“You can’t say, ‘You can’t play.’”

Over dozens of years in the classroom, author and veteran kindergarten teacher Vivian Paley noticed a disturbing trend among her students: Each year, some children developed the power to create the games, make the rules, and decide who was allowed to play and who would be left out.

So Paley decided to make a new rule in her classroom: “You can’t say, ‘You can’t play.”  Paley documented the children’s reaction to the new rule with audio recordings.  (You can hear some of them in an episode of the NPR show This American Life.)

The following year, Paley’s rule was expanded to her entire school. She’s written a book on the experiment. And, since then, educators across the country have adopted the rule and studied its implications.  My own son’s preschool subscribes to the rule, so I thought I’d do a little digging to find out what the research says about it.

While there is no meta-analysis available to date on “You can’t say, ‘You can’t play,” studies have shown the rule improves social acceptance among kindergarteners.  The non-profit research center Child Trends implemented an intervention program among 144 kindergarteners that involved storytelling and group discussion to help children become more aware the different ways they may exclude their peers and learn ways to act in more accepting ways.  Their study found that children in the program felt more accepted by their peers compared to the control group.

Another study investigated teacher’s perceptions about inclusive play for young children. The found programs to implement the rule must involve training and on-going support to help teachers communicate the rule to students and deal with problems that emerge as students struggle with inclusive play.

On the whole, I’m impressed with the data available on “You can’t say, ‘You can’t play.’”  It seems to be a positive way to teach young children about social acceptance and diversity.  This is one area, though, where I’d love to see some more comprehensive research or a literature review to clarify all of the benefits to our children.