Piaget And Vygotsky's Argumentative Analysis

Sigmund Freud said it best when he said, “Every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way” (Pearson). Playtime is an activity that is constantly being eliminated or greatly reduced, in favor of more structured educational learning activities starting in kindergarten. Many educational facilities have reduced recess or play breaks in the daily, which can lead to the children becoming overwhelmed or act out, because they have not been able to express their energy. Many parents are simply too busy to be able to fully immerse themselves into playing with their children. Parents today are busier than ever and children are enrolled in a multitude of activities they are shuffled to. Often times, parents will believe that they need to provide a wide arrangement of enrichment activities to build up every skill and aptitude so that their child might become high achievers in both high-school and later on in college, and life
Each of them developed their own theories about how play affected different aspects of children. Piaget defined play as assimilation or the child’s efforts to make environmental stimuli match his or her own concepts (Englebright Fox). On the opposite side of the argument, Vygotsky theories state that play helps children advance their cognitive development that children practice what they already know, along with them also learning new things (Englebright Fox). Both of these theories have been supported by numerous observations of children playing. If children cannot express themselves through play, what is the effect on their social, cognitive or even physical health? What are the benefits towards allowing or even encouraging a plethora of free