Children’s play and spirituality: Some issues for church school religious education
at primary level
Religious Education Journal of Australia. 28, 2, 10-15
Graham Rossiter, Australian Catholic University, Sydney
Abstract
This article results from an ongoing project reviewing recent academic writings on children’s
spirituality and primary school religious education mainly in church-related schools. It is not written as
a review, but as a response to issues that have been identified. It focuses on the place of play in
children’s spirituality and religious education. While the article does not refer to the wider literature on
children’s play, it proposes a summary interpretation that serves as a baseline both for affirming the
valuable place for play-based learning, and for speculating about potential problems. It offers
provisional cautions for teachers that might help make classroom practice involving children’s play
more effective educationally and more relevant to their emerging spirituality.
Key words
Play, children’s spirituality, religious education
Introduction
A project on reviewing recent academic writings on spirituality and religious education over the last
decade was begun in 2010 (Rossiter, 2010A, 2010B, 2011). This article is related to, but not a direct
report of, the study of writings on children’s spirituality and primary school religious education in
books and academic journals over the last decade. An initial reflection on this topic (Rossiter, 2012)
considered that these writings tended to concentrate on the psychological aspects like awe, wonder,
imagination, play, story etc. E.g. Champagne, 2003; Hay & Nye, 2006; Adams et al. 2008; Berryman
& Hyde, 2010. This literature makes a valuable contribution to understanding the human dimension to
children’s spirituality, complementing what has been written about religious development and the
development of personal faith (Roehlkepartain et al. 2006; Oser & Reich, 1996; Oser et al. 2006).
Rossiter (2012) proposed that what seemed missing in this literature was attention to the primal
socialising influence of parents/guardians – whether religious or not. In particular, it contrasted the
starting spiritualities of children from religious and relatively secular homes, acknowledging that the
majority of families with children at church-related schools in Australia are now in the latter category.
This contrast was then used to interpret the apparent conflict between what the literature described as
the responsive spirituality of children and the secular spirituality of many youth. The perspective
developed in that article provided a useful starting point for identifying issues and potential problems in
content and pedagogy in primary school religious education.
What follows will look at the place of children’s play in their spirituality and religious education. The
purpose here is not to report what has been written about this topic in the literature, but rather to
signpost some questions that have surfaced in a review of this literature, and to suggest how teachers
might address them. The article begins with some preliminary, perspective-giving, remarks about
children’s play and its relevance to learning and spirituality generally, as well as about the distinctive
sorts of learning that are expected in schools.
The function of children’s play in their spirituality and its place in primary school religious
education
Berryman and Hyde (2010) proposed “the centrality and necessity of play in religious education for
both children and adults” (p.36) and the “grounding [of] religious education in the creative process
centering around play.” (p. 41). They made the strongest case in the recent academic literature for a
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central place for play in both children’s spirituality and primary school religious education, especially in
the early years. Useful links to the wider literature are given by Berryman & Hyde, 2010; and Hyde,
2009. These authors have provided a systematic, coherent and well-argued account of children’s play
including psychological, theological and educational dimensions. Their special focus is on the Godly
play Biblical storytelling pedagogy. Hymans (1996) and Grajczonek & Hanifin (2007) provided a more
general account of a place for play in children’s religious education.
It is important to understand psychologically how play can be a significant component of children's
learning both with respect to their own spirituality, and to religious education. An appraisal of what
counts as play is needed to judge whether statements like those quoted above warrant more follow up,
or whether they overestimate the significance of play. Without doubt, playing is fundamental to young
children’s behaviour and learning about life, and it is therefore likely to have a valuable place in
learning at home, in child care and pre-school institutions, and in a local community of faith. But there
remain questions about whether it should be used as a principal pedagogy in the primary school which
may need to give more prominence to other strategies for teaching and learning, with a diminishing role
for playing as such.
What is children’s play?
Children’s play is an imaginative interlude in which they jointly engage with any one or more people,
animals, objects and activities, to create behaviour that is fun and enjoyable. Play is what children do.
Play is a fundamental category in children’s behaviour that naturally resists reduction to components; it
remains fundamental to humans throughout their lives. It has biological precedents in animal play.
