Thus we are told that educationalists urged play 'be put on the curriculum...so that it can reinforce the Early Learning Goals (thereby) developing a strategy for teaching and learning through play'. Such controlling adult-centric manipulation necessarily renders play into a programmatic utilitarian experience from which the essential qualities that constitute authentic play have been stripped.
Here, for example, is a comment by phenomenologist John Heaton. 'Play does not point to purposes beyond itself, it celebrates itself...If this is not realised, then play becomes distorted, as is commonly done in educational circles...Its nature is completely distorted if it is considered psychologically as a known thing...which people then set forth to cultivate' (my emphases).
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