Jay Doubleyou: play and learning
Jay Doubleyou: work and play
There's been a lot of talk about giving children more 'freedom' to play and explore:
Is this the perfect playground, full of junk?
An experiment in north Wales lets children – and adults – experience the boundaries of truly free play. Is it madness or a model for the future?
Approaching on a grey, rainy April day, Plas Madoc doesn't look too promising. An estate of 850 houses, seven miles from Wrexham in north Wales, it features high on the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation and has been known locally as Cardboard City and Smack Madoc. There's one shop for all the residents. The leisure centre – a shining light with its "lagoon", climbing wall, squash courts and trampoline – has just shut down because of cuts in funding.
But there is something. If you know your way through the maze, you can find a fenced-off grassy area marked with a sign that reads, "The Land. A Space Full of Possibilities." Go through the gate and your first thought may well be that it's a junkyard. In a space 55m squared, with a brook running through it, you'll see piles of pallets, a tonne of tyres, the odd upside-down boat, wheelbarrows, ladders, fishing nets, various stray hammers (courtesy of Poundland), ropes and punch bags.
Look again and you may notice that the pallets have been organised into a web of mini walkways with entrances and exits way too small for adults. (It's called the Shanty Town and, like everything here, it's temporary. Any child is more than welcome to come along with a hammer and smash it to smithereens.) There's a small, red-headed boy swinging from a tree on a rope across the brook. In a far corner, children are sawing and banging, building a den around a tree. Another girl has a hose – she's filling a canoe with water, just for the hell of it. A teenage boy sits in a shopping trolley, which two mates push precariously up an incline. Some other boys are ripping sheets of wallpaper to build a fire. It's a playground, but not as we know it.
The Importance of Playing With Fire (Literally) from Vimeo
Is this the perfect playground, full of junk? | Life and style | The Guardian
And from the Chief Scout:
Give six-year-olds knives, says Chief Scout Bear Grylls - the sharper, the BETTER
CHILDREN as young as six should be given knives so they learn to handle risk and enjoy the adventurous play their parents took for granted, says Chief Scout Bear Grylls.
Bear Grylls: ‘Children should be allowed to play with knives’ - People - News - The Independent
Give kids a lesson in risk, says Bear Grylls | Mail Online
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