Urban playgrounds: an institution of learning for children.

For the past 10 years, the primary focus of all we've seen and heard about playgrounds has been safety. While playground safety issues are indeed very important, there needs to be equal importance placed on quality playground programs to ensure the best physical and social development for children. Because of the wave of legal issues that stifled the development of quality urban playground programs, it became very easy for agencies to get out of the business of playground programming and supervision. Yet I often take time to reflect on my own childhood and wonder where would I be today, if recreators of the 1950s shared the same feelings or if Sunland Park Playground, in the northwest section of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, did not provide that quality programmed and supervised playground for hundreds of children each summer.

Development of Playgrounds

Our profession recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1885 founding of playgrounds in Boston, Massachusetts. Through a single movement the entire nation focused its attention on its most precious resource "its children." This was perhaps the most dynamic child saving reform effort of the century. The intended purpose of this reform was to rescue city children from social and economic hazards which included economic exploitation, moral chaos, alienation and threats to law and order fostered by unsupervised adolescent street culture.

The play movement began when urban reformers discovered team play for male adolescents organized by social workers on municipal playgrounds. Playground activities would insulate youngsters from pervasive city vices, act as deterrents against juvenile crime and provide adolescents with the supervision and moral purpose missing from their lives.

One hundred years later, with the absence of a national campaign effort to provide quality programs and supervised playgrounds, children are faced with many other critical problems, including illiteracy, violence and crime, drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy, and unemployment. Playgrounds in too many cities across America have turned into places where children or parents would not dare go because of the pervasive peddling of drugs and the presence of people who care very little about the future of our children. The neglect in providing quality programs and supervised playgrounds is causing America's children to make unsuccessful transitions into adulthood, thereby causing further societal problems.

Today in this scientific and technological age, certainly we can eradicate the escalating problems that confront children. What better place to begin than taking a critical look at something as simple as children's play? Play is an area that has a riveting effect on the adults these children will become.

The importance of play in the overall developmental level of children was recognized by enlightened thinkers such as Socrates and Plato in antiquity; John Comenius in the 1600s; Friexedrich Froebel (the originator of the kindergarten, or "garden of children"); Milton Bradley and William James in the 1800s; Joseph Lee, Seth Stewart, Luther H. Gulick, Henry Curtis, and John Dewey in the early 1900s; and Jean Piaget in our most recent history. These individuals give credence to studying the developmental impact playgrounds have had on children throughout recent history. Since the children of today face similar problems, the discontinuation of programmed and supervised playgrounds must have some impact, leaving them vulnerable.

What Is a Playground?

A playground is a recreation area that encompasses program activities, play apparatus and an open space area. It focuses on the physical and social development of children and consists of daily, weekly, seasonal, and city-wide events and activities. The playground stood as the chief play center for neighborhoods across America for nearly 100 years. Its identity as an effective means toward meeting the physical and developmental needs of children were heralded in many venues. Many of the critical problems facing children today can be directly traced to the elimination of programs and services that were designed to meet their physical and social developmental needs.

Although it may seem impossible to program for such a broad range of ages and adequately meet the physical and social development needs of each age group, a broad-ranged quality playground program can be designed to reach children ages six to 17.

Is Play Important?

To children, play is almost the same as life. It is their response to the world around them. Children act out what they observe and learn about themselves and the world. In doing so, they express their emotions and personalities. Sound play activities help children develop healthy attitudes and bodies.

Play is a term so loosely used that its real significance is apt to be lost. In its most literal sense it means any activity engaged in for enjoyment without consideration of the end result. It is entered into voluntarily and is lacking in external force or compulsion. Developmental Psychologist Jean Piaget explained that play "consists of responses repeated purely for functional pleasure." Educator B. Bettelheim defined play activities as those having no rules other than those the player himself imposes and no intended end result in external reality.

Play can be divided into two categories, active and passive. Children engage in both active and passive play at all ages. The proportion of time devoted to each depends not on age, however, but on health and the enjoyment children derive from each. While typically, active play predominates in early childhood and passive play progresses as children approach adolescence, this may not always hold true. Today, some young children, for example, may prefer passive play - watching videos or television - to active play because they are not around other children or siblings, who are a large source of interaction and learning.

Playground Facilities and

Equipment

Playground Safety Expert Dr. Frances Wallach describes how the age of a playground can be determined by the condition of its equipment. In the 1940s and 1950s, playgrounds were relatively inexpensive, single-use pieces installed on concrete, asphalt, grass or hard dirt. In the 1960s and 1970s federal funds - largely from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and Community Development Grants - financed wood materials, a revolutionary change from the traditional. Then, in 1980, federal funding began to dry up and the focus went to local and community fundraising to support the financing and construction of new playgrounds.

Today's urban playground encompasses many different formats. The playground area and equipment are not the only factors involved in meeting the physical and social needs of children. Today, a playground program may appear in a community center, park, outdoor open space area, public housing development, private apartment complex, church, or on school grounds.

