Nine years ago, I was touring a local preschool when the Director told me something I’d heard before: “Kids learn through play.”

Standing in a bright hallway wallpapered with swaths of white construction paper dancing with small purple and blue handprints, I thought of my sixteen-month-old at home and another baby growing in my belly.

The words were no longer hollow, heard in passing, academic. This time, I listened.

I wanted my child to learn, and I also wanted him to play. Could one really lead to the other? Or should I seek out a school that would offer a “leg up” and ready my offspring for an imaginary future, a foundation that would ensure they avoided the pitfalls and difficulties I faced in my own (at times not-so-illustrious) academic career?

Welcome to parenting, mama.

Yesterday, I assisted in a Kindergarten classroom at that very same preschool I toured all those years ago. The preschool both my children attended and thrived in. The same preschool where I now teach. 

It’s pretty simple, kids DO learn through play, they just need an environment that ENCOURAGES and makes space for play. Oh, and children also need to be listened to, respected, and slathered in unconditional love and acceptance.

Around the world, children are having their childhoods and their right to play ripped from them due to all manner of conflicts, natural disasters, and economic hardships. Adults are failing those kids. We, the adults in charge, should be doing everything we can to protect every child and their sacred right to something so simple and so easily taken for granted. 

With a few brief years of teaching under my belt I’ve concluded that if we can get our adult selves, full of our own burdens and shortcomings and dashed expectations out of the way, the children themselves will guide us and show us how we can best help them grow, learn and play.

The teachers at the elementary school my kids attend now have told me they can spot the students who came from our preschool. “They know how to navigate conflict, they have life skills, and they truly listen to their friends and teachers.” 

Did the kids learn all that because they were simply given the space and encouragement to play? It appears to be true.

…and can you really call it “work” when you get to hang on a playground with kiddos while they splash in puddles and listen to the strums of an acoustic guitar?