Children Play and Imagination

Introduction

In this paper we will try to research the way how children play and imagine things. Our hypothesis is that children play and children imagination are strongly connected and both things are influenced and in conditional relation to each other. With the several years of teaching experience in primary school and preschool I have been always fascinated how children express their thoughts and ideas about their lives, their friends and their world of play. In the last several months I am working as an assistant in the international preschool. Preschool has three different age group from three years old until five years old. Even though they are officially separated in three groups most of the time all children play together. During the time when they play it is really amazing to look how they communicate between each other, cooperate and imagine things together. That motivates us to write this paper about children I am working with and to try to present at least some parts of their everyday lives. Main method for this research was observation and conversation with children but nevertheless I need to include some memories about events that had happened before we did the intentional observation. The intentional observation lasted for three hours during the afternoon play time inside of the preschool playground. In addition regarding ethical issues and confidentiality of the research process all children names would not be mentioned and we got a verbal approval for our research/exercise from the principal of the school and from all parents.

Children play and imagination

Children have been always play and they play in all kinds of ways. Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the significance of play in the lives of children, acknowledging play as a specific right, in addition to and distinct from the child’s right to recreation and leisure (UNICEF, 2006). Vygotsky (1978) has written: “In play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.” During the recess time in the preschool playground six children were playing the game called by kids “Captain Sabatan and the pirates”. They were different ages and by chance girl who was actually the youngest one was chosen to take the role of the’ Captain Sabatan’. Their play was about to find the hidden treasure so the smallest and the youngest of them was giving the instructions and orders what they are going to do. She have send them in five different directions and all of them had a clear orders what to do and where to go. The whole group was listening respectfully and followed the orders of the ‘Captain Sabatan’ even though out of the world of play she wouldn’t be able to control the group and keep them occupied and entertained. In this example play and imagination has a role as a main power, something that has power over the players. That ‘power’ also helps the small girl to be in charge and in control in front of the group. We are able to analyze this situation in connection with our research in few different ways. In Fraser et al. (2004), in accordance with Christensen and Prout (2002) there are four ways how children and childhood are recognized in research: children as objects, children as subjects, children as social actors and children as participants practically co-researchers. If we consider children as objects or subjects in our research we would used above example of children play and imagination for instance as a insight for studying other processes like social development or to give theoretical explanation about their behavior but not consulting them. Since our goal was to try to include them in our observation if not as a co-researchers at least as a ‘social actors in their own right’ we have approached the small girl with the question: What is your play about? I am Captain Sabatan and now it is very important to find a treasure she answered. And the treasure was found. The other five girls, since the group was actually six girls playing together, came back from their mission and proudly presented a dig up stone namely hidden treasure. All together they put the stone in the plastic bath and covered it with the top. Suddenly one girl entered the plastic bath and with the cover on the top started to pretend baby crying. The Captain Sabatan obviously became a history. Three girls stayed in the place continuing the new play. It was about the baby-girl inside of the bath and two others girls who were taking care of the ‘baby’. At this moment we need to stress that this type of play is very common among the children. Even the youngest group in the preschool had played very often with the very specific and distinguished roles of being a baby, mother and a father. The other thing was this special moment of ending a one play with the beginning of new one. In his book The ambiguity of play(1997), Brian Sutton-Smith is giving a view about structure of play. He sees play as an act of happiness and when that feeling ends play ends too. He also stress that play always include play rules, sense of play, play community, toy inside of play and play world. Regarding the nature of this paper we cannot go further explaining all this elements separately in connection with our observation but for sure we have seen much of it in this few hours in the children playground.

Discussion

We have an impression that is not necessary to prove that play and children imagination are the major and the most important parts of their lives. They spent most of their time doing it. That we need to understand and accept as a postulate and ensure that values of children play and imagination should not be ignored or underestimated. Children love to play and imagine things, pretending that they are someone else, and that is motivated by inside pleasure. It is crucial to understand and accept that as an instinct and natural part of their growing up. Regarding to Fine and Sandstrom (1988) children need to have a real and legitimate chance to refuse and decide on their own not to participate in the research. In regard to the specific nature of our exercise/research that was problematic. Our ethical dilemma was what to tell or even not to tell anything at all to the children about our intentional observation. Regarding the nature of this exercise we have decided that best interest for all of us as a researchers and co-researchers is not to tell anything but to have spontaneous conversation with children about what they are doing during intentional observation. Our conscience was based on the judgment that if we would explained to the children that they are going to be observed that might have been disturbing for them and influenced their natural behavior.

Conclusion

This writing and this exercise, doing a fieldwork in researching with children, lead us to emphasise two things about the whole project. First is to express our feelings and thoughts about what we have seen and learn from children during the time that we spent together and second is to give a brief analysis about methodological process of this research. Play and imagination it’s so important part of children lives that they will engage in it whenever they can. In the same manner as adults do children also imagine things all the time. Our opinion about studying and researching children and childhood is not only ,that following the major phenomenon’s of their lives, for instance to analyze and try to understand causes or development of their behaviour connected with the way how they play; but also to study and unfold the phenomenon itself. In both scenarios probably the crucial moment is to find the right approach to include children as an active participants/co-researchers and to try to find out and understand their point of view.