Children’s play is diverse and it can be interpreted as having different functions. It is a way of
exploring the world and learning new behaviours (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). Since they were first
able to examine objects closely by putting them into their mouths as babies, children have a strong
natural drive to explore their immediate surroundings and relate to the people, animals and objects they
encounter. Play emerges as their explorations become more structured and repetitive, and especially
when they become pleasurable and fun. Play both satisfies, and is driven by, children’s natural curiosity
and inquisitiveness; they want to explore and become familiar with their emerging world. Play is
central to children’s capacity to feel good. Children play because they want to enjoy themselves. As
children get a little older, play can also be motivated by their need to understand why things are the way
they are; in this way, play helps them make sense of their experience – like their first steps in
constructing meaning (Arthur et al., 2005; Hedges, 2000). They are always asking “Why?”
Children love to mimic their parents, family and any others in their immediate world, including animals.
Young children play when they join with their family (parents and or siblings) and others in fun
activities. They also learn skills and behaviour patterns through play: For example, firstly they see a
new situation; they observe and pay attention; they copy the action; they repeat it over and over, until
satisfied that the new capability is now part of their repertoire, or until they lose interest; then they
move on to a new activity. Often they will make repetition part of a game – for example, getting those
involved to take turns.
Essential for authentic play “is the lack of compulsion, or obligation, to engage in play. Play is
voluntary and spontaneous; it is pleasurable and played for itself. It involves a deep engagement on the
part of the players” (Berryman & Hyde 2010, p.35). Engagement of the imagination, to be considered
in more detail in a later article, is also a central element in children’s play. Play has a
virtual/imaginative quality – often intermediate between reality and fantasy. Sometimes the words “you
are playing a game” is intended to point out subterfuge or hiding the truth.
When play becomes more structured and rules are constructed for its conduct and organisation, it
becomes a game (Berryman & Hyde, 2010, p. 36). Competition readily enters into games whether the
individual is competing with self or with others. An extension to competitive sport is then readily
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made. Competition is likely to impact more and more on the life world of children at an ever increasing
pace. There is a need for educators to encourage children to think about excellence and quality in their
work as valuable in their own right, and that this is more important than competition – scoring better
than their peers. In a society where competition and consumerism will fuel a number of personal and
social problems (as well as affecting schools), care is needed so that competition is not instilled into
children at an early age through overemphasis of the competitive element (Hill, 1991, p.3).
There is an adage: When it stops being fun, it is no longer play. This view of play suggests that fun and
entertainment are essential to play, and if not, then the character of the activity is changed. This will
have educational implications where there is too much emphasis on entertainment as a condition for
learning.
Perhaps the most common word that children themselves would associate with play is ‘toys’.
Imaginative playing with toys is fundamental in their play. They can relate to stuffed toy animals as if
they were real people – talking to them, expressing affection, taking them for walks, keeping them
warm, etc. It is unlikely that they think these toys are alive in the same sense that they and their family
are alive; but imaginatively they can readily treat their toys as if they were alive in some sense. Toys
populate their world with imagination-enhanced figures that help them both enjoy and make sense of
life and keep them company. They may repeat or reprise past actions and events with their toys (like
putting them to bed, feeding them etc.). Similarly, non-toy objects can be used in a toy-like way,
mimicking their use by parents and others do (E.g. a pre-verbal, 11 month old child putting a mobile
phone to her ear and making noises; or pressing a button on the remote control and then looking up to
see if something happens on the TV screen.). Children can manipulate toys to explore new situations
and circumstances using their imagination.
How does children’s play relate to their spirituality, learning and school education?
It seems reasonable to conclude that one should be reluctant to invoke the notions of spiritual,
spirituality, religion and religiosity for interpreting children’s behaviour until they are old enough
mentally to have some idea of what the words ‘spirit’, ‘spiritual’, ‘creator’, ‘creation’, ‘God’, etc. can
mean; and until they are capable of understanding something basic about what the child’s religious
tradition says about these ideas. And it may be difficult to identify just when these competencies
emerge. For example, well before they understand the spiritual terms, children may mimic the
religious/spiritual behaviour of parents and others in their immediate families. They can acquire
religious behaviours before they know what the spiritual/religious dimension means. So almost
imperceptibly they are socialised into primal understandings about religion and God; or they may be
socialised into understanding life without any reference to religion (Rossiter, 2012).
