Keynote speaker Michael Hynes treated a small group of school administrators and leaders to witness an honest conversation with fellow school superintendent Danny Merck.  While Dr. Hynes oversees an urban New York school district of close to 6,000 students, Dr. Merck is superintendent in rural Pickens County, South Carolina, serving more than 16,000 students.

School Administrators Round Table:
A Conversation with Michael Hynes & Danny Merck

Both passionate play and recess advocates influenced by their respective experiences in Finland, these two superintendents pulled back the curtain on the challenges they are grappling with to ensure our children will still have play and recess when they return to school. They talked about their philosophies and discuss nuts and bolts about what they HOPE can happen while being realistic with their plans and considerations. It was an organic dialogue with aimed to “workshop ideas” that will help other school administrators and leaders struggling with the pressures of the pandemic slide and the desire to support the basic needs of our children.

Danny Merck, Ed. D., has 28 years of experience as an educator in South Carolina public schools. He is a former member of the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee and is in his fifth year as superintendent of the School District of Pickens County.  Dr. Merck returned from Finland in Fall 2018 and began implementing increased play and recess opportunities in several elementary schools in the district with impressive results in the classroom.  Wanting to give that professional experience to as many as he could in his district, Dr. Merck then hosted 14 Finnish educators from the Oulu University Teacher Training School, who offered professional learning to more than 700 teachers and administrators in his district over the course of 9 days.

Michael Hynes, Ed. D., is an educator, scholar, and thought leader. As a superintendent of public schools on Long Island, New York, it is his mission to spread the importance of a holistic approach to educating children. Dr. Hynes is also an Associate Professor at Long Island University/Post and Stony Brook University, teaching courses in School Law, Curriculum and Instruction and School Leadership and has published numerous articles and podcasts on school leadership and his belief in public education.  His article “Kids Need Play and Recess: Their Mental Health Depends on It” was #1 for 2018 in EDUCATION WEEK. Dr. Hynes is author of the newly released best-selling book “Staying Grounded: 12 Principles to Transform School Leader Effectiveness.”

Below is the full video of the conversation, recorded live on Zoom, June 18, 2020 – “School Administrators Round Table: A Conversation with Michael Hynes & Danny Merck.”

Please note that this conversation occurred before either superintendent knew what the plan for the new school year would be in their districts.  

Want to see more great online professional development content like this?!
Join the 2020 Online Conference on the Value of Play through December 15.

The Conference on the VALUE of Play
The Play Conference, as it is commonly known, is an annual educational conference presented by the US Play Coalition. The latest research and practices in the field of play are presented at the conference, which brings together play researchers, park and recreation professionals, educators, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians and parents from across the U.S. and beyond. The three day event has been moved ONLINE for 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It is our first-ever online Play Conference!  Learn more at usplaycoalition.org/playconference2020

As schools reopen, it is important to remember that recess is an essential component of an educational approach that considers the whole child.  A supportive school recess plan can benefit both students and teachers, back from months of interrupted routines, boredom, loneliness, family stress, anxiety and often a lack of physically active and social play.

As part of the 2020 Online Conference on the Value of Play, some of the founding members of the Global Recess Alliance (detailed below) shared practices and policies to ensure that recess provides a setting where inclusive, meaningful safe play occurs.

“Schools Re-Opening? Why It Will Be More Important Than Ever to Create A Play-Full Recess”

Panelists include:

• Catherine Ramstetter, Ph.D., from Successful Healthy Children, Cincinnati, OH, and lead author of American Academy of Pediatrics’ Policy on Recess
• William V. Massey, Ph.D., from Oregon State University and lead researcher on the Great Recess Framework
• Debbie Rhea, Ph.D., Professor and The LiiNK Project Director, Texas Christian University and author of Wrong Turns, Right Moves in Education
• Olga Jarrett, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Georgia State University and author of A research-based case for recess: Position paper (2019)
• Brendon Hyndman, Ph.D., Charles Sturt University, Australia, and author of Contemporary School Playground Strategies for Healthy Students
• Anna Beresin, Ph.D., University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, and author of Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling

Watch the full video of the panel presentation recorded live on Zoom, June 24, 2020: “Schools Re-Opening? Why it Will be More Important Than Ever to Create a Play-Full Recess”

Want to see more great online professional development content like this?!
Join the 2020 Online Conference on the Value of Play through December 15.

