A Discussion About Joyful Teaching and Deeper Learning
By Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Michelle Kang
Editors’ Note
On a recent episode of NAEYC’s new podcast Small Talk: Big Ideas About Little Learners, NAEYC CEO Michelle Kang spoke with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek about the power of play. Dr. Hirsh-Pasek is an author and professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. She has written a lot about the power of play, including a chapter in NAEYC’s book on developmentally appropriate practice. Her newest initiative, called Playful Learning Landscapes, reimagines and redesigns city parks and public spaces to transform them into places of scientific exploration, social interaction, and play.
Following is an excerpt from their conversation. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Michelle Kang: Let’s start with the big picture. Why is play so important, especially for babies, toddlers, and young children? What is the science telling us?
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek: Here’s the most amazing epiphany I came to after reading thousands of articles. The very characteristics that define how the human brain learns map directly onto the characteristics of how we define play. That’s stunning. We learn best when we’re active, not passive; when we’re engaged, not distracted. We learn best when something’s meaningful, not when it isn’t. We learn best when it’s socially interactive and we’re learning with another person or teacher. We learn best when it’s iterative and we learn it in multiple different ways, and we learn best when we’re having fun. Then how come so much of school is passive and distracting and sometimes not meaningful? We could change all that, and it could be amazing to have joyful schools, joyful teaching, and deeper learning.
Michelle: What was the reaction when people first started understanding the research and making the connection between play and brain development?
Kathy: I think the most important thing to understand is that faster is not always better. Those who cook know that’s true. Fast food is often not as good for you as the stuff that takes just a little more time. There’s a wonderful study, by Arne Güllich and colleagues, that just came out in 2025. It asked the question, “How do you get to be world class?” One way you might think you get to be world class is to start piano at age 3 or start soccer lessons at age 4 or 5. And you would think that if you did that, at the end of the day, we would have a better soccer player and a better musician. But that’s not what the data tell us. What the data tell us is that children who meandered for a while and tried out a lot of stuff—yes, played a little bit—are the ones who figured out what they wanted to be. They turned out later to be the ones who were world class.
We’ve tried putting children in academic environments when they’re 3 and 4, thinking that by the time they get to kindergarten, they’re going to be the ones who are smarter. It doesn’t turn out that way. It turns out that in reading and math, you’re not necessarily going to be able to tell when they’re in kindergarten which child started early and which started a little bit late. That’s a problem for that theory.
So families and teachers can take a breath and relax. When a child is playing with blocks, they’re actually learning spatial terms: Above, in, on top of. Those predict out to later math skills. And when a child can tell you a good story, that predicts out to reading even better than mastering phonics when they’re 4.
Michelle: That’s such a great example. When I visit early learning programs, I have the opportunity to hear families who are touring a program for the first time. And especially if they’re not understanding that play is how children learn, their questions often center on when the learning happens (because of a misunderstanding of what they see). Play is connected to not only literacy but also to children developing self-regulation and cognitive and social competencies. How does play support learning in those areas?
Kathy: Play is actually one of the best ways you can learn to have impulse control because you have to take turns. For example, a child goes outside, and Johnny’s on the swing. The child really wants to use that swing but can’t. So they have two choices. They can hit or push Johnny, or the adult can be brilliant and say, “Count to 15, and then you get the swing and then Johnny gets it again after the next 15.” That’s how we learn these skills. Games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light teach what we call executive function skills. They help children build attention and memory and flexibility, which is so important, and to learn how to have impulse control. (See the Summer 2024 Young Children cluster Self-Regulation and Executive Function: Responsive and Informed Practices for Early Childhood.) And it turns out that these are some of the best predictors of how a child will learn when they enter formal schooling.
Michelle: Such a great example! As you know, NAEYC defines developmentally appropriate practice as “methods that promote each child’s optimal development and learning through a strengths-based, play-based approach.” How does this focus on learning through play support a child’s development, and what does this look like in early learning settings? Can you give some examples?
Kathy: Let me start with the biggest issue, and that is, as adults, sometimes we lose that childhood ability to see what’s really going on right before our eyes. For example, your child likes to go out and gather leaves. You’re worried you’ll be late for school if they spend time gathering leaves. So put the clothes out the night before, and go out 10 minutes early. Let them gather the leaves. They’re doing a math experiment. They’re learning about the patterns of different kinds of leaves. And then sometimes they sort the patterns, and they sort those leaves into leaves from a spruce tree and leaves from a birch tree. That categorization, creating sets of objects, is preparing them for learning about sets and numbers. They are learning math.
If you really want to know how much math a child knows, go with a 3-year-old and their 7-year-old sibling to an ice cream shop. If the older child gets two scoops of ice cream and the younger child gets one, I assure you, the 3-year-old will let you know they know about addition, subtraction, and math.
Michelle: So when we say children learn best through play, what do you think is most misunderstood about that phrase?
Kathy: I believe people think of play as frivolity. They do not think of play as the way human brains learn. We can help people see that’s a human brain at work.
Let me give you an example from Colombia that was so powerful. I went to visit a school there. It was in somebody’s house, and there were chickens outside, and there were ladies picking bananas. The school was inside, with one amazing teacher.
