#10 - Keep PLAY as part of learning

The title of this TEDtalk is "when education goes wrong" - and there are many people (myself included) that spend a lot of time talking about how "education is broken" and "what is wrong with education today" - but the simple fact is human beings do learn naturally - its something that is pretty cool about us.

So - sometimes we do need to guide/coach/and even teach . . . but don't forget about play as a valid "learning environment."  Are kids going to automatically figure out advanced engineering without help? (Or fractals as mentioned in the previous post")  NO - probably not - BUT, as educators we can use different techniques to help the students figure it out and understand the concepts - rather than just "drill and grill."

On the younger end of the spectrum, my son is very good at understanding concepts and actually being able to apply intangible thought processes to different problems, however he struggles with learning the symbols.  But he is tested on the symbols - and  - well, let's just say that the American public educational system doesn't think he is performing that well.  But talk to some other educators, they say he should be skipping grades because he gets the concepts (luckily he does have a few advocates on his side that are helping him).

As educators and parents and administrators and executives, everybody - HOW do we all work together to make sure that we don't kill that part of the human brain that really makes us learn? How do we keep PLAY as part of education?