More Play, Please The Perspective of Kindergarten Teachers on Play in the Classroom

e past decade has seen an increase in research documenting the benets of children learning through play. However, the amount of play in American kin-dergarten classes remains on a steady decline. is article compares the ndings from a netnographic study of seventy-eight kindergarten teachers ’ message board discussions about play in kindergarten with those of more traditional studies and nds the teachers ’ discussions in broad agreement with past research. e results further demonstrate that kindergarten teachers feel pressures from other teachers, principals, and school policies to focus on academic goals and that these pressures lead them to limit play. e author argues for further research to develop eec-tive strategies to help teachers include play in kindergartens rather than merely increasing teacher awareness of the benets of play. She details how a netnographic approach can complement traditional methods for understanding how teachers treat play in their classrooms. Key words: kindergarten; netnography; No Child Le! Behind Act (NCLB); play-based teaching; Social Ecological eory (SET) Play in American Kindergartens In the past decade, play research has witnessed a rise in two seemingly contradictory trends. First, the research increasingly shows that play expedites a variety of social, cognitive, motor, and linguistic improvements (Eberle 2011; Fisher et al. 2011). Social play allows children to become more creative and more adept at explaining meaning verbally, more successful at manipulating dierent symbol systems, and more condent when experimenting with new activities (Bjorklund and Gardiner 2011; Eberle 2011; Pellegini 2009). In school settings, teachers gently guide play, using play-based teaching and learning activities to promote curricular goals while maintaining the critically important aspects of play—such as children’s intrinsic motivation to engage in play (Bordova