The Power of Play

I always know that for my personality, being a school librarian is a much better job than being a public librarian. This is not a slight at public libraries, but rather a simple preference issue. Within any given period, I can be any combination of reference librarian, checkout attendant, teacher, tutor, academic coach, administrator, and computer technician. I thrive on being able to perform all of these different roles. I think that if I had to sit behind a desk and do nothing but check books out or direct people to different areas for eight hours at a time, I would lose my mind. This is not to say that this is all public librarians do; far from it. In my limited experience, it seems much easier to get pigeonholed in the public library system than in a K-12 library where there are by necessity so many different roles.
I took my daughter to the public library this weekend and I was reminded of why I sometimes envy the public librarians, though. I have to say that the Clarksville-Montgomery County Public Library has an outstanding children’s section. It is colorful, with an abundance of good books, fun toys, and resources to enhance a child’s experience. I think it is wonderful that the public library is given the resources to buy toys, giant stuffed animals (my 1 year old daughter tried to fight a 4 foot gorilla – see the Facebook album “Library Trip” for pictures), board games, and more. It is a beautiful thing to watch a child play and I sometimes envy that the public libraries are able to devote resources to helping children learn through play. I sincerely hope that the current economic climate does not overly limit those initiatives. As an academic library, there are tight restrictions on my budget; anything that I buy I have to be able to justify academically. As a writer and former English teacher, I can justify just about anything, but there are still many limits placed upon what I can and cannot buy.
Unfortunately, I think that academics sometimes miss the mark. Children learn through play and they learn through having fun. My daughter is just 13 months old, but I could tell that she got a lot out of the trip. We played with trains, puzzles, and blocks for a while before I let her explore. I followed her and she would turn around every little while to make sure that I was still there, but I let her take the lead. She was free to explore. She walked the length of the entire children’s library. She was fascinated by the colorful books and a globe that was left at her level; she stared at a display of stuffed animals behind a glass panel; she stopped to watch a puppet show an older girl was putting on; she found the activity room and liked opening the giant books; she met Minnie Mouse; she explored, played, and learned. One of the great powers of a library is to just give a child room to explore, play, and learn on their own. A lot of what I now know I learned in the Ocean County Public Library back in NJ and, to be honest, exploring on Google. I am the official “computer expert” in my school and everything I know about computers I learned by using, experimenting, and playing. The one topic I took a course on – programming in Microsoft Visual Basic – I do not remember at all.
In academic libraries and really all of academia, we do not give children enough time to play. It is documented that people learn and work best when they enjoy what they are doing. Furthermore, when people can explore and choose their own paths, they are more likely to remember and to go more deeply into the topic. In academic lingo, children will achieve more when they can construct their own knowledge and connect it to both prior knowledge and relevant scenarios outside of school. As difficult as it is in this climate of standardized testing, it would be good if we could slow down a little and find ways to make our content areas personal and enjoyable.