Play in Education, Leisure, and Life. Interview with Ekaterina Andreevskaya.

I have always been drawn to the world of children. I worked as a camp counselor in a wellness summer camp and derived immense pleasure from interacting with children. There was something genuine and sincere about it, a completely different kind of time-being. I won't hide the fact that children really loved me, and that was even more inspiring. We constantly came up with various games. The only difficulty was finding time for us, counselors, to sleep :) If someone felt really tired, we would let a partner take a nap and play the "Search for the Missing Counselor" quest with the children. The engagement was one hundred percent! However, even after spending all my university summers in the camp, I never thought about choosing a job related to children.

Everything changed with the birth of my first child. My daughter turned my world upside down! I started immersing myself in a completely different reality and began to notice the parenting issues that simply did not exist for me before.

The idea of creating my own children's project grew out of my need to take children to the "right place." Generally, I am convinced that the best things we do, we do for our children. In that distant year of 2009 in St. Petersburg, there were only two types of establishments - classic museums and crazy amusement parks. Neither of them satisfied me as a mother. I wanted to create a meaningful, kind play space where children could learn something new while behaving naturally. After my camp counseling experience, I knew for sure that, for children, the natural way is through play.

My children (at that time, I already had two) helped with the idea of the first space. When we read fairy tales, they would ask where a particular character lived and if we could visit them. That's how the museum-theater "Sazkin Dom" was born. In 2019, it celebrated its 10th anniversary. Following it, the Museum of Entertaining Sciences "LabyrinthUm" and the City of Professions "Kidburg" appeared. My life became definitively connected with children's projects.

"Sazkin Dom," "LabyrinthUm," and "Kidburg" were initially created as "anti-school" projects: you can play with us, not at school. You can touch, study, explore, try, and, most importantly, choose your own activity with us. School did not provide such an opportunity. The variety of play opportunities in "Kidburg" is huge - a child can really do what genuinely interests them.

Initially, the projects were created by us, oriented towards our children, I would even say for our children. And, of course, I can definitely say that children who have been through the "school" of "Sazkin Dom," "LabyrinthUm," "Kidburg" received what I call a “vaccination of normality”. The influence on their formation and development is obvious. The play approach engages and allows them to unleash their creative potential, develop imagination, and thinking.

I think such "right" places have undoubtedly played and continue to play a significant role in shaping the skills and qualities of my children and many others. The most important of these skills is the desire to leave a mark, to cause some consequence of their actions, to create movement around them! They possess the skill of motivating themselves to create something new. For me, this is the most important.

Education in the modern world is much more than simply acquiring knowledge and mastering ordered and sequential actions. Education encompasses everything that happens to a child on the path to adulthood, shaping their personality. Schools, colleges, and universities have long transcended the confines of their buildings. To be in demand, to have an occupation that brings not only income but also joy and pleasure, to adapt to constant changes, and still manage to live in the "here and now" – these are just a few of the challenges facing our children, the graduates.

Education tackles complex tasks such as combining hard skills and soft skills, making the learning process effective and modern, evaluating results, and, most importantly, making the learning process exciting, and inspiring children to "want something in life."

The foundation of any education is motivation. From my family and professional experience, I can say that the strongest motivator is interest. Moreover, if we talk about children, their entire essence is in doing what genuinely interests them. A child will never stop doing what truly excites them. It's essential to understand, accept, and utilize this in education.

My personal attitude toward school has always been cautious. It seemed to me that something was wrong with the system, that school did not harness the STRONG aspects of childhood. Instead of nurturing curiosity (which is present in every child and can be easily developed), the school introduces a slew of restrictions and rules. Instead of fueling the natural desire to explore the world, the school provides information that does not help in the process of exploring the world. Often, school extinguishes the most natural thing in children – curiosity. However, I know many wonderful teachers who instil a love for their subject, and I salute them. But I am talking about the school as a whole. Unfortunately, there are more adults working on the principle of "this is how it should be." Apparently, that's what the system teaches. For a teacher today, breaking free from the system is always a challenge, and if there is no support from the principal, it's even more challenging. It should be the other way around! Teachers should rejoice in the process of learning together with children, kindle the sparks of talents and abilities, and use a child's natural inclination to play and innate curiosity – and this should not go against the system.

Fortunately, such schools have begun to appear in our country. The leadership of such schools shares the values I mentioned earlier and transmits them to the teachers. At the same time, it's important to understand that children there don't play endlessly in whatever they want, no. The academic workload is quite substantial, but at the same time, the school manages to make the learning process joyful. Such schools succeed in harnessing the strengths of childhood.

Natural curiosity and interest are two resources that are present in children in unlimited quantities. How to use them? It's not difficult – with the help of a child's natural need for play. Play is an amazing tool for education, and all our projects are built on the foundation of play. Learning through play is the most natural and (!!!) the simplest way we can support curiosity and interest. The play-based approach to education is a wonderful way to convey knowledge, competencies, and skills through creating experiences and emotions, and it works. Knowledge, accompanied by experience, is remembered, and associative memory works this way.

Skills highly demanded in the modern world are, essentially, practiced in play.

Creativity, craftsmanship, thoughtfulness, decision-making, teamwork, independence, self-regulation, self-organization, cooperation, systematic and critical thinking, and other skills are honed through play. Play can be directed, organized; it has rules and an acceptable "code" of behavior. The motivation for exploration in play is extremely high, and the acquisition of skills happens naturally. Having mastered playful methodologies, the process of education can and should be made interesting.

What is also important is for the place of education to be a place where children are welcomed, where a friendly atmosphere prevails, and where adults are smiling. The place of acquiring knowledge and developing skills should be a place of JOY. Transmitting knowledge and developing skills from a state of joy is half the success in creating motivation. Often, everything that adults are dissatisfied with in children's behavior turns out to be absolutely necessary skills in adult life. This is crucial! If a boy shows exceptional ingenuity in attempting to disrupt a lesson, then in adult life, his exceptional ingenuity will undoubtedly help him (forgive me, teachers, for such an example). If he tires everyone endlessly with his questions, then in adult life, this quality will help develop critical thinking. If he insists on his way, truthfully or untruthfully, constantly shaking the boundaries of accepted norms, then in adult life, his desire to achieve his goals will help him succeed.



Ekaterina Andreevskaya,

Partner at the KidsForce creative bureau