As an avid TED Talks fan, I once happened onto a famous presentation delivered by Sir Ken Robinson analyzing how schools kills creativity. In it, he pointed out that not all of us are cut out for the classroom environment, where you must sit still for 3-4 hours and pay attention to the teacher until break time.
According to the latest scientific research, children aged 5-6 years old typically focus on one activity that is of interest to them for around 10-15 minutes at a time. As a child growing up in Uganda, I often saw my brothers, the neighbors and other children in the community making their own toys for hours at a time. This activity ranged from using old cars tires, bicycle wheels, tree branches and broken flip flops, to making fiber dolls out of dry banana plant stems.
In some cases, the boys would make their own soccer balls using empty milk sachets, while others made toy cars that they would automate and light up using small mortars, hangers or metal wires, cardboard, small bulbs from broken flashlights, AA or AAA batteries and some wires from discarded electronics. Other children built small doll houses and tree houses using the same techniques adults used to build normal houses.
Obviously, with time and exposure to different cultures, we've had an increase in demand for new toys in Uganda. That usually meant toy imports and other materials used for child play from companies like Toys “R” Us.
Having visited the country a few years ago, I was shocked to see the toys that children made when I was 7 years old being displayed and sold as “African artifacts” down by the African village on Buganda Road. It became obvious to me through my own observations that children learn through playing and that’s why playing is important. Africans have bought into the Western idea of walking into a store and buying plastic toys to entertain our children without paying much attention to the fact that this is robbing our children of their childhood and creativity. The fact that we’ve allowed for structured western education into our lives means that even other forms of learning like playing are to be structured the same way classroom education is structured.
When I was growing up, most children made their own toys and for some parents, that offered important insights into their children’s interests. However, we've stopped paying attention to our children and instead listen to the schools and missionaries (i.e. NGOs) who are soliciting for unwanted toys and donations to be shipped to African children without recognizing what we are taking away from these children.
Many children learn through play and socialization. Obviously, with modernity and globalization, we've been “gifted” (or “cursed,” depending on how you look at it) with longer indoor activity, play dates at water parks and all things artificial. Just like all other forms of cultural impositions (such as those brought by colonialism) we've bought into the idea that, in order for our children to be truly happy, they must play like the children in Washington and Brussels.
To quote Carol Black, a renowned critic of modern education:
“A free child outdoors will learn the flat stones the crayfish hide under, the still shady pools where the big trout rest, the rocky slopes where the wild berries grow. They will learn the patterns in the waves, which tree branches will bear their weight, which twigs will catch fire, which plants have thorns...
A child who knows where to find wild berries will never forget this information. An ‘uneducated’ person in the highlands of Papua New Guinea can recognize seventy species of birds by their songs. An ‘illiterate’ shaman in the Amazon can identify hundreds of medicinal plants. An Aboriginal person from Australia carries in his memory a map of the land encoded in song that extends for a thousand miles. Our minds are evolved to contain vast amounts of information about the world that gave us birth, and to pass this information on easily from one generation to the next. But to know the world, you have to live in the world.”
(See full article here: http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children/) keeping in mind what carol black states, draw a contrast with this clip from Jamie Oliver’s food revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg
In buying into the cult of modernity, we've essentially denied our children an alternative form of learning through playing outdoors - one that is not found in a classroom, but rather, one that's cultivated out in the wild or through social interaction with their peers or other elders. I see GoFundMe pages, church workshops and NGOs in the West asking for people to donate toys to Africa or for “poor African children.” But what if these children do not need these toys? Child play in America or France is not the same as child play in Masaka or Kampala and it shouldn't be standardized.
However, therein lies the arrogance, ignorance and savior complex to “save” African children when saving them means making them handicapped. Right now, it’s almost impossible to find children in urban areas who can make their own toys or enjoy the experience of doing so because all they have to do is ask and mum and dad can simply walk into a toy shop and buy a toy.
As a child growing up, I learned simple survival skills from playing with other children. I watched my brothers and kids in the neighborhood design and power up simple robots that they created and wired themselves. Things that I was yet to learn at 13 in a physics class, my brothers knew when they were 6! They knew that if you had a red wire connected to a battery you needed a green one to give you a live connection or transmit electricity. They learned that because they needed to power up their cardboard cars! not because it was science project.