It is both unrealistic and inappropriate to project an adult spiritual/religious awareness onto children
before it has developed. Their first steps in engaging with religious stories and religious practice may
be better interpreted in terms of basic age-appropriate psychological capacities – for example: the
ordinary feelings of pleasure, fun, curiosity, inquisitiveness, repetition, behavioural achievement etc. It
is difficult to judge just when young children’s natural urge to understand their immediate world
becomes the construction of personal meaning, in the same way this is understood for older children and
adolescents. However, it is still appropriate to interpret these psychological capacities as pre-spiritual,
pre-cursors to the spiritual, or proto-spiritual – reflecting the view that humans have a genetic capacity
for the spiritual. Educators’ being cautious about a religious interpretation of behaviour and thinking
becomes less of an issue as children grow older and can understand talk about the spiritual and God.
How play can contribute to spiritual development is mainly dependent on how children learn through
play. Links between play, learning and spiritual development are explored in detail in the writings of
Berryman and Hyde noted above. Below, attention will be given to the way in which primary school
religious education enters into this equation.
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For children, there is a strong link between play and the collection of feelings including fun,
entertainment, enjoyment, absorption in activity and feeling good. If children learn through play, then
such learning is also inevitably linked to fun and entertainment etc. This poses a problem for the place
of play in primary school religious education. One of the difficulties in addressing this problem is that
the word ‘learning’ is often used without qualification; it has become a buzzword. ‘Promoting
children’s learning’ it the new educational ‘motherhood statement’. Correspondingly, there is less
emphasis on the word ‘teaching’ (Moran, 2006). It seems that as long as children are ‘learning’ – no
matter what they might happen to be learning – everything is all right. There is a similar problem where
some educators think that as long as children are using computers, then it is ‘learning’. In the broad
sense of the word ‘learning’, people learn all the time throughout their lives. So if its meaning is not
delimited to ‘learning in particular contexts’, then learning tends to become equivalent to the whole of
life. The precision in its educational meaning is compromised, and it functions like a cliché that
everyone agrees with, and which excuses them from having to articulate exactly what sort of learning is
intended.
Play can generate different types of learning. What is important to this discussion is clarity about what
school classroom learning involves so that the potential contribution of children's play can be appraised.
For preschool children, there is no doubt that a significant amount of their learning language and motor
skills can proceed through play. But when children go to primary school, the commonly accepted views
of the nature and purpose of schools suggest that they are to be socialised into a new type of learning
community that opens them to significant new sorts of learning that are essentially associated with
literacy and numeracy. This has the general purpose of helping them learn to become well informed
about their heritage of intellectual culture and to learn how to think critically. Given this view, there
will be a natural need to progress from the extensive volume of learning, time consumption and
entertainment through their previously unrestricted children's play towards children's school-work. And
in church school religious education this will require specific knowledge/understanding outcomes
related to the Christian tradition. But such a transition needs to be careful not to neglect the reality that
play-based activities can provide concrete, experiential reference points for the learning of new
knowledge and skills. Hopefully, what children learn at school will be incorporated into their learning
from life – their capacity to learn better from their life experience and how to address life with more self
confidence in their own capacities (Austin et al., 2003). Hopefully too, cultivating this new type of
learning can result in children’s experiencing that it too can be interesting, engaging and even enjoyable
– while not thinking that because it is enjoyable, it must be play!
Children new to school need to understand that there is a lot to be learned about life and participation in
society, but the acquisition of knowledge and skills here will not be just the same sort of learning they
have been accustomed to in play. This does not mean that play-based activities cannot be a valuable
component of school education; but if play is over emphasised or got out of perspective, then children
could be socialised into an unrealistic feeling that intellectual work is unnecessary or is only appropriate
when it is entertaining, playful and enjoyable. Teachers should therefore avoid giving the impression
that school is for play. If not, this could jeopardise children’s acceptance that intellectual work was
central to the school education.
Progress in literacy, numeracy and critical thinking needs to be experienced by children as not just ‘fun
and games’ but as a competencies to be mastered – much like the way effort and training are needed for
competence in sport. Ironically, it could be through competitive sport where children learn that
competence and skills require work and effort – and this applies as much to school work as it does to
sport.
Naturally, play in the classroom will generate a lot of entertainment and enjoyment for children. There
is nothing intrinsically wrong with enjoyable aspects to academic learning. But too much attention
should not be given to this linkage. School learning is also about self-discipline, and learning skills,
many of which require repetition and practice. With excessive emphasis on play, children may feel that
things should always come easily for them without much effort or commitment on their part. They
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could also come to expect that the role of the teacher revolved around provision of entertainment. This
could handicap progress in academic learning. It also puts unwanted pressure on the teachers – as if
they needed to become be ‘fifth wiggle’ to be successful in promoting children's learning.
