take Two

The BBC expands on the “banning parents from playgrounds” story with a bit more depth and (well, let’s face it) level-headed reporting:

Ms Thornhill (the elected mayor of Watford) said of the two adventure playgrounds where the parents had been asked to leave: “This is not a playground we’re talking about but a unique gated and fenced facility where quite risky and challenging activities take place.”

She said the Harebreaks playground had never allowed adults to stay and the Harwood site had had a core of half a dozen parents who insisted on staying with their children.

It had distracted staff from adequately supervising the children leading to a series of incidents, Ms Thornhill said.

I think we really have to be quite hesitant to make values-based judgments about anything before putting ourselves in the shoes of those making the decisions. It seems like the senior playworker involved really, truly felt the culture of the Adventure Playground, and the opportunities there for children to play freely, would be better served if parents were asked not to stick around.

Anybody who’s worked with groups of children, I suspect – either in child care or education, at an Adventure Playground, or in special groups or clubs – can at least sympathise with the feeling. I’m sure the playwork staff and the Council feel it would be lovely to have a welcoming place for all – kids and their parents, and hell, anybody else who is a part of the community – but especially in these financially constraining times, it takes far too much time and energy from an already over-taxed staff to concentrate both on kids and parents. When push comes to shove, it’s the kids who win out – and rightfully so, I should think.

UPDATE: Dorothy Thornhill has posted several responses to the widely misconstrued incident on her blog, and it seems this really is a bad case of the misunderstandings:

What has happened is that at Harwoods a handful of parents have been staying on, not just dropping their kids off. After a number of incidents, staff that run the facility felt that the presence of these parents was hampering their ability to supervise the kids properly – who remember are engaging in risky play and do need to be given full attention. They’ve now brought the site in line with Harebreaks, where parents don’t stay on and they have no problems.

Oct 30, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Banning Adults from Playgrounds?

By Daniel Bigler :: Friday October 30, 2009

Lenore Skenazy at Free Range Kids caught hold of recent piece in the Telegraph describing how a local London borough is taking steps to “ban” parents and adults from public playgrounds in their area.

Councillors in Watford claim they are only following Government guidelines and cannot allow adults to walk around playgrounds “unchecked” … Council Mayor Dorothy Thornhill argued they are merely enforcing government policy at the play areas, in Vicarage Road and Leggatts Way.

She said: “Sadly, in today’s climate, you can’t have adults walking around unchecked in a children’s playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.

It sounds pretty outrageous at first glance – but there have been a few things that have thankfully been cleared up along the way.

First, there’s this fact: Watford’s two “public playgrounds,” in question – Harwoods and Harebreaks Adventure Playground – aren’t in fact public to begin with. They’re Local Authority-run and technically fall under the bill of “offered youth services” – not that dissimilar from public schools, after-school programs, clubs, and so forth. Most or all of those places, mind, typically don’t encourage adults to stick around for very long either – since many parents do actually tend to get in the way of the program itself, generally.

Second, I’m not sure what to say about the Telegraph’s reporting: it’s all over the map in how it’s portraying these places. A few things: Adventure Playgrounds aren’t your normal playgrounds. They are set aside, time-honoured spaces for kids to build and be in charge of their own play – “a child’s world in the city,” if you will. Some of their hallmarks are:

  • They’re dynamic, fluid spaces – often filled with children’s fort- and den-building, mud and sand pits, ponds or other natural places, and built wooden structures like gangways, towers, and so forth (historically solely built by the children, but anymore primarily built by the adults who are guided by the kids) – and their ultimate control lies in the hands of the kids themselves;
  • Children are given ample permission and encouragement within Adventure Playgrounds to take measured risks, build competence, and test their own abilities within a safe environment that they have ownership of;
  • A staff of trained, experienced “Playworkers” is always close at hand – understanding, reflexive adults there for the children if needed, who provide for and maintain children’s play in different ways, but otherwise are very hands-off in their approach. Unlike how the article describes playworkers, they’re not “Play Rangers” and they don’t “patrol”; the title of “Play Ranger” does exist, but typically in more commercialised play spaces that may be “adventurous,” but really shouldn’t be considered “Adventure Playgrounds.” (And yes, play workers do know their title is oxymoronic – and often they’d prefer there was no need for their job; that said, there’s sometimes no way around providing at least minimal adult supervision in places like these.)

Adventure Playgrounds can really only be understood by spending time in one (a real one) and reading up on the history and philosophy of Adventure Playgrounds. They have quite a legacy in many European countries, and are seen to fulfil a vital need in densely populated urban centres, where children don’t often have the space – or the social allowances – to play freely. Again, to really understand how they operate and what they provide to kids you just have to experience one; if you don’t have one near you, though, Morgan Leichter-Saxby’s playwork blog is a good place to start to get a better idea.

Like a few of the commenters from Skenazy’s post, I have to admit: the kid in me rejoiced a little at first hearing the Watford story. The adults have been banned! The adults have been banned!

Even though some parents are crying foul and accusing the borough of being a nanny state – well, logically there’s not that much difference to kids between nanny states and nanny parents. Both are a bit of a nuisance when you’re trying to play.

I think more pressingly, this is not about whether parents are allowed to visit their playground – but about an underlying issue of Openness in children’s play environments.