The Conference on the VALUE of Play
The Play Conference, as it is commonly known, is an annual educational conference presented by the US Play Coalition. The latest research and practices in the field of play are presented at the conference, which brings together play researchers, park and recreation professionals, educators, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians and parents from across the U.S. and beyond. The three day event has been moved ONLINE for 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It is our first-ever online Play Conference!  Learn more at usplaycoalition.org/playconference2020

Join us on Twitter Tuesday, August 25th at 8:00pm ET, 5:00pm PT for the next installment of our monthly #WePlayChat.  We are honored to welcome Thought Leader, Change-maker, and Corwin Publishing Best-Selling Author, Michael Kuczala to the main stage for a conversation around Physically Active Learning. As schools, teachers, students, administrators, and parents all prepare for school in its various forms this fall, we are excited to have Michael take the main stage as an expert in movement and learning through active Play (AKA – The Kinesthetic Classroom).

Mike Kuczala is a thought leader on using physical activity in teaching, training, and learning. He has delivered keynotes, given presentations, and taught graduate courses on 4 continents. His presentations, courses, books, and videos have reached more than 100,000 teachers, trainers, corporate executives, and parents. He is also the co-author of the Corwin Bestseller and Association of Educational Publishers’ Distinguished Achievement Award-nominated, The Kinesthetic Classroom: Teaching and Learning through Movement, a book and philosophy that has changed the view of teaching and learning around the world.

Here are the questions we will be covering during this #WePlayChat:

Q1. Why is it critical for all students to be physically active during the school day?

Q2. What are the most effective ways to create a physically active classroom? 

Q3. What challenges might present themselves during physically active learning especially during this time of Covid19?

Q4. How do physically active classrooms look different in an elementary and secondary classroom?

How can you participate?
When it is time for the chat, login to Twitter, and search for the hashtag #WePlayChat and follow along on the “Latest” tab.  Feel free to like, reply, and retweet. Just be sure to include the hashtag #WePlayChat so your input is part of the feed!
____________________________________________________________________________________

#WePlayChat is our monthly Twitter chat for anyone seeking to gain knowledge around the wide-open field of play. Launched in 2016, it is the longest-running monthly play-based chat in the world. Our #WePlayChat participants come from 9 countries, spanning 5 continents – all tuning in to connect around PLAY.  This FREE professional learning opportunity is a great way to connect with fellow play enthusiasts, teachers, and experts from across the globe.

Join us and contribute to the global conversation around the value of play!  When the time comes for our chat, jump on Twitter, and search for the hashtag #WePlayChat and follow along on the “Latest” tab.  Feel free to like, reply, and retweet.  Just be sure to include the hashtag #WePlayChat so your input is part of the feed!

Learn more about #WePlayChat online by clicking here.

Join us on Twitter Tuesday, June 30 at 6:30pm EST for the next installment of our monthly #WePlayChat.  We are honored to welcome Global Recess Alliance (GRA) to discuss Why Recess Is Essential When Schools Re-Open.

The Global Recess Alliance, a newly formed group of scholars, health professionals, and education leaders, argues that attention to recess during school reopening is essential. Recess is the only unstructured time in the school day that provides space for children’s physical, social and emotional development, which are essential for well-being and learning. When schools reopen, children will need space to heal from their collective trauma.

The GRA founders have combined their expertise to provide answers and concrete strategies for a recess that not only works under the current circumstances but paves the way for a fundamental shift in the ways schools approach recess.

Here are the questions we will be covering during #WePlayChat:
Q1. Why is recess necessary, especially now?
Q2. How can schools implement recess safely?
Q3. What strategies, policies, and practices can be utilized?
Q4. Who do recess advocates need to contact to protect play in schools?

How can you participate?!

• When it is time for the chat, login to Twitter and search for the hashtag #WePlayChat and follow along on the “Latest” tab.
• Feel free to like, reply and retweet.  Just be sure to include the hashtag #WePlayChat so your input is part of the feed!

____________________________________________________________________________________

#WePlayChat is our monthly Twitter chat for anyone seeking to gain knowledge around the wide-open field of play. Launched in 2016, it is the longest-running monthly play-based chat in the world. Our #WePlayChat participants come from 9 countries, spanning 5 continents – all tuning in to connect around PLAY.  This FREE professional learning opportunity is a great way to connect with fellow play enthusiasts, teachers, and experts from across the globe.

Join us and contribute to the global conversation around the value of play!  When the time comes for our chat, jump on Twitter, and search for the hashtag #WePlayChat and follow along on the “Latest” tab.  Feel free to like, reply, and retweet.  Just be sure to include the hashtag #WePlayChat so your input is part of the feed!

