Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive

Pasi Sahlberg · William Doyle

Aug 2019 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Randye Kaye

About this audiobook

Play is how children explore, discover, fail, succeed, socialize, and flourish. It is a fundamental element of the human condition. It's the key to giving schoolchildren skills they need to succeed-skills like creativity, innovation, teamwork, focus, resilience, expressiveness, empathy, concentration, and executive function. Expert organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Centers for Disease Control agree that play and physical activity are critical foundations of childhood, academics, and future skills-yet politicians are destroying play in childhood education and replacing it with standardization, stress, and forcible physical restraint, which are damaging to learning and corrosive to society. But this is not the case for hundreds of thousands of lucky children who are enjoying the power of play in schools in China, Texas, Oklahoma, Long Island, Scotland, and in the entire nation of Finland. In Let the Children Play, Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish educator and scholar, and Fulbright Scholar William Doyle make the case for helping schools and children thrive by unleashing the power of play and giving more physical and intellectual play to all schoolchildren.

Ratings and reviews

Couldn't believe, there was still this kind of wisdom out there . Totally my concern . Can't tell my grown kids this enough .

Sounds like it is being read by a robot. Painful to listen to

About the author

Pasi Sahlberg is a professor of education policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. His books include Finnish Lessons 3.0 (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Education) and Hard Questions on Global Educational Change: Policies, Practices, and the Future of Education. Learn more at pasisahlberg.com.

William Doyle is a New York Times bestselling author and a TV producer for networks including HBO, the History Channel, and PBS. Since 2015 he has served as Fulbright Scholar, Scholar in Residence, and Lecturer on Media and Education at University of Eastern Finland.

Randye Kaye is an accomplished voice talent, actress, singer, broadcaster, and author. She received a Listen-Up Award nomination and starred reviews for Ben Behind His Voices, which she also wrote, bringing together the various facets of her career.