The Power of Play

07/26/2007

What You Need to Be Warm
a poem by Neil Gaiman

A baked potato of a winter’s night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother’s cunning fingers. Or your grandmother’s.
A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.

The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.
Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside. To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove. Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. Come inside. You’re safe now.

A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw. While outside, for some of us, the journey began

as we walked away from our grandparents’ houses
away from the places we knew as children: changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.

You have the right to be here.

Neil Gaiman

The latest addition to the Exchange Press bookstore is David Elkind's new book, The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children. In the book Elkind makes this observation...

"Several studies have compared children who attended preschool with an academic orientation with comparable children who attended a play-oriented program. The results showed no later academic advantage for children who attended the academic program. In addition, there was some evidence that children who attended the academic program demonstrated higher levels of test anxiety, were less creative, and had more negative attitudes about school than did the children attending the play program. The investigators concluded that since the academic program has no demonstrable benefits and a number of possible risks, there is little to defend it (Hirsch-Pacek, 1991).

"Other investigations demonstrate that low-income children profit from attending a quality early childhood education program, particularly when the program is play-based. In one study, children matched for IQ were placed in one of three types of preschool programs: a traditional play-based program, a Montessori program, and a didactic (emphasizing academic skills and rote learning methods) program. Traditional and Montessori preschool programs were more effective in promoting academic achievement than were the didactic preschool programs. The group difference in math and reading achievements favoring the children from non-academic programs were still evident at eighth grade (Miller, 1983)."

Hirsch-Pacek, K. (1991). "Pressure or Challenge in Preschool: How Academic Programs Affect Children." In Academic Instruction in Early Childhood, edited by L. Rescorla, M. Hyson, and K. Hirsch-Pacek. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Miller, L. B., & Bizzell, R. P. (1983). "Long-Term Effects of Four Preschool Programs." Child Development, 54(3): 727-741.

Order the Power of Play!

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Keeping little bodies and minds going a gazillion miles an hour.

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