Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life. 六岁的Alice正为⾃己的魔幻王国添砖加瓦。天⻢行空得想象着童话塔楼，喷⽕飞⻰, 邪恶⼥巫和盖世英雄，她创造着玄幻世界。这种奇思妙想是助其开拓创新的开始，⻓大成⼈之后，也会⼤受裨 益，虽然此时她未有察觉。
Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.
一会以后，Alice不再驰思遐想,和弟弟过家家玩教书。当她颐指气使的扮演弟弟的老师时，她其实是在练习敛容屏⽓不苟⾔笑。当他们玩够了过家家开始下棋，她能体会到守规矩和与同伴⼀人⼀步轮流下棋的重要性。
‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’
“不拘一格的游戏是人类的最⼤收获。”英国剑桥大学教育学院的David Whitebread博士说，它是我们成年后深具智慧，能解决问题的基础，也是人类锻炼适应力的关键。
Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.
重视玩耍由来已久:两千年前，希腊哲学家柏拉图极力推崇玩耍的重要，认为玩耍能使人获取成⼈必备的技能，并且从19世纪起，出现了寓教于乐的说法。
But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.
但是我们所处的时代风云变幻，Whitebread注意到世界范围内玩乐渐消，他指出当今过半的世界⼈口居住在城市。“我小时候⽇日不缺的无忧⽆虑的玩耍，如今已属罕见。”他说。防范交通事故的意识，⽗母保护孩⼦远离罪⾏的迫切意愿，以及赢在起跑线上的观念(导致学习和择校的激烈竞争)使得户外玩耍锐减。
International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.
United Nations 和 European Union这类国际组织开始谋策律法重申孩⼦玩耍的权利，并试图在休闲设施和教育方案中落实。但都苦于没有实据可依。
‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable - but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’
“我们想要的玩耍是以孩⼦为主导的，自发的，⽆指向性的，但是身为研究者一旦让五岁的孩子“去玩”，便已经在横加干预了。”Sara Baker 博⼠解释道，“并且，我们想了解玩耍的长期影响。此乃巨大的挑战。”
Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.
Jenny Gibson 博⼠深表同意，他指出玩为何及如何重要之谜的研究上尚有进展，但在孩⼦⽇日后生活中的作用如何却不得而知。
Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.
现在，由于大学新的教育，发展和研究中⼼心，Whitebread, Baker, Gibson及⼀队研究者们希望能找到证据以佐证玩耍在孩子成⻓中的作用。
‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self- control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes — it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’
“极有可能是因为玩耍有助于锻炼孩⼦的⾃控能力。” Baker解释。“自控力是独⽴思考意识的前提，它决定着我们能否成功应对未见的挑战”。
In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem- solvers in the long run.’
在⼀项Baker展开的关于幼童和学龄前儿童的调查中，她发现，在解答陌⽣的，极具思辨⼒的问题时，自控力越好的孩子，破题速度越快。“这类证据令我们认为:长远来看，多让孩⼦玩有益于他们成功应对难题。”
If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self- regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.
如果在这些⽅面玩耍益处明显，它在学习中的作⽤肯定更加重要，因为自控力是成绩优异的重要指标。
Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’
Gibson补充道:“玩耍中的⾏为也能显示社交和情绪是否健康。在我之前的研究中，我调查了观察玩耍中的儿童能提供显示他们身心健康的重要线索，也能用于有助于自闭症等神经发展疾病的诊断。
Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego*, with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’
Whitebread的近期研究包括设计一种基于游戏辅助写作的方法。“很多⼩学生认为写作太难，但是在之前的研究中显示游戏激励比传统教学有效。”他们先与深具故事人物特征的玩偶玩耍，然后就能写出更⻓，结构更清晰的故事。在最近的研究中，孩⼦们先⽤乐⾼积⽊编故事，再写也有异曲同⼯之妙。“很多老师评价道:之前总有孩子说不知道写什么。有了乐⾼积木，整整⼀年也没⼀个孩⼦有此类抱怨。”
Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes,‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.
PEDAL的主管Whitebread曾在70年代接受小学教师的训练，当时，他说:“幼⼉教育几乎是⼀一潭⽆人问津的死水，从来没有引起过任何严肃的学术讨论也从未有论战。”现在，这个领域论辩激烈烈，在诸如入学年龄等话题上总有火药味⼗足的辩论。
‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’
“无论如何，近⼏十年，玩耍的重要作⽤被弱化。它被认为是⽆足轻重，甚⾄与正儿⼋经的做事相⽐显得很消极。不要忽视其益处，以及它在人类取得艺术，科学和技术成就中发挥的基础作用。应该保证孩⼦们充分的玩耍。