Children 'need to play more to gain work skills'
Children will lack the work skills they need in the future because they are not spending enough time playing, a Lego executive has warned.
John Goodwin, head of Lego's charitable arm the Lego Foundation, said less time in the classroom and more time playing is the solution, BBC wrote.
The foundation has a 25 percent stake in the Danish toy maker, giving it a vested interest in encouraging play.
Goodwin admits there could be a perceived conflict of interest.
However, he said the foundation's aim is much broader.
Goodwin is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, the annual gathering of top business and political leaders, in a bid to persuade them of the importance of play.
He took over running the foundation last year after a spell as Lego's chief financial officer.
He hopes the Davos elite will put pressure on governments to make education more play-based.
If not, he believes companies will find it increasingly difficult to hire the type of staff they need: "Critical thinking and problem solving starts in early childhood development. It's where the foundations are laid."
Goodwin said technological advances, particularly the growth of the Internet, meant that knowledge itself had become obsolete.
Instead he said it was now more important to teach children how to learn, and work things out for themselves, with play being one way to achieve this goal.
Yet in a warning that will be familiar to many parents, the Lego Foundation chief said the ‘increasingly overscheduled world’ of children has resulted in less time for them to do so.
This could have ‘serious long term consequences’ for companies, he said.
Goodwin is not the first to warn about the issue: Several studies have linked a drop in play with negative consequences.
Dr. Peter Gray, a US psychologist and professor at Boston College, has argued that the fact children play less has led to an increase in childhood mental disorders including anxiety and depression, as well as a decline in empathy.
"In play, children themselves must decide what to do and how, and they must solve their own problems… and thereby develop competence and confidence," he wrote recently.
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and artist Paul Klee were also strong advocates of ‘block play’ for children, to help develop spacial awareness and imagination. They used Froedel Blocks as kids. Some firms are attempting to address the issue.