Adventure Playgrounds generally try to run based on a philosophy of openness: Children should be free to choose what they like to do. They should be allowed to play however they like, and with whomever they like. And, perhaps most crucially to the concept: Children should also feel an openness to come and go as they please, to use the space as much or as little as they want. Open-access was a founding principle of the Adventure Playground. The idea was to turn the space into a neighbourhood-based resource for children in the broader context of their lives, functioning at their full disposal and not as a mere attraction for their parents to drop them off at on special occasions. No, they were to be places children can come to with friends, say, after school, hang out at however long they like, and leave from whenever they wish. They were to be children’s places, fully theirs and no one else’s.

This belief in openness may often mean pragmatic difficulties for Adventure Playground staff, depending on where their financing is coming from. Many Adventure Playgrounds are run independently as separate charities, but others are run by Local Authorities and governments, typically with their own agendas in place. The person who foots the bill is the one who gets to decide what kinds of information the playwork staff collect about children: For instance, do children need to be registered, with parental contact information? Do they need to be signed in every time they visit, or just once? Are they allowed to sign in themselves, or do their parents need to do it for them each time? There’s a lot of questions involved, and unfortunately this is where the ideals behind Adventure Playgrounds come into conflict with the realities of arranging for their funding and the actual practice of running them.

Still, I think it might be too easy for us to get caught up in our adult worries in considering play provision: We get trapped in a paranoia about pedophiles, or a constant questioning of safety, or the feeling that we need to have more accountability. Sure, it was a misstep on the part of the Council to cite these concerns as reason for the “ban” – but I hardly think that’s the full picture, or even really the most important issue at stake here. Unfortunately for the Harwoods and Harebreak Adventure Playgrounds, the Local Authority officials in charge of them don’t seem to really understood this philosophy of Open-access: They’ve required that children are first registered to visit, for instance, and the general feeling I get is that parents are either required or encouraged to drop off and pick up their kids – but children aren’t free to come and go as they wish. There doesn’t seem to be much of a feeling of true Open-access for kids.

That they equally don’t extend access to parents is only a periphery concern to me; I think what we should really be worried about is the children’s level of Open-access to Adventure Playgrounds. It’s them, not the parents, who most importantly should feel the freedom to come and go as they wish, unhindered by both policy and their parents’ free range allowances. If we were truly focused on them and providing for their play, then maybe the topic of “banning” parents from playgrounds wouldn’t raise such a big stink.

UPDATE: Some quite needed follow-up, courtesy of the BBC’s far more level-headed reporting and some blog posts from the Council’s elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill.

Tagged under: , , :: #




Children's Risk and Play in Gambia

Morgan Leichter-Saxby has conducted extensive anthropological research with children in London’s Adventure Playgrounds, and she writes eloquently about their experiences in the playgrounds and the play culture that emerges. She also shares of her own experiences in the playwork profession – supporting and providing for children’s play, as an adult, in a managed setting. (It’s a tricky business, you can be sure of that.)

Recently, though, she visited Gambia and it’s her recollections of this different global perspective of children’s play that really fascinated me. The boys in Gambia were fully accustomed to “dangerous” play – play with knives and in locales that would easily scare most parents in Western countries – and also interestingly, their play was often indistinguishable from more practical-minded “work”: involving going on hunts into the bush, tracking wild game, and climbing high into trees to collect mangoes. It’s this blurring between work and play, and this open incorporation of “risky” play behavior, that is interesting.

It reinforced for me how particular our ideas of risk are, and how paranoid.  These children take their freedom to roam for granted, as well as their ownership of a knife and ability to use both in whatever way they see fit.  Our fears over paving stones that get slippery or climbing walls with too high a drop demonstrate how we still take carry the false belief that we can control all elements of our children’s environments.  Even when we argue for more risk in play provision, we think of it as something we can “manage”, when we know that the real dangers are always unexpected.

Clearly, conceptions of risk will always be culturally bound: despite a European or American’s unease with the “riskiness” of, say, a child with a knife, it is an established and expected – and clearly not as risky as we surmise – part of Gambia’s play culture. I think we certainly should be asking ourselves what the perceived risk versus actual risk is in much of children’s activities, especially in terms of the rewards afforded. (I suspect we’d be surprised at how little actual risk is involved, and how much stands to be gained, in children’s “dangerous” play.)

But I think what I’m struck by most is how purposeful these Gambian children’s play was, as Leichter-Saxby describes it. Despite the absence of adult direction and provision for play, despite the fact that you might never find a formalized “playground” (as we know it) or a material subculture of “playthings” in their midst, these children’s play certainly is incredibly alive and well – but more to the point, it seems engaged and connected to their broader culture. Play seems a given, indispensable part of their Gambian community; the children’s bow-and-arrow play early on prepares them for the day they role later of hunting and providing for their wider community.

Children’s play can seem “dangerous” and “risky” at times, but Leichter-Saxby’s experience in Gambia reminded me that we must always recognize that risk is a relative thing. If we act in a way that is not fearful of children’s “risky” play, but instead open to its context and acknowledging of its potential benefits – and if we realize ways to provide purpose to that play for the broader society – I think we’d be much better off.

Jul 29, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #