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ISBN no:0-521-45062-4
the rebirth of educational toy:
It is important to note that the label educational toy is by no means a new invention. The purpose of toys has practically always been educational.
it is intresting to note that up to the seventeenth century the word toy was synomynous with "any pretty commodity, a thing of no great value," reflecting the attitudes towards toys. One who may be given credit for a changed attitude towards toys at that time was the English philosopher John Locke, who claimed that toys and play could be used in the education of young children. Locke even produced a toy, a set of letter blocks that was meant not only to teach children the alphabet.
Rather than teaching children specific skills, however, these educational devices became "an incentive to keep children indoors, where they could be governed by tutors rather than by their rough brethen on the streets" (Sutton-Smith, 1986, p.119).
The first truimphal march of the educational toy took place in the late 1700s. The market offered a "virtual array of educational toys and games that used pack of cards to teach geography, history, spelling and astronomy." To make learning more enticing, the manufacturers advertised their educational devices as "improving toys," but in pleasurable combination of "entertainment, ammusement and instrucction."
Educational toys were to be the toys of solitariness, a marked shift from all prior usages of miniature objects in magic and in festivals throughout history as well as from all prior forms of play, which had been typically communal in character. Children were coming to be recognized as individuals.( Sutton- Smith, 1986, p.120)
personal development could come along only be expression through appropriate external objects and forms.
Toys should be educational to simulate and improve childrens intellectual development, and they should be ambigious and without a fixed purpose, or else childrens fantasy will be too directed.
children prefer playing over education
As an educational method, play is supposed to be well structured to contribute to learning.
As play was to be educational, the toys also had to be educational.
Enthusiastically, and possibly in good faith, they announced that educational toys would not only improve children's learning (or often specific skills) but also increase their intelligence.
Educational toys were given much higher status than other toys. Educational toys should have certain qualities to teach children certain skills and should therefore be "serious" and plain so that they do not lure children to play with them just for the fun of it.
A toy that no child wants to play with is not much use, however educational it is supposed to be.
Toys in an educational context, it is proposed, connote learning, cognition, stimulation, exploration, mastery, performance, and achivement.
Research data indicate that young children spend atleast half of their playing time daily with educational art objects(Giddings & Halverson, 1981; Sutton-Smith, 1986).
One goal of schooling today undoubtedly is to prepare children for a future ina more and more technologically advanced society.
some toys more than others can simulate childrens understanding of scientific, mathematical, and spatial concepts, namely construction toys.
However, there are other things in life worth learning besides science, and any toy can be used by the child as a learning device as long as it facilitates what the child wants to learn.
Wether something is a toy or an instructional object is a decisio that rests with the child(Vandenberg, 1987)
It seems likely that as children grow older, they voluntarily use toys as learning props.
it seems plausible that any toy can be used to stimulate learning, provided that it is challenging to explore and that the child feels there is something worthwhile to learn from it.
Children, however, are not all of a kind; each one has unique needs, abilities, and personality.
It is what is in the mind of the child that is worth our efforts to discover.
ISBN no:0-521-45062-4
the rebirth of educational toy:
It is important to note that the label educational toy is by no means a new invention. The purpose of toys has practically always been educational.
it is intresting to note that up to the seventeenth century the word toy was synomynous with "any pretty commodity, a thing of no great value," reflecting the attitudes towards toys. One who may be given credit for a changed attitude towards toys at that time was the English philosopher John Locke, who claimed that toys and play could be used in the education of young children. Locke even produced a toy, a set of letter blocks that was meant not only to teach children the alphabet.
Rather than teaching children specific skills, however, these educational devices became "an incentive to keep children indoors, where they could be governed by tutors rather than by their rough brethen on the streets" (Sutton-Smith, 1986, p.119).
The first truimphal march of the educational toy took place in the late 1700s. The market offered a "virtual array of educational toys and games that used pack of cards to teach geography, history, spelling and astronomy." To make learning more enticing, the manufacturers advertised their educational devices as "improving toys," but in pleasurable combination of "entertainment, ammusement and instrucction."
Educational toys were to be the toys of solitariness, a marked shift from all prior usages of miniature objects in magic and in festivals throughout history as well as from all prior forms of play, which had been typically communal in character. Children were coming to be recognized as individuals.( Sutton- Smith, 1986, p.120)
personal development could come along only be expression through appropriate external objects and forms.
Toys should be educational to simulate and improve childrens intellectual development, and they should be ambigious and without a fixed purpose, or else childrens fantasy will be too directed.
children prefer playing over education
As an educational method, play is supposed to be well structured to contribute to learning.
As play was to be educational, the toys also had to be educational.
Enthusiastically, and possibly in good faith, they announced that educational toys would not only improve children's learning (or often specific skills) but also increase their intelligence.
Educational toys were given much higher status than other toys. Educational toys should have certain qualities to teach children certain skills and should therefore be "serious" and plain so that they do not lure children to play with them just for the fun of it.
A toy that no child wants to play with is not much use, however educational it is supposed to be.
Toys in an educational context, it is proposed, connote learning, cognition, stimulation, exploration, mastery, performance, and achivement.
Research data indicate that young children spend atleast half of their playing time daily with educational art objects(Giddings & Halverson, 1981; Sutton-Smith, 1986).
One goal of schooling today undoubtedly is to prepare children for a future ina more and more technologically advanced society.
some toys more than others can simulate childrens understanding of scientific, mathematical, and spatial concepts, namely construction toys.
However, there are other things in life worth learning besides science, and any toy can be used by the child as a learning device as long as it facilitates what the child wants to learn.
Wether something is a toy or an instructional object is a decisio that rests with the child(Vandenberg, 1987)
It seems likely that as children grow older, they voluntarily use toys as learning props.
it seems plausible that any toy can be used to stimulate learning, provided that it is challenging to explore and that the child feels there is something worthwhile to learn from it.
Children, however, are not all of a kind; each one has unique needs, abilities, and personality.
It is what is in the mind of the child that is worth our efforts to discover.
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