I am the school principal that spent thousands of dollars on a fancy set of new, colorful, plastic-coated playground equipment: a glider, a curving slide tube, and monkey bars. ÒWonÕt the kids love these!Ó the playground committee and I thought.
I am also the principal who had 8 yards of _ inch crushed stone delivered to upgrade the path beside the school entrance. There it sat, an enormous mound of pebblesÉuntil it became a pile-jumping launching pad.
Guess which was the preferred play activity at recess?
Thus began my education in the higher value of mere raw materialsÑstones, sand, drainage pipes and elbows, snow piles, and even a gentle slope of icy grass. You cannot manufacture the possibilities of play. Kids simply want the opportunity to build, to harness their creativity, to use real tools in imaginary gardens as Marianne Moore might have said.