They knew that, when building a doll house, you needed to dry the bricks and then fire them up to get them to harden. We rolled in the grass, picked berries, even made tools like slingshots from tree branches and rubber. Boys used them to shoot birds (simple hunting skills). But you couldn't buy one of those slingshots - you had to make one for yourself. As a result, they developed less allergies, had better social skills and learned a thing or two about survival because we were out and about.
It saddens me now to see children, especially in urban areas in Uganda, living like children in New York, just spending hours on end playing video games or scrolling through their tablets.
As allergies rise, social skills deteriorate and attention spans shorten, we are left with results like ADHD and a lack of survival techniques. Are we equipped to deal with these problems that are now increasingly evident in the “developed world”? Are we aware of what we are doing to our children when we walk into a Toys “R” Us, versus encouraging our children to make their own toys or go out and play? An article by Victoria prooday titled “ The silent tragedy affecting todays children” the writer who is also an occupational therapist for children points out that “researchers have been releasing alarming statistics on a sharp and steady increase in kids’ mental illness, which is now reaching epidemic proportions:
1 in 5 children has mental health problems
43% increase in ADHD
37% increase in teen depression
200% increase in suicide rate in kids 10-14 years old”
African parents fail to realize is that parents in the developed world are now longing for what your children in Africa once had. So I ask my dear African Parents are we ready to take on these childhood impairments or rather prevent this ?
Majority of us have been influenced by western style education system and way of life but Victoria goes ahead and points out that
“It is scientifically proven that the brain has the capacity to rewire itself through the environment. Unfortunately, with the environment and parenting styles that we are providing to our children, we are rewiring their brains in a wrong direction and contributing to their challenges in everyday life. Today’s children are being deprived of the fundamentals of a healthy childhood, such as:
Emotionally available parents, Clearly defined limits and guidance, Responsibilities, Balanced nutrition and adequate sleep , Movement and outdoors , Creative play, social interaction, opportunities for unstructured times and boredom.”
The irony is that, as we are told to keep our children clean or tourists see them playing in the mud and take pictures of them (and add humiliating captions), scientific developments in the West turn around and proclaim that, “Dirt is good.” And, make no mistake about it, there are many websites dedicated to this notion that dirt is good (http://www.dirtisgood.com/uk/truth-about-dirt.html)
I think it’s only prudent to check ourselves and not rob our children of their childhood.
For example, consider the “wild child” philosophy of parenting, as embodied by the Wild Child Free school (http://www.wildchildfreeschool.org/). The Wild Child philosophy states very clearly that time in nature and free play is very important:
“We are deeply inspired by like-minded nature programs and incorporate real survival and homesteading skills into outdoor adventures. Wild Child has more of an emphasis on free play, unstructured time in nature, and a strong emphasis on cultivating joy – helping kids learn to be a positive influence in the world without taking life (or themselves) too seriously.”
Growing up in Kampala and sometimes visiting grandparents in rural areas, what the Wild Child Freeschool is now offering was the order of the day:
“Climb trees. Climb rocks. Get muddy. Get splinters. Gain plant knowledge. Meet life-long friends. Learn outdoor skills. Learn about themselves. Find wild animals. Watch wild bugs. Make shelters. Make magic, Tear clothing. Sew leather. Skin knees. Spin fiber. Catch a lizard. Catch poison oak. Build a connection. Build a community. Be tired. Be happy.”
This is precisely how African children went about playing free of charge before the missionaries, NGOs and educated parents tried to “save” them. This is just one example, however; a simple Google search will reveal a great deal of institutions like this in various “developed countries.” It’s amazing how much we are willing to throw away under the guise of modernity. Many other countries are starting to implement or incorporate the aspect of “children playing out in the wild ” in their curriculums and yet when we see children studying under a mango tree, we are quick to raise hell on social media and cry foul at the “conditions in which they are studying”!
My plea is for us as Africans to embrace our future by embracing our past- let the children play