A Model Playground Program

The same emphasis that has been placed on the safety and modernization of playground equipment should also be placed on playground programming. What good is new equipment on urban playgrounds without paralleling programs for children? Children deserve the opportunity to participate in activities and programs that are well-planned and organized, accompanied by good leadership and held on playground equipment that is safe. Some of the key factors that should be considered in planning the playground program are: program time frame, the approximate number of program participants, the interest and needs of the participants, planned activities, effective implementation and evaluation, activity time schedule, the availability of facilities, and staffing needs.

Summer playground programs - like the Fun-n-Sun Program - should be featured in all municipal park and recreation departments. During the summer months, more school age children are left alone without proper supervision and few positive activities for an abundance of time. These programs can be worked into almost any agency budget with a minimal increase in cost.

Playground staff must enjoy working with children and have compassion, patience and humanistic spirit. Their creative ability is very important in creating new and exciting activities that will keep the attention and excitement of participants. Staff can conduct a Playground Retreat with the purpose of planning the summer playground program. The retreat empowers staff to design a summer program that specifically meets the childrens' physical and social needs.

The Fun-n-Sun Playground Program, conducted in the City of Portsmouth, Virginia, has been successful in meeting the needs of a broad range of children through a unique programming approach. Permanent staff plan, coordinate and implement the activities, both indoor and outdoor. There is no worry regarding weather conditions, if it rains or it is too hot, the program moves inside. An array of activities keep to participants active for seven fun-filled hours, and all programs are offered free. Through these types of planned program activities, the physical and social development needs of children can be met.

The following programming areas are a part of the Fun-n-Sun Playground Program:

* Traditional Daily Programs

The traditional daily programs are an array of diversified games and activities to develop physical and social skills. The games and activities are both passive and active with checkers, pick-up sticks, dominoes, and marbles as well as horseshoes, hop scotch, ping pong and table tennis. Traditional activities include storytelling, story hour, arts and crafts, and dance.

* Innovative Enhancement Programs

Innovative Enhancement Programs are designed to provide an opportunity for all playgrounds to come together to participate in a city-wide special program. Some very unique innovative programs developed for the Fun-n-Sun Playground Program are: The Youth Against Drugs Olympics, Recreation Competition Challenge, Youth Entertainment theatre, and Creative Expressions Program.

* Evening Fun Centers

The Evening Fun Centers are offered in communities to accommodate the working teenager and young adults ages 16 and older. This program includes competitive games, skill development, educational experiences and special events.

* Adventure Fun Centers

The Adventure Fun Centers are full-day recreation programs offered in community centers for ages 6-12 years. The participants enjoy wholesome recreation through active and passive activities. The program provides a full-service USDA breakfast and lunch program.

* USDA Food Service

The USDA Food Service program is offered in conjunction with three-fourths of the Fun-n-Sun programs. Good nutrition is essential to the health, growth and development of all participants.

* Roving Recreation

The Roving Recreation Program delivers recreation services to areas where facilities are not easily accessible. Leaders provide a program of activities three days a week for a two-hour period.

* Recreation Funsational Program

The Recreational Funsational Program provides bus service for children without transportation, allowing them to participate in the overall Fun-n-Sun program. Children have gained access to special events, field trips, theatre programs, athletic events, and tours.

Play is such an accepted part of a child's life that few people stop to consider its vital role in childhood development. Experts claim that the child's play consists of the four basic modes by which we know the world: imitation, exploration, testing, and construction. Active play is essential if children are to develop their muscles and exercise all parts of their bodies. It also acts as an outlet for surplus energy which, if pent-up, makes children tense, nervous and irritable.

To Play successfully with others, children must learn to communicate in terms they can understand, and they, in turn must learn to understand what others are trying to communicate to them. Needs and desires that cannot be satisfactorily met in other ways can often be met in play. A child who is unable to achieve a leadership role in real life may gain satisfaction for this desire by being a leader in some a activity.

Play offers opportunities to learn - through videos, television, or exploring the environment - that children would not have an opportunity to learn at home or in school. Through experimentation, children discover that creating something new and different can be satisfying. They then transfer their creative interests to situations outside the play world.

In play, children learn what their abilities are and how they compare with those of their playmates. Th enables them to develop more definite and realistic concepts of themselves. As they play with others, children learn how to establish social relationships and how to meet and solve the problems. Although most children learn right from wrong in the home and school, the enforcement of moral standards can also be demanded by peers in the play group.

From contacts with other members of their peer group, children learn how to be cooperative, generous, truthful, good sports, and congenial people through play.

In conclusion, play is critical to the physical and social development of children. Play apparatus alone does not make the urban playground a functional recreation area for children. In order for children to learn through recreation, properly planned programs with supervision - especially in the urban environment - are absolutely necessary, We can make a difference in the lives of all the children we serve.