Introduction
Today we will look at a relatively new law; Oklahoma HB1569 which is named the “Oklahoma Play to Learn Act”. It encourages young children to be taught with play based learning. The law was signed on 5/11/2021 and will go into effect in August.
The bill has a large number of bipartisan sponsors; 12 Republican sponsors and 7 Democrats. They include; Jacob Rosecrants (D), Meloyde Blancett (D), Brad Boles (R), Sherrie Conley (R), Jose Cruz (D), Dean Davis (R), Michael Dobrinski (R), Kyle Hilbert (R), Nicole Miller (R), Cyndi Munson (D), Daniel Pae (R), Logan Phillips (R), Melissa Provenzano (D), Adam Pugh (R), Trish Ranson (R), Blake Stephens (R), John Talley (R), John Waldron (D), Collin Walke (D).
Over the course of the blog post we will take a look at what exactly this law changes about how very young children will learn.
What Is The Law Encouraging?
This law states that “child-centered, play-based learning” should be focused on as the most appropriate way for young children (pre kindergarten – third grade) to learn about major topics such as literacy, science, technology, engineering, art and math. Thus the goal of the law is to promote “play-based learning” but what exactly does that phrase even mean?
The law defines play-based learning as:
Any learning activities that are performed by a child for self-amusement that have behavioral, social and psychomotor rewards. Play-based learning shall also mean activities that are child-directed, joyful and spontaneous whereby the rewards come from within the individual child.
The play should also be “child-directed”, meaning that the child is able to lead the play in any way they wish as long as it is not self destructive.
Now if this all seems pretty vague that is because it is. In fact, the bill defines play as “the spontaneous activity of children” which could mean a number of things and also applies to many things that most people would not necessarily consider to be playing.
Essentially, all you need to know is that the bill is intended to encourage fun activities that are also educational, such as a game that requires math, a musical, a dramatical play or even reading. The idea behind these activities being that children will pay more attention to the learning if it is actually fun rather then just being something like a worksheet.
What Does This New Law Mean For Educators?
For educators, the bill has a section which encourages, but does not appear to force, educators to use play based learning.
The law essentially states that educators MAY implement play-based learning to the best of their abilities, and offers some examples of opportunities that can be made for students such as “movement, creative expression, exploration, socialization, reading for pleasure, art, music and dramatic play.” Seemingly the bill is NOT attempting to force educators to do so, but is instead encouraging them to incorporate more play based learning into their lessons.
The final thing the bill does is authorize professional development programs on this topic for educators/administrators. The State Board of Education will create the rules (with approval of the legislature) that will be used as guidelines for the professional development programs. The bill also prohibits the school district from preventing teachers from using play-based learning. This should allow educators to get the training they need to implement play-based learning.
Is This Bill A Good Thing?
This bill seems like an interesting idea. If you have ever been around kids, you would know that the last thing they want to do is sit down and fill out a worksheet or listen to a lesson. Hence, allowing them to learn by doing fun activities is an interesting idea that could help facilitate more learning from children. After all, you tend to remember things that were fun more than things that were boring.
The only problem is the bill is quite vague, the definition of play that was mentioned above is so broad that it could mean literally anything. Additionally, the bill doesn’t particularly force educators to do anything since it states that they MAY implement play based learning. At the end of the day, the purpose of the bill is to give educators more tools/options to teach young children and the bill certainly fulfills that purpose. Which I think is a good thing.
Cover Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash