wooliebear:

“The world has wasted a total of 200,000 years playing the Angry Birds game - much of that in the last 12 months alone. Just imagine what we could have accomplished if that time was spent productively.”

—

Fareed Zakaria’s facebook status (via almaswithinalmas)

You’ve seen me use the word puritanicalism before, and this is a perfect example of America’s relationships with work and with leisure.  American puritanicalism tells us that all of our time must be productive.  Productive time does stuff: it cooks or cleans, it balances checkbooks or makes slide presentations, it engineers bridges or fixes potholes.  We come to believe that play is wrong, that we aren’t allowed to have fun.  So we Americans take vacations, and we bring our Blackberry and laptop with us.  We answer work-related calls instead of being in the moment with those we love.  And we never, ever, ever play.

The truth of the matter is that play is tremendously important, for children and for adults.  When we insist that all of our time must be productive — defined in such limiting ways — then we exclude intuition and creativity, which are such amazing gifts.  When we never let ourselves play, our brains never get to take a break, and we get sick.  Play is important.  True leisure is absolutely critical.  It is in these times of rest or relaxation when our minds come up with truly amazing answers.

Puritanicalism poisons our roots. It kills the very things we need to grow and thrive, like relaxation and play.  It also tells us that nudity always equals sexuality, that drinking alcohol is always wrong, and that we must always be wary or even fearful that not only are our actions good and right but our thoughts be also.

Yeah, it’s possible to indulge too much in play, to be truly lazy or slothful.  But it’s really hard to find Americans who do this.  We’re all too afraid that God will hurl down lightning bolts upon us for not keeping all our time productive.

Ignore Mr. Zakaria.  Go play some more Angry Birds or World of Warcraft or,  my favorite game lately, Glitch.  Give your mind and body a rest.  You’ll be amazed how much it does for you.

(via undercovernun)

Well done Wooliebear. Well done. My only addition would be to also consider playing without a screen in front of you. Get the blankets out, it’s fort time. Tape up some cardboard boxes, because you need a rocket ship. Get a red rubber ball, because, well, you can do lots of things with a red rubber ball.

Source: almaswithinalmas

Fitting In Exercise, Between Math and English

Amid budget cuts and testing pressures, some New York teachers and principals have stretched money, space and time to prioritize movement during the school day.

Here is a choice quote from the article:

Principals and other education officials say the combination of budget cuts and testing pressures have relegated physical education to the dispensable category, despite city and federal efforts to combat obesity and improve health by promoting nutritious foods and frequent exercise.

Source: The New York Times

wadcity:

A few months ago, I donated a meager amount to a Kickstarter project called Swings: Bolivia that was, surprise, organized around installing make-shift swings throughout Bolivia. I liked it because it was a playful idea, philosophical, a little arty, and just plain fun.

For my donation, I got to essentially sponsor a swing, and to choose what to write on the bottom of it. My custom message was simply “hacia el cielo” which I hope means “to the sky” or “skyward.” I used Google Translate, so you never know.

In any case, I just got an email from the project leads with these photos of “my” swing and the following message:

Here’s your swing! We hung while we were on a 20 kilometer trek from Chulumani to Irupana. It overlooks the valleys in a way that’s best described as AWESOME. 

I’m just at a loss for words. So cool.

VERY cool.

Intense focus on one sport and adult-driven pressures to perform are taking their psychological toll on children, causing concentration problems, fatigue, and irritability. In fact, the trend toward starting kids in organized sports at younger ages isn’t necessarily setting the stage for an active lifestyle later on in life — 70 percent of kids give up sports entirely by age 13. When asked by Michigan State University researchers why they quit sports, kids almost universally said, “It’s not fun anymore.

Darell Hammond: Are Team Sports Hurting Our Children?

One of three points KaBOOM! CEO Darell Hammond makes in his latest blog on the Huffington Post.

Source: The Huffington Post

When you’re planning a tea party, you can’t be acting like a fighter pilot. You have to be acting like a lady having a tea party. So pretending is one of the earliest types of exposure most kids get to planning and organizing their actions. And the more you practice that, the better you’re going to be at it.
Two neuroscientists explain how playtime actually can help you immensely later in life. (via nprfreshair)

(via nprfreshair)