Hence one of the goals for primary school religious education pedagogies should be inclining children
to develop satisfaction and pride in their learning. This should outweigh concerns about making it
entertaining. Hopefully the result would be a balanced place for play within a broad range of
pedagogies.
Further on this point, it is valuable to note that within the Australian government’s Early Childhood
Learning Framework (DEEWR, 2009) there is an expected emphasis on children’s learning through
play. However, right after the section on ‘play’ is one on ‘intentional teaching’. Of the 23 times the
word ‘teaching’ is used in the document, ‘intentional teaching’ is specified in 10 cases. Similarly, in the
related Teachers’ guide book (DEEWR, 2010), 19 of the 64 references to teaching include the phrase
‘intentional teaching’. These documents imply that while play may be the central mechanism for
learning in early childhood, intentional pedagogical interventions should become increasingly relevant.
In turn, this seems to have significant implications for assessing the appropriate place for play-based
learning in the primary school.
This cautionary thinking about the place of play is not to imply that authentic intellectual learning has to
be dull and boring; but it is making the fundamental point that it cannot always be purely playful and
entertaining. There is little doubt that children are always learning through playing, but the crucial
questions for educators are what can they learn in the way of content, skills and dispositions through
play-like educational activities, and a determination of whether this is the most appropriate and efficient
way of their learning particular items by contrast with other non play-like pedagogies.
It could be useful when steering away from potential problems like the above not to use the word ‘play’.
Rather, words like ‘experiential’, ‘hands on’, ‘imaginative’, ‘creative’, ‘interesting’ and ‘engaging’ etc.
could be used to describe pedagogy. Such usage is less inclined to equate the classroom with play.
It could be expected that the extent to which children’s play might be part of the religious education
curriculum should parallel its relevance to primary school curriculum generally.
Examples of issues identified in the literature related to the place of play in children’s religious
education
1.
Unrealistic projection of an adult spiritual / religious competence onto children
This problem, considered earlier, appears to be evident in the quotations in Table 1. The text in the left
column is taken from an interpretation of a three year old boy’s participation in Godly play, while the
right column proposes an alternative interpretation in basic psychological terms.
Table 1.
Contrasting interpretations of a 3 year old child’s participation in a Godly play session
Interpretation of a 3 year old child’s behaviour
from a spiritual/religious perspective (Hyde, 2010, p.
509)
Daniel using the Parable of the Good Shepherd Godly play
materials
“With care, he unpacked the contents of the parable box.
Slowly and deliberately, he manipulated the pieces of the
presentation. In particular, he took great care in placing each
of the sheep.”
“The care with which he displayed in moving of the pieces
Interpretation from the perspective of children’s
ordinary inquisitive, curious, play behaviour
This is normal, ordinary behaviour by inquisitive, curious
children. They would show this same sort of careful
handling of most objects E.g. TV remote control, their own
toys, pets and even food items on a plate. It seems
unrealistic and unnecessary to interpret such behaviour as
spiritual.
Absorption in the immediate activity is common in any
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suggests that, for him at that moment in time, nothing else
existed outside of this activity.”
children’s play. (DEEWR, 2010)
“He was in the process of making meaning from this parable.
. . For Daniel it seemed that this particular presentation held
particular significance. He was searching for that
significance by revisiting the parable and manipulating the
materials.”
The child may just have been enjoying play with toys used in
the story; he was ‘replaying’ the action repetitively as
children do to ‘master’ this new item in his repertoire. This
contributes to the child’s knowledge and experience of the
world; but it may be beyond his mental capacity at this age
to have ideas about the ‘life meaning’ and ‘spiritual
significance’ of the story, apart from the simple idea of the
shepherd caring for the sheep just as the child cares for his
toys.
“Throughout his engagement in this activity, Daniel did not
speak. He looked intently at the materials as he maneuvered
them, slowly and deliberately. He was engaged in seriously
playful play, which carried with it a sense of sacredness,
which he honoured through silence and reverence.”
Silent, deliberate engagement in play with toys is natural and
common in children of this age. It is unnecessary to invoke
ideas of ‘sacredness’ and spiritual ‘reverence’ to explain the
behaviour; to do so appears to be projecting an adult
awareness onto children that is beyond their spiritual
competence at that age. The description ‘spiritually
responsive’ should not be used when behaviour is more
likely to be a simple expression of children’s natural
curiosity and inquisitiveness.
