More About Giving Psychology Away

In the current newsletter of the Society for Research in Child Development, there is a piece entitled “Sharing Science: From the Lab to the Classroom”.  The authors, Golinkoff, et al, raise the all important question, “How would teachers, administrators, policy-makers at various levels and the lay public know about the importance of playful learning and the evidence for it if we did not share what we have learned from research? Writing for audiences outside our peers is crucial for bringing the science to where it really matters: practice.”   Theirs is another call to “Give Psychology Away”.

The authors point out how vital this “giving away of psychology” is in the current climate of parental anxiety, partly the outcrop of “No Child Left Behind” and contemporary parental fear of children’s future economic failure. Sure, earlier exposure to mathematics and reading can increase “readiness”, but these authors argue against what they call, “preschool sweatshops”, pointing out again that “LEARNING AND PLAY ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE”; in fact, “Learning takes place when children are engaged and enjoying themselves”.

Later on in the same article, the authors announce, “the benefits of preschool education have now been heralded by President Obama…Having established that preschool education is important for school readiness, it is now incumbent upon us, researchers in the field, to use our best science to suggest how we should fashion our preschool pedagogy. "ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY THAT CHILDREN LEARN, THE RESEARCH SUPPORTS THE VIEW THAT FREE AND GUIDED PLAY…IS ‘THE ESSENTIAL PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGY FOR YOUNG CHILDREN” (Kagan and Lowenstein).

“If we in the field don’t convey this message, we leave a vacuum for policy to be made in the absence of evidence.”

In my long tenure as a Scholastic Consultant, I have argued again and again for the meaningfulness of play in early childhood.  It is one way that I have tried to follow the injunction to “Give Psychology Away”.

More Articles About Play:

• When Little Kids Play War
• The Power of Pretend Play
• Between Teacher & Parent: "I Don't Want to Play"
• Celebrate Pretend Play
• Tree Climbing vs. Tea Parties
• Between Teacher & Parent: "I'll Play by Myself!"
• Between Teacher & Parent: Powerful Fantasies
• Between Teacher & Parent: "Why Can't I Play, Too?"
• Between Teacher & Parent: "I'll Catch the Bad Guys!"

Making Sense of It All

Looking back on my professional life is invigorating, although it had been just plain tiring in real time. There was more than enough of a challenge in the life balancing of work and family roles. Quiet reflection, apparently, had to be postponed. The luxury of “making sense” of choices and experiences awaited a slightly slower pace, one that I can now enjoy.

I became a developmental psychologist, school psychologist, sociologist, licensed private practitioner, faculty member at a medical school, a hospital staff member and consultant, a researcher, guest lecturer, author of articles for professional journals.  I think that the greatest joys came from the reflective quality inherent in each of these undertakings. And then there was, and still is, the broader role---the sharing alluded to by psychologist, George Albee.  He was a charismatic leader, president of the American Psychological Association, and a bit of a maverick. Albee exhorted contemporary psychologists to “Give Psychology Away”.  He told us our most vital mission is to share what we know about human beings in all sorts of situations, at all sorts of ages and stages; to share these with the rest of the world, though not in a didactic or condescending way.

I didn’t exactly know it then, but Albee was encouraging exactly what I had wanted to do and be, when I “grew up.” I wanted to be “Albee’s tireless donor of psychology’s body of knowledge,” including controversial research results and their practical implications, especially as they relate to growth and development in children. The audacity of youth!

But Giving Psychology Away does not mean proselytizing or claiming to have the “true” word about human behavior in every possible circumstance. Genuine humility is essential to the task. Furthermore, a reasonable degree of emotional intelligence is needed to spread the word in a way that “speaks to” each particular listener; for the psychology “give away” is useless unless it is imbued with a sense of what it might mean to the particular recipients.

I was introduced to this challenge early on, in fact, while still a graduate student by writing guest columns about Parenting in the New York Times Magazine. What an experience for a 20 something student who then had no children of her own! What audacity to advise conscientious parents about the process of learning to read, starting school, making friends.  I had nothing to lean on but childhood memories and the then current research and textbooks. We did spend a lot of time in guided observing of several pre-school programs. We learned not only how to watch a particular child at play and throughout the school day, but also how to assess his or her feelings, thoughts, motivations and how to predict behavior. It was my first step toward sharing the field of Child Psychology with parents and teachers, eager for answers.

My Beef About Shared Assumptions

It’s picky of me, I know; but I am frequently bothered by some shared assumptions about children’s behavior. When I was a young school psychologist, the labels “ADD” and “ADHD” had not yet been “invented”.  We called those antsy kids “figity”; and if they were not only restless but seemed to reside in their own separate world, we didn’t say they were somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. Admittedly, we had other labels, such as “neurologically impaired” or “perceptually impaired” and three levels of retardation, depending on IQ score cut-offs. But most of us who worked with children weren’t convinced of the immutable accuracy of any such terms. They were useful for placing children in special classes or providing extra outside help. Although less so than now, there was some urgency about pigeon-holing departures from expected behavior, maybe just because we are a “categorizing” species. But many of us had not subscribed to the universal benefits of labeling children’s behavior.  I honestly believe that we tried to make sense of odd behavior, in the light of a particular child’s physical, cognitive, educational, cultural, environmental history and present circumstances. And we made recommendations based on what we had learned about available resources as well as the nature of these particular children’s needs.

O.K., it was not the good old days; but it was a time when skilled professionals and investigators could allow the facts from their observations, to take the lead in deciding what, if anything, was wrong as well as what to do about it.  Psychodiagnosticians who went by “a book”, slotting kids into convenient lists and labels were not the most respected professionals. The most sought after professionals were those who could observe, describe, even partly explain odd behavior and then consider the available options before making specific recommendations.  I am hoping that this modus operandi will return again under newly designed educational and health plans. Here’s hoping that’s not just wishful thinking.