Learn more about #WePlayChat online by clicking here.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!  Order your limited edition 10th Anniversary play shirt through August 1!  Proceeds support our action and research grants!

Just in time for your summer PLAY days!  You can PLAY in style!!  There are 5 color options in unisex short or long sleeve AND youth short sleeve styles.

Go Up the Slide
Rough & Tumble
Jump in the Puddles
Take Risks
Play Outside
Make Believe
Roll in the Dirt
Run Your Fastest
Slide, Swing, Leap
Adapt, Imagine
Play for All
PLAY FOR LIFE

Order online before the campaign ends at 11:59pm EST on August 1!!

The Global Recess Alliance (GRA) is a newly-formed international collective of health and educational leaders that has provided evidence to suggest a quality recess is an essential component of an educational approach that considers the whole child. Given this, the GRA is urging school administrators to consider recess a critical priority as schools begin to reopen.

Hear from a special panel presentation by some of the founding members of the new Global Recess Alliance.

“Schools Re-Opening? Why It Will Be More Important Than Ever to Create A Play-Full Recess.”

Recorded with a live Zoom audience on June 24, 2020.

As schools reopen, a supportive school recess can guide both students and teachers back from months of interrupted routines, boredom, loneliness, family stress, anxiety and often a lack of physically active and social play. With voices from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia, the Global Recess Alliance panel (detailed below) will highlight practices and policies to ensure that recess provides a setting where inclusive, meaningful safe play occurs.

NOTE: This recorded presentation is included in our 2020 ONLINE Conference on the Value of Play: PLAY FOR ALL content.

Panelists include:

Catherine Ramstetter, Ph.D.

Successful Healthy Children, Cincinnati, OH

Lead author of American Academy of Pediatrics’ Policy on Recess

William V. Massey, Ph.D.

Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR

Lead researcher on the Great Recess Framework

Debbie Rhea, Ph.D.

Professor and The LiiNK Project Director, Texas Christian University, Ft. Worth, TX

Author of Wrong Turns, Right Moves in Education

Olga Jarrett, Ph.D.

Professor Emerita, Georgia State University, Atlanta

Author of A research-based case for recess: Position paper (2019)

Brendon Hyndman, Ph.D.

Charles Sturt University, Australia

Author of Contemporary School Playground Strategies for Healthy Students

Anna Beresin, Ph.D.

University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Author of Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling

The Conference on the VALUE of Play
The Play Conference, as it is commonly known, is an annual educational conference presented by the US Play Coalition. The latest research and practices in the field of play are presented at the conference, which brings together play researchers, park and recreation professionals, educators, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians and parents from across the U.S. and beyond. The three day event has been moved ONLINE for 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It is our first-ever online Play Conference!  Learn more at usplaycoalition.org/playconference2020

Join our first ever Virtual Poster Session “Happy Hour,” Recorded Live on Zoom

Thirteen distinct play projects were shared live, each presenter giving a 2-3 minute “elevator speech” about the poster.  Posters are available as part of the 2020 Online Play Conference Content.

Check out our lineup:

• Patty Stine – “Play is Fun: How Play Professionals, Educators, and Other Child Experts Define Play”
• Sharon Peck – “Reading Play: Making Literacy Learning Playful”
• Lydia Jagodzinski representing a group of students from Minnesota State University – Mankato – “Playful Practices at a New Early Learning Center: Focus Groups with Parents and Staff”
• Alexia Metz – “The Influence of The Number of Toys in The Environment on Toddlers’ Play”
• Tyler Prochnow – “Sport Participation Effects on Adolescent Play Networks at Summer Care Programs”
• Ilfa Zhulamanova – “Future Early Childhood Teachers’ Perceptions of Play”
• Stephen Lewis – #natureismyhigherpower: Intersections Between Nature-Based Mindfulness and Social Media
• Ahren Hoffman for 2019 Action Grant Winner ASTRA – “Make Way for Play: Brilliant Benefits of Toys”
• Sue Pietrusza – “Physical Education Apps”
• Brian VanDongen – “The Connections Between Play and Leadership”
• Delfina Newton – “Sustainability of Self”
• Farrah Zweig – “Empowered Play: Using Character Strengths and Social/Emotional Support to Spark Joy in Your Students”
• Kristen Kohm and Fran Blumberg – “Siblings’ Problem-Solving Comments During Co-Play of a Puzzle Video Game” (PDF only)

The Conference on the VALUE of Play
The Play Conference, as it is commonly known, is an annual educational conference presented by the US Play Coalition. The latest research and practices in the field of play are presented at the conference, which brings together play researchers, park and recreation professionals, educators, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians and parents from across the U.S. and beyond. The three day event has been moved ONLINE for 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It is our first-ever online Play Conference!