2.
Determining an appropriate emphasis for play in primary school religious education
Berryman and Hyde (2010, and in other publications Berryman, 1991, 2002, 2009; Hyde, 2008, 2009,
2010), proposed two things about children’s play in spirituality and religious education. Firstly they
used play/game as an overarching metaphor or framework for interpreting the way an individual
communicates with God in religious experience and storytelling. They also used it to interpret the work
of the Christian church, as well as liturgy and religious education. Like the use of any metaphor (E.g.
revelation, story, ministry etc.) in a scheme to interpret such a range of aspects, ‘game’ will have both
strengths and limitations. Secondly, they endorsed wide use of play as a pedagogy in children’s
religious education, especially in the early years.
Berryman and Hyde’s ideas about play generally, and about Godly play in particular, seem well placed
for early years, pre-school religious education in the home and especially in the local faith community.
But treating it as a principal approach in primary school religious education seems to be stretching its
significance beyond capacity. Here, the need for a less play-like orientation, together with children’s
rapidly developing cognitive and interpretive capacities would seem to eclipse, or at least cut back
significantly, the applicability of the Godly play principles.
As discussed earlier, educative play in primary school religious education needs specific religious
knowledge outcomes, without necessarily endorsing all aspects of what is involved in the ‘outcomes
movement’ in religious education (Ryan, 1998). An over-estimation of the significance of play in
religious education appears in Hyde’s (2009, p.37) claim that “when . . . play is substituted with
activities emanating from a directive based on power, as opposed to an invitation, which are more
concerned with the attainment of predetermined outcomes, than with genuine play for its own intrinsic
worth . . . dangerous games are instigated which can stifle both the spirituality of children and their
learning in religious education.” This view unnecessarily contrasts knowledge outcomes and play as if
they appeared incompatible, and tends to dismiss the responsibility for knowledge outcomes in
curriculum development as an exercise of unwanted power over children’s play. Hyde (2009, p.41)
negatively labelled attempts to have learning outcomes from play as ‘pseudoplay’. “Activities such as
problem solving, language learning, and the like are being disguised as genuine play, but are effectually
concerned with the attainment of predetermined outcomes. In other words, it is pseudoplay, rather than
genuine play.”
Problems can easily arise related to the association of educational play with fun and entertainment. As
suggested earlier, it will be helpful to use alternative language with precision to minimise this difficulty.
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For example, the following:
Teachers use pedagogies that engage children in experiential, hands-on learning activities that are
enjoyable and entertaining for the children as well as instrumental to their learning new knowledge,
ideas, principles and/or skills. Such experiential pedagogy may be play-based and/or involve games
or game-like actions. This can result in the same sort of engagement observed in children's play,
and it may also carry the same sort of enjoyment as does children's play. But primary school
education's use of play-based teaching and learning needs clear differentiation.
This sort of language differentiation is reflected in the summary by Thomas & Grajczonek (20011, p.
76) “The work of teachers is to teach and the work of children is to play. Play is a pedagogical tool
drawn on by teachers to support children's learning, but for children, play is what they do.” However,
what needs to be added here is that children's specifically school classroom learning (distinguished
from the much broader learning about life), which is mainly of an intellectual type, involves what can
be called ‘academic work’. And this academic work requires the exercise of discipline and the
development of skills. Making a transition from children's play to children's academic work is one of
the basic goals of the primary school.
It is noted that this understanding of a school’s academic work and the use of the words ‘intellectual
culture’ and ‘critical thinking’ do not neglect or minimise its capacity to educate with respect to
emotions, imagination, the aesthetic, and creativity (often labelled as the affective domain), as well as to
attitudes, values, beliefs and commitments (the volitional domain). This question is explained in detail
in Crawford & Rossiter (2006, pp. 283-292).
Conclusion
The ongoing task of appraising what has been written in the recent academic religious education
literature has left this author with an impression of much excellent work that has usefully filled out
educators’ understanding of the psychological dimension to children’s spirituality and of pedagogical
implications. At the same time, this has prompted a response drawing attention to some potential
problem areas. Hopefully this will contribute to ongoing debate and further research that helps refine
understandings of children’s spirituality and about how this can be enhanced by religious education.
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