Temple psychology professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, like her psychology colleagues, knows how the brain learns — by having engaging interactions with other people and with the world around them. The two best predictors for all child development and success in school, she says, are social emotional regulation and language development, both of which are built up through social interactions.
But much to Hirsh-Pasek’s dismay, despite all of this research into active learning, what happens in traditional classrooms in Philly and around the country remains primarily passive.
One Sunday afternoon in 2009, Hirsh-Pasek, also a senior fellow at Brookings, was “sitting around thinking: Why are we so unsuccessful in the way we are educating, especially people in underserved areas? We’re not getting through and we’re certainly not closing the gaps — we’re not even narrowing the gaps.”
“Our projects can bring back social interaction, joy, living together, learning how to get along, and have the added benefit of prepping you a little bit more for what you’re gonna encounter in school.” — Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
That’s when it dawned on her: The one arena where active learning reigns supreme? Play — from playgrounds to children’s museums. That day, Hirsh-Pasek had the idea to “bring playful learning into the streets,” rather than just museums that not every child has access to.
Hirsh-Pasek’s research led her to explore different spaces for playful learning — from innovative signage in grocery stores to hosting the “Ultimate Block Party” in Central Park, and finally, to co-found Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN).
On June 11, (the International Day of Play) PLLAN launches the country’s first “Playful Learning” installations in two Philly neighborhoods — Sharswood and North Central. This pilot, in partnership with Live and Learn PHL, aims to bring research-based and community-influenced designs that foster learning to affordable housing complexes, equalizing the playing field for kids growing up in these communities. That Wednesday, Sharswood hosts a block party from 3 to 5pm, followed at 6pm by a party in the Susquehanna Square buildings in North Central Philadelphia, to explore the installations in their buildings over a community dinner and dessert.
What is playful learning?
Heidi Segall Levy, an architect and associate at Watchdog who has been working on the pilot project’s design, says that playful learning is more guided, goal-oriented play, and that playful learning landscapes “use the built environment to provide playful learning activities.”
Research shows that open-ended activities and games built into these landscapes and structures target and improve skills in areas such as spatial relations, language development, executive function, and even mathematical concepts.
Playful learning installations can be as simple as a mural with a map of the neighborhood where kids can spot their home streets and look for familiar landmarks, or as complex as a life-sized board game where they can practice math with their caregivers. The installations are scaled to fit the space and function of their environments.
While PLLAN has expanded to include 22 cities in 13 countries, Hirsh-Pasek and PLLAN Executive Director Sarah Lytle say “everything started in Philly,” deeming it “the capital of playful learning.”
Lytle and PLLAN focused their efforts on Philadelphia’s affordable housing developments to integrate them into the daily routines of the kids and families who live there — no special “trip” is required, and the activities fit into their existing lives.
“As much as we’re focused on child development outcomes, for a lot of this work, we really truly are trying to create intergenerational spaces that allow kids and caregivers and parents to play together,” Lytle says.
Community engagement drove the designs of the installations in both the Sharswood and North Central developments — starting with establishing community partners in each neighborhood.
Segall Levy says that for the Sharswood development, she worked with the Brewerytown Sharswood Community Civic Association, the Brewerytown Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition, and the Lower North Philadelphia Community Development Corporation, as well as with the building developer, Pennrose, and its supportive services group. For the North Central neighborhood, she discovered that the literacy nonprofit Tree House Books was “the strongest community engaged group” in the area, and was already hosting events with the residents of the Susquehanna Square building.
“As much as we’re focused on child development outcomes, for a lot of this work, we really truly are trying to create intergenerational spaces that allow kids and caregivers and parents to play together.” — Sarah Lytle
The North Central pilot, in the Susquehanna Square building, drew ideas from the residents already in that building, as well as other community leaders, to inform themes and ideas they wanted to incorporate into their existing space. On the other hand, the Sharswood development is a new building, so inspiration came from the surrounding Sharswood community.
One strategy for community input was to gather kids and adults alike to play a community engagement board game, which PLLAN and Lytle helped create alongside Mural Arts Philadelphia. The game asks questions like, “If you were going to be the DJ at your local block party, what kind of music do you play, and what kind of vibe are you trying to create?”
“Some communities are looking all for the instrumental, they want that kind of cool, calm, collected vibe in their neighborhood,” Lytle says. “Other communities want the party music, the things that you can dance to. So you really start to understand, what are the values of this community? What’s the culture? What are their hopes and wishes and dreams for the kids in the community?”
“What’s your superpower?”
