In an article written for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, educators Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff explore the idea of creating “outside-the-classroom” learning opportunities by reimaging neighborhood staples as places for playful learning.

Before delving into this topic, the writers first highlighted the challenge that is providing low-income children with the same types of mental stimulation commonly found among middle-class homes. Because lower income children may lack educational toys/games (i.e. blocks and puzzles) and grade-level reading books, an achievement gap begins to form at the pre-school level (3 years old), thus creating a divide as it relates to literacy and spatial skills.

So how can this issue begin to be addressed? Well, one aspect of the solution includes educational reform.  And while Hirsh-Pasek and Michnick Golinkoff praise the state of New Jersey for their “gold standard programs,” many other schools in low-income areas struggle as high-quality pre-schools are quite difficult to scale. Looking deeper into the challenge, schooling traditionally begins at age 4 or 5, meaning that a lot of pre-school programs typically miss the formative years of 0 and 3, as explained by the writers. Moreover, studies have shown that children enrolled full-time spend only 20% of their waking time in school.

So how might communities capitalize on the other 80%, when children are not in school? As Hirsh-Pasek and Michnick Golinkoff suggest, we should transform places where people naturally go or wait at (i.e. park benches) into places that stimulate opportunities for conversation and learning. The two educators go on to ask, what if these benches had puzzles that could be arranged and rearranged into several separate pictures. What if while waiting at a bus stop, families could be playing in a learning sculpture garden or participating in a game of hop-scotch designed to nurture impulse control?

By transforming traditional neighborhood aspects into learning landscapes, communities are able to provide teachers with well-deserved support, while also assisting schools in resolving iniquities that children may often face.

“Once we change the lens on how we view everyday environments, we can begin to see the learning potential there. We can design environments that foster a breadth of skills—from communication, to collaboration, to critical thinking—on our everyday walks and in our everyday neighborhoods.”

Source Link: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/transforming_cities_into_learning_landscapes