Join us on Tuesday, May 26 at 7:00pm EST as we welcome moderator Ariana Brazier from ATL Parent Like A Boss, Inc. to discuss the topic, “Race, Play and Restoration.”

New this year, #WePlayChat has a new look at feel. We are changing the flow of these professional learning opportunities to cover the what, how, and why during chat. We look forward to the enriching dialogue this will create each month.

About The Moderator

Ariana Brazier is a play-driven community-organizer and educator. She is an English, Critical & Cultural Studies, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. Ari conducts community-based ethnographic research with Black students and families living in poverty in the southeast United States in order to document how Black child play functions as a grassroots praxis. She is the Founder and CEO of the 501(c)3 nonprofit, ATL Parent Like A Boss, Inc. (Parent LAB). Parent LAB’s mission is to enhance generational literacies through PLAY in underserved African American communities.

Here are the questions Ariana will be covering during #WePlayChat:

Q1. What is the relationship between race and play?

Q2. How does play reveal racial inequities in our own communities?

Q3. How does play celebrate racial differences in our communities?

Q4. Why should we engage play as a restorative project? 

____________________________________________________________________________________

#WePlayChat is our monthly Twitter chat for anyone seeking to gain knowledge around the wide-open field of play. Launched in 2016, it is the longest-running monthly play-based chat in the world.  Our #WePlayChat participants come from 9 countries, spanning 5 continents – all tuning in to connect around PLAY.  This FREE professional learning opportunity is a great way to connect with fellow play enthusiasts, teachers, and experts from across the globe.

Join us and contribute to the global conversation around the value of play!  When the time comes for our chat, jump on Twitter, and search for the hashtag #WePlayChat and follow along on the “Latest” tab.  Feel free to like, reply, and retweet.  Just be sure to include the hashtag #WePlayChat so your input is part of the feed!

Learn more about #WePlayChat online by clicking here.

The U.S. Play Coalition is proud to announce the 2020 recipient of its annual Joe L. Frost Award for Distinguished Research.  This award is given annually in recognition of a body of exceptional research that has enhanced and expanded the study of play.  The award honors its namesake, Joe L. Frost, the contemporary father of play advocacy. Frost was influential in the creation of the U.S. Play Coalition, serving as a steering committee member since the organization’s beginning in 2009 until his passing in early 2020.

2020 Joe L. Frost Award for Distinguished Research Winner
Stuart Brown, MD
Founder of the National Institute for Play

Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry and clinical research, Dr. Stuart Brown first recognized the importance of play by discovering its absence in the life stories of murders and felony drunken drivers. He is founder and president of the National Institute for Play. Dr. Brown’s book: Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul has been translated into twelve languages.

Upon learning he had won this year’s award named for his longtime colleague and friend, Dr. Brown said, “To be the recipient of an award named after my special friend Joe, and with the blessing of the Coalition is such an unexpected honor. Such affirmation warms my heart.”

Dr. Brown’s years of clinical practice and review of over 6000 personal play histories affirmed the importance and need for healthy play throughout the human life cycle.

His independent scholarship and exploration of the evolution and neuroscience of human and animal play have led to the establishment of the National Institute for Play. The mission of the National Institute for Play (NIFP) is to bring the unrealized knowledge, practices and benefits of play into public life.

Dr. Brown co-teaches “From Play to Innovation” at the Hasso Plattner School of Design at Stanford University, and is the “Key Strategist” for the Nevada Medical Center’s Global Play Science Institute.  He continues to produce regular creative scholarly contributions and enjoys other international corporate and academic consulting on play and its many contributions through their engagement with it, as it enhances overall human well-being.  As the information base about play grows, it is evident that play is a public health necessity.  Our species, Brown says, “is built for play, and built by play.”

Founded in 2009, the U.S. Play Coalition is an international network of individuals and organizations that promote the value of play throughout life. The coalition is housed in Clemson University’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management department, part of the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences.  Our membership comes from a cross-section of industries and professions – play researchers, educators, park and recreation professionals, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians, parents and more.  Learn more at usplaycoalition.org

Check out the full program for the 2020 ONLINE Play Conference!