THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

I have observed in my professional life that children in traditional schools are confronted earlier and earlier with the need to develop their intellect through literacy, through formal learning, even before they are ready for such a task. The spontaneous movement of play is then suppressed, and it is transformed into a pedagogical tool. In this way the richness of this phase is lost, as a process that is born in the child, from the inside out.

I have developed a work with educators that has this proposal to stimulate the ludic experience. When they themselves live this process, they become aware of the importance of allowing children to fully experience this phase.

I see in the children who have grown up with this freedom, a lightness and joy and a strong axis of group connection, where there is an intrinsic cooperation among them. For they have had the opportunity to release their spontaneous being and express their desires.

During my schooling process, I always questioned the formalities imposed by the educational system, with the excess of information that was not properly incorporated or digested. I expressed my questions with the natural rebelliousness of adolescence.

Early on in becoming an educator, I chose art education, because it allowed a true engagement with the child's being and the child's interaction with the world, from the soul. Thus stimulated, she becomes a creative being with free thinking, standing out from the mass molded by the system, through the expression of her own originality.