Peter Gray

I'm very happy to be here.

Yeah, so there were two young children, maybe around six years old, very happily taking a couple of some of the very narrow boards and laying them out on the grass.

And

walking along them like they were walking on a tightrope and pretending that this was a very narrow bridge and there were crocodiles on either side.

And it was a very imaginative game.

They were clearly having a lot of fun.

And the dad, I assume it was the dad, at least of one of the two,

came over and said, that's not what you're supposed to do with the boards.

We're supposed to be building something with the boards.

See, there's hammer and nails here.

And then he proceeded to take the boards and to start showing the children how to pound with hammer and nails.

And what I observed is the children suddenly changed from really very happy and playful to quite bored as they watched their father show them how to pound nails into boards.

She was feeling very bad for her sixth graders.

They're still children, really.

You know, they're 11 and 12 years old at most, and they're indoors all the school day.

They don't have any recess at all.

So

she thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if I at least gave them half an hour to play before school starts?

Some of them arrived early anyway.

And it turns out they arrived eagerly early when she provided that play opportunity.