There are so many things that won’t be taught in schools and other learning areas, people will exclusively learn those things when they’re interacting with other people, playing with other children as a child, your friend circle when you’re much older, during football arguments, banter and so on. They are taught while sharing moments with friends during leisure period.

These are basic values and etiquettes necessary while dealing and interacting with other people, and they are very essential for the growth of a person, and these lessons can only be learnt while dealing with people (i.e. you learn “on-the-job”). These are called The Playground Curriculum

Examples of Playground Curriculum

• Fairness and Justice: We were all probably taught how to be fair and just in all our dealings when we were children, but then, we probably don’t know what that implies, we don’t know what to do with the information, we could just differentiate between good and bad, but as time goes on, as we get older, we realize the feeling of being cheated, of being left behind, with our dealings with other children, and even when we grew older, they stopped telling us these things, but the experiences we had along the way, while growing up, are what will shape the diligent young boy or old man that is hell-bent on being just and is a good member of the society.
• Conflict Resolution: This is actually something you get from home, how you deal with your siblings, how you fight and resolve it, how they make you angry every time, and how you learn to control your anger when dealing with them, because they never stop making you angry. This expands further to how you deal with your friends, you know not to throw tantrums, you know when they are angry, and how to resolve any residual conflict. And this, ladies and gentlemen, can only be taught when dealing with other people.
• Leadership: Every friend group or playground has a leader, the one who organizes the games, who leads the study group, who becomes the captain of your football team, the playground shaped them to become a natural leader, their little village is more than enough to make them understand how it feels to lead people or serve the people, and that is how they groom leaders in the society, from the playground.
• Creativity: Ever wonder why children are so creative and insightful? No, they don’t teach them in school, their parents don’t teach them that; they learn that just by having fun with other kids, they want to have fun, they need to play, so they find a lot of creative ways to have fun, this teaches them that they have to create something from little resources they have. When kids see a piece of paper, they think about so many things they could turn the paper to (e.g. kites, game boards, paper sculptures). And this creative mind, when developed, could be a driving force in society in the near future.

There are a lot of experiences we had as children that has shaped our decision making, creativity and interaction with other people. I’m certain while reading this, you would have one or two experiences you had as a child that has made you what you are today, and that is your own personal playground curriculum.