ABSTRACT
The three chapters in this section focus on the way children, educators and communities respond to systems and policy initiatives. Play, playfulness and the pedagogy of play are brought into sharp relief, and the chapters raise questions, which can be quite unsettling at times, as they challenge how and for whom systems and policies are designed. They help us to critically examine what goes on and to sharpen the focus on the interplay between play and learning. In Chapter 10, for example, Fleet and Reed raise the issue of tensions between systems and practice. They identify how systems really do influence practice and the role of the educator, suggesting that there is:
a pressure on educators to prove they recognise valuable learning when observing children at play;
a tension between policy context and educator values; and
a need to consider carefully the role of the educator when working within systems.
A theme taken up by Mandy Andrews in Chapter 11 is, how do systems attempt to influence children’s play through the implicit ideological underpinnings of play space design? These are interesting and unsettling concepts for the educator, but again provoke questions about the way this influences their role. The reflective educator may ponder the nature of play spaces and the way children claim them for their own, impacting on the spaces as much as the spaces impact upon them. A key starting point for an educator considering the impact of what they do in relation to children’s learning might be to ask: to what extent does playing help children to forge their own ideology and community of practice?