Kids Need To Play

So said the new head of a once-venerable child-study research center poised to rise again.

A lifelong child advocate and, most recently, an executive with an international publisher of educational assessment products, Dr. Marcy Guddemi is the new executive director of Gesell Institute on Prospect Street. She is determined to ​“make some noise” about how not to turn kids off to reading and to learning in general.

Gesell, named after Arnold Gesell, a pioneer in the field of child growth and development, once had 30 physicians doing school readiness tests out of its offices in a big beautiful Victorian on Prospect Street at Edwards. Its mission then, and now, is to work with parents and teachers to appreciate and promote the principal that growth in young children occurs at varied rates and is rushed only at developmental peril.

The institute laid the foundation with extensive longitudinal studies of how children learn and develop. (On the shelf behind Guddemi is likely one of Dr. Gesell’s original cameras; in her hand are original glass slides taken by Margaret Mead.) Then the institute fell on hard economic times. Even after Dr. Gesell’s colleagues set up, based on his work, the forerunner organization to the Yale Child Study Center, the institute in the 1990s was forced to sell its building to Yale. It now rents from the university and has only three employees.

Dr. Guddemi, with a background in business as well as child development, is on board to start making some important educational noise once again. In a chat with the Independent, she said she is eager to use New Haven as a laboratory again for programs of national significance, and about the importance of recess and other opportunities for kids to play during the day.

Independent: You could have landed in many places. Why did you choose Gesell in New Haven?
Guddemi: I’m very passionate about this place. Dr. Gessel’s research laid the foundation for everything that’s occurring today. Today’s brain research on the development of kids, a hot topic, derives from the foundational work he did with this camera. The time’s ripe for early childhood education to take its rightful place. The research shows that an early childhood teacher is often more influential than a high school teacher.

What about the issue of play and recess, recently a hot topic in the New Haven Public Schools?
Boy, am I glad you asked that. I happen to be treasurer of the International Association for the Child’s Right to Play. It’s based on 1961 and 1989 United Nations Documents, the Convention of the Rights of Children. Do you know that the U.S. and only two other countries are the only non-signers?

Why in the world haven’t we signed? And I don’t want to ask who the other non-signers are.
I don’t know for sure, maybe because it grants rights to the unborn child, and some critics think it takes rights away from the parent. I don’t know; it’s never been able to pass the Congress.

So tell me your thinking on the right to play.
Unstructured play, all the research shows, promotes all kinds of achievement. Look, we are about to issue a DVD called ​“Ready for Kindergarten.” With the pressure in schools, some kindergartens are forcing kids to do things inappropriate for the age and they are turning kids off. Do you know the most important thing that should occur in kindergarten?

I hope you’ll tell me.
That kids be happy about being in kindergarten, that they feel positive about school and reading. In short, that kids love school. Too many, however, are being turned off early.

Why?

Let me answer with a question: We have the research, incontrovertible, when the average age is that kids learn to read. What do you think it is? The answer is 6.5 years. That means half the kids learn to read before, half after. To force a young child to read when he’s neurologically, developmentally not ready … well, we all will be paying for that. Oh, and the research also shows that there’s no significant difference by third grade in the achievement of kids whether they learned to read early or late.

So the lesson is?
The lesson is that parents and especially schools need to know these things. Schools need to be ready for the kids, to tailor learning and the classroom to what the kids need. Kids and their inherent development will occur, at their own rate. Look, these things aren’t new, but we are going to reanimate this conversation.

What do you think specifically about the absence of real recess and the Take 10!, exercise-by-your seat program, which conditions are prevailing in many area schools?
To repeat, all the research shows kids do better in every way, yes, on tests, and socially, when they play. Take 10! isn’t a substitute for normal play. Neither is a physical education class. I went to Japan recently and the stereotype of a highly restricted life there for kids doesn’t apply. We found kids under the age of 7 are let alone to explore a lot. After the age of 7 they alternate an hour of intense study with an hour of free play. That makes developmental sense.

Will you be bringing some of the issues directly to New Haven’s public schools?
Yes. I’m just getting connected with the area school readiness council, and I’ll be working with Dr. Tina Mannarino of the NHPS who’s in charge of Head Start, pre‑K, school readiness programs. Gesell is going to be offering two courses. One for college credit based on Dr. Gesell’s philosophy of early childhood, and we will also be providing ten seminars beginning in January for all the coordinators of the teachers in the Head Start and other early childhood programs. I think she’s on the same page as we are on the professionalization of standards for pre‑K teachers. You know most places you don’t need a college degree to teach pre‑K. But, as I say, teachers at this level, are arguably more important than high school. I know a lot about Head Start and moving the system so that every head teacher has a degree and the knowledge of how kids learn is what Tina wants to do too, I think.

Anything you want to add?
Only to repeat that many of our approaches in the schools are not working. I’ve got a niece who learned to read early but hates it now. What’s the point of raising young readers who hate to read. I’ve been hired to announce again that Gessel is alive and, yes, we’ve been quiet for a decade, but the time is ripe to make some noise.