RIP Google Reader 2008-2013
40 stories
·
0 followers

January 07, 2015

1 Comment and 5 Shares

Exclusive bonus comic at The Nib!
Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

Kids, the Holocaust, and "inappropriate" play

2 Comments and 10 Shares

On a strong recommendation from Meg, I have been reading Peter Gray's Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. Gray is a developmental psychologist and in Free to Learn he argues that 1) children learn primarily through self-directed play (by themselves and with other children), and 2) our current teacher-driven educational system is stifling this instinct in our kids, big-time.

I have a lot to say about Free to Learn (it's fascinating), but I wanted to share one of the most surprising and unsettling passages in the book. In a chapter on the role of play in social and emotional development, Gray discusses play that might be considered inappropriate, dangerous, or forbidden by adults: fighting, violent video games, climbing "too high", etc. As part of the discussion, he shares some of what George Eisen uncovered while writing his book, Children and Play in the Holocaust.

In the ghettos, the first stage in concentration before prisoners were sent off to labor and extermination camps, parents tried desperately to divert their children's attention from the horrors around them and to preserve some semblance of the innocent play the children had known before. They created makeshift playgrounds and tried to lead the children in traditional games. The adults themselves played in ways aimed at psychological escape from their grim situation, if they played at all. For example, one man traded a crust of bread for a chessboard, because by playing chess he could forget his hunger. But the children would have none of that. They played games designed to confront, not avoid, the horrors. They played games of war, of "blowing up bunkers," of "slaughtering," of "seizing the clothes of the dead," and games of resistance. At Vilna, Jewish children played "Jews and Gestapomen," in which the Jews would overpower their tormenters and beat them with their own rifles (sticks).

Even in the extermination camps, the children who were still healthy enough to move around played. In one camp they played a game called "tickling the corpse." At Auschwitz-Birkenau they dared one another to touch the electric fence. They played "gas chamber," a game in which they threw rocks into a pit and screamed the sounds of people dying. One game of their own devising was modeled after the camp's daily roll call and was called klepsi-klepsi, a common term for stealing. One playmate was blindfolded; then one of the others would step forward and hit him hard on the face; and then, with blindfold removed, the one who had been hit had to guess, from facial expressions or other evidence, who had hit him. To survive at Auschwitz, one had to be an expert at bluffing -- for example, about stealing bread or about knowing of someone's escape or resistance plans. Klepsi-klepsi may have been practice for that skill.

Gray goes on to explain why this sort of play is so important:

In play, whether it is the idyllic play we most like to envision or the play described by Eisen, children bring the realities of their world into a fictional context, where it is safe to confront them, to experience them, and to practice ways of dealing with them. Some people fear that violent play creates violent adults, but in reality the opposite is true. Violence in the adult world leads children, quite properly, to play at violence. How else can they prepare themselves emotionally, intellectually, and physically for reality? It is wrong to think that somehow we can reform the world for the future by controlling children's play and controlling what they learn. If we want to reform the world, we have to reform the world; children will follow suit. The children must, and will, prepare themselves for the real world to which they must adapt to survive.

Like I said, fascinating.

Tags: books   Children and Play in the Holocaust   education   Free to Learn   Holocaust   parenting   World War II
Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete
2 public comments
lpaulkoch
3557 days ago
reply
Gosh, parenting is hard.
Charlottesville, Virginia
pinksquirrel
3557 days ago
reply
Fascinating.

American torture

3 Shares
Here’s the sad fucking truth: Our democracy, our republic, is very much weaker than we imagine if this report can only see the light of day after our government first issued preemptory promises not to prosecute the persons that did these things to other human beings in our names, or ordered that these things be […]
Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

August 17, 2014

8 Comments and 24 Shares

Only 5 days left to submit for BAHFest!
Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete
6 public comments
copyninja
3697 days ago
reply
Honest job interview :)
India
emdeesee
3700 days ago
reply
Honest job interview.
Sherman, TX
zipcube
3701 days ago
reply
perfect
Dallas, Texas
satadru
3701 days ago
reply
Automatic hire.
New York, NY
iaravps
3701 days ago
reply
Taking notes for my next job interview
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
tante
3701 days ago
reply
Honest job interviews
Berlin/Germany

June 15, 2014

6 Comments and 17 Shares

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete
6 public comments
danielna
3753 days ago
reply
SO GOOD
NYC
therealedwin
3757 days ago
reply
On commencement speeches.
Seattle, Washington
puritan4
3764 days ago
reply
Very true in many cases.
hannahdraper
3764 days ago
reply
Tim Russert hawked his book at my commencement...
Washington, DC
tante
3764 days ago
reply
Commencement speeches
Berlin/Germany
satadru
3764 days ago
reply
spot on
New York, NY

June 18, 2014

1 Comment and 5 Shares

Only two weeks left to get a copy of Augie!

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete
1 public comment
danielna
3753 days ago
reply
So good
NYC
Next Page of Stories