Play enhances every aspect of children’s development and learning, however, it is increasingly rare for children to have long, uninterrupted blocks of time to play indoors and outdoors, by themselves or with their friends. Although children learn to play naturally, we all have a role in ensuring that children have enough time and opportunity to play.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning)


Link: 
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LinL20061010LearninPlay.htm

Play enhances every aspect of children’s development and learning, however, it is increasingly rare for children to have long, uninterrupted blocks of time to play indoors and outdoors, by themselves or with their friends. Although children learn to play naturally, we all have a role in ensuring that children have enough time and opportunity to play.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning)

Link: 
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LinL20061010LearninPlay.htm

Schools can’t do it alone. 

If we truly want to provide the best learning opportunities for our kids, education needs to be more like a three-legged stool – with the structural support of home, school and community all working together. But here’s the thing. If all three legs are strong and equal, the stool is perfectly stable and functional. If one of the legs is damaged or removed, the stool can’t hold any weight. It can’t do its job, no matter how much we try to patch and reinforce the remaining legs.


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Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident — as do the solutions.

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The reason kids are so attracted to these games, Prensky says, is that they are learning about important “future” things, from collaboration, to prudent risk taking, to strategy formulation and execution, to complex moral and ethical decisions. Prensky’s arguments are backed up by university PhD’s studying not just game violence, but games in their totality, as well as studies of gamers who have become successful corporate workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, doctors, lawyers, scientists and other professionals.

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