During the year, our schools are busy slashing P.E. and recess to make more time for math. During the summer, we get ourselves worked into a tizzy that our children will forget their fractions.
Toddlers need to get off the soccer field and onto the playground. Children need to get out of the gym and into neighborhood stickball games. We need to give kids room to create their own rules, set their own terms, and move their bodies in their own ways.
In an era of parental paranoia, lawsuit mania and testing frenzy, we are failing to inspire our children's curiosity, creativity, and imagination. We are denying them opportunities to tinker, discover, and explore - in short, to play.
If there's one thing that 'No Child Left Behind' has proven, it's that more academics don't make for smarter children - or even higher test scores. And yet we somehow refuse to accept this reality.
Play is under attack in our nation's schools - and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running on the schoolyard.
Kids who don't play are not just at greater risk of falling behind academically, but also of becoming overweight or obese, failing to integrate socially, and even engaging in criminal activity.