For the North Central installation in Susquehanna Square, the community landed on a graphic novel superhero theme for the building. Murals in the hallways ask kids, “What’s your superpower?” and “What goal are you reaching for?” In a backyard space outside, a bike rack was retrofitted to include a stage for kids to tell their own superhero stories through performances on one side. The other side has a spinner that allows them to create their own superheroes with different combinations of faces, tops and bottoms.
Deirdre Hyman is a program coordinator at Tree House Books, in addition to being a community partner and artist behind the murals in the Susquehanna Square installation.
While developing the murals, she made sure to make the kids in the murals look and dress like the kids in the community, so they can see superheroes on their walls who look like them. For younger kids, the murals and installations can prompt pretend play. For older kids, Hyman says that the thoughtful questions can prompt them to think for themselves about who they are, and the decisions they want to make today and in the future. Every day, they can make new choices, try something new, and make changes if there are parts of their lives that aren’t working.
Hyman sees potential for playful learning to prevent problems later on in kids’ lives by improving their social emotional regulation skills at an early age, solving some of Philadelphia’s problems at the root.
“I think Philadelphia has a way of trying to fix problems that could have been prevented. They’ll put out this grant and say, Hey, if you have a program that can stop kids from being violent, we’ll give you money,” Hyman says. “That can be helpful, but wouldn’t it have been way more helpful if we had programs that talked about social emotional skills when they were kindergarteners so that they’re not having tantrums? That’s what really is happening. The violence problem is adult tantrums.”
“Navigation and belonging”
The theme of the Sharswood playful learning development is “Navigation and Belonging in the Neighborhood.” Installations include “Run-the-Road,” where kids can use spinning interactive traffic signs to set their own rules for a game on the sidewalk. There is also a Critter Creator puzzle outside — similar in design to the superhero spinner in Susquehanna Square. Inside, a large map mural incorporates landmarks in the community, as well as “hidden treasures.”
Darnetta Arce was one of the community partners. Now the founder and executive director of the Lower North Philadelphia Community Development Corporation, Arce has been an advocate for her community in North Philly since she was 9 years old, when she served as a junior block captain.
During the planning process, she says, community members were concerned about safety and cleanliness, as well as the inclusivity of the play — would a child in a wheelchair, for example, still be able to use the installations, and would they work for multiple age groups?
“Who would use the facility? Who would be invited? If you have it at a site, will the community still be invited to go and be a part of that area? Or would it just be for the families that lived in an affordable housing building?” Arce says. In response to this concern, Arce and her collaborators established signage that let everybody know that there was a play area nearby.
Scaling up
Looking forward to scaling the idea for affordable housing beyond the pilot project, Segall Levy says that one of the key takeaways is that keeping the cost down is crucial, since affordable housing is often built with low-income tax credits and other subsidies.
“For us, the most important thing is to think about how, in the future beyond this pilot project, we can integrate playful learning into the architecture from the very beginning so that it’s not an afterthought,” she says. “When it is an afterthought, that’s when it might take longer, that’s when it might cost more.”
Segall Levy uses the example of a carpet: If a developer were to incorporate a pattern in carpet or vinyl tiles in the original design, it would make it much easier to design a playful learning experience around pattern recognition, or jumping from shape to shape. Later on, while carpets or tiles could be replaced, that renovation would be more expensive.
While Segall Levy says that she’s excited about the possibility of taking on other affordable housing developments in the city and expanding beyond the pilot, she adds that she and her collaborators at Watchdog also have a longer term goal: building playful learning spaces into affordable housing policy.
“We would love for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency to see this as a necessity, and require it in order to give their funding,” Segall Levy says. “When RFPs [Request for Proposals] are put out by the city of Philadelphia, our hope is that in the RFP, they say to the developer, we are requiring that you include playful learning into the design of these developments.”
Hirsh-Pasek views Philadelphia as the “epicenter” of the playful learning movement, stressing the importance of the project being situated in a city where many residents are facing economic struggles and poverty.
“If it can work here, it can work anywhere,” Hirsh-Pasek says. “Our projects can bring back social interaction, joy, living together, learning how to get along, and have the added benefit of prepping you a little bit more for what you’re gonna encounter in school. It’s revolutionizing what a city can be, what a child-friendly city means, and how we really give every citizen who lives in our cities a chance to thrive and be ready to go wherever they want to go.”
Corrections: Darnetta Arce is the leader of the Lower North Philadelphia Community Development Corporation. Also, these are the first playful learning in specifically affordable housing complexes in the nation (and Philly), not the first ones in general.
SHOWING UP FOR PHILADELPHIA CHILDREN
