ABSTRACT
For the past several decades in many parts of the world, play and active learning have been
acknowledged as crucial to the cognitive and other developmental processes of children. That
the child learns through making his or her own physical and mental connections with the
world, through sensory explorations, personal effort, social experiences and the active
seeking of meanings from experiences, has been established in the theories of psychologists
and educationalists such as Froebel, Montessori, Isaacs, Steiner, Vygotsky and, later, Piaget
and Bruner. Yet it is by no means easy for teachers and other adults in schools and
kindergartens to achieve these ideals in practice, where so-called ‘child-centred’ education
and individualised learning are either logistically, pragmatically or culturally considered
inappropriate or unrealisable. Similarly, while many educators may see themselves as
providing opportunities for children to be actively engaged in their learning, how far this is a
reality will depend upon the interpretation and evaluation of these beliefs in practice.
