Chelsea Clinton in Philadelphia to highlight project tying learning to everyday places (Chalkbeat Philadelphia)
Temple University psychology professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek one day was pondering the fact that only 20% of children’s waking hours are spent in school.
Then she spied a bench.
“Does a bench have to just be a bench?” she asked herself. “Is it just for sitting, or can we do other things with benches?”
She called an architect friend. “We could make a bench into a scale,” she said. “Kids could be doing measurements using the bench.” Benches could add movable parts that create puzzles to promote math skills. A map in front of a bench for students could orient them to their surroundings.
She thought further. Why can’t a bus stop be a place of learning? What about a grocery store? “We could turn the entire city into learning opportunities,” she thought.
And so the playful learning movement was born. It seeks to make public settings – buses, laundromats, public parks, grocery stores, and waiting rooms in health centers and doctors’ offices — places of active learning by including displays that catalyze conversations and activities with children into literacy and knowledge.
This article was originally published on chalkbeat.org on October 27, 2022. Written by: Dale Mezzacappa.