And she wanted the children, who were around 4 or 5 years old, to learn about numbers. I said, “Do you have a piece of paper?” She said, “Oh, no. Our school doesn’t have paper.” She gave me chalk, and I drew a number line from 1 to 10 on the ground, which was hardened mud. I drew 10 little boxes, and then I stopped. I stood up and watched to see what the children would do. They went into the number line and started to jump. The first one said, “I jumped farther than you did.” Well, how would you know? Only if you know that two is greater than one.
Then a group of children went out and started collecting rocks and leaves, and they put four leaves in the “four” box and five rocks in the “five” box, and I thought, “Look at the number skills these children have!” The teacher’s job was to highlight it and say, “Look what you did!” Now isn’t that a much cooler way than to have a worksheet where you practice the number line?
So that’s what we mean. If you see it, you can make the world out of it. There are stories everywhere around us, and they build literacy. Imagine what you could say about a falling leaf: “How does that leaf feel? It’s going away from all its friends on the tree. What’s that about?”
Michelle: Well, you touched on this in your story, Kathy. We at NAEYC are talking a lot about how quality early learning environments happen because of prepared educators, educators who understand how to foster a child’s development to bring out their learning through a strengths-based approach and a play-based approach. Can you talk a little bit more about the educator’s role?
Kathy: I think the most important thing for me is first to celebrate the educators.
Michelle: Yes! Let’s celebrate them!
Kathy: These wonderful human beings are taking care of the next generation of civilization. These amazing human beings are building the foundation for children who are going to learn and be the adults of the future.
We see things as teachers, and can be trained to see things as teachers, that a lot of other people don’t see. And if we can use that magic in the classroom and learn how to help share that with families, then they can see it too. And the more that they see the magic around play, and it is magical—you are seeing literally a mind at work—then they can take advantage of it. I’ll give you an example. My youngest son just had a baby. The baby’s now 6 months old.
One day when baby Sophie was just over 4 months old, we were on the phone. Sophie has a favorite toy, and I saw her open her hand for the first time to grab onto a ring on the toy. Think about what’s involved with that. She had to see the ring, process the ring, and know to grab the ring. She had to open her hand so that her thumb was in one place and her other fingers were in another place. That’s an amazing achievement! A good teacher, a teacher who sees that, doesn’t just think, “Wow, she grabbed a ring.” They get something thinner and something thicker and see what the child does.
What happens in high-quality early learning settings? The teacher then gives the baby the thicker ring and the thinner ring, and they watch as the baby adapts. We create guided play so that we know what the next step is on the stair to learning, and we provide it for the children. It’s the teacher in the number line example who says, “Wow, you discovered four, and that four is bigger than three.” The children discovered it and explored it, and the teacher commented on it.
Michelle: It is amazing how they are doing that for every individual child who is in their program. One of the most joyful things that I see in programs is how educators recognize the context that a child is coming from and, in particular, the different social and cultural contexts of children and families. I think about that a lot, even from my own experiences. I’m the daughter of immigrants, and I think about those preschool teachers who recognized that I had language challenges because English wasn’t my first language. They recognized that and supported me in the context of learning. So what are some of the ways that educators should be thinking about how to approach play and learning?
Kathy: When you have children in a preschool, they’re not just children in a preschool. They’re families in a preschool. They’re families who come with all their rich experiences. They come with their holidays; they come with their cooking traditions. We can invite the families to come in and do a recipe with the children. Bring in pictures of where they are from. Make a child proud.
When we talk about language, I can say so clearly from the research out there that more than one language is not only the norm across 70 percent of the world, but it is better for children. If you are lucky enough to be bilingual, you have to code switch back and forth. What does that mean? It means that when your grandmother comes, you have to speak one language. When a child from school comes over, you have to switch to the other language. That means you have to control the impulse to speak language A so that you can speak language B. Do you realize the cognitive effort that goes into that, the mental brain building? In those schools where different cultures are represented, celebrate them. Create activities that not only honor those cultures but allow us to play within them.
Michelle: Back when I was young and my parents initially brought us to an early learning program, the research had not yet shown up showing that the use of a language other than English was actually positive and helpful and not harmful. At the time, it was seen as harmful. So my parents said, “We have to stop speaking Korean to you because you have to start speaking English, and otherwise you’ll never be able to speak English.” And now we know from the research that that’s not true.
Kathy: We tend to look at these young children sometimes and think, “What do they have to offer?” Especially when they’re babies. They’re not talking; they’re just cooing and gooing. But the truth is you can even have a conversation with a 10-week-old baby. Research shows that those back-and-forth conversations where we build on what the child has said builds brain structure.
And we can play with that. We can play all sorts of games. Let’s just take math. We now have tons of data showing that when children are playing with blocks, playing these simple games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light, it makes a difference for how well they learn. Coloring is good for children. The arts are great for young children. When you read a book, have the children act it out. They may not be perfect, but they’re taking different perspectives. When they take those different perspectives, what can come out of that?
Michelle: One of the things educators sometimes ask about is how to help support families in understanding how to bring play from early learning environments to home. What should families be doing as they think about how they can best support their children in these early years?
Kathy: Obviously, the best thing we can do is love them.
Michelle: Yes.
Kathy: The second-best thing you can do is talk to your child’s teacher because we all have the same great thing in mind: Loving your child and helping your child thrive. Beyond that, it’s to learn to see what they see. I’ve advised teachers to change family night around and, for example, put two buckets and shovels at the front of the room. Ask, “What do you see?” Families will tell you, “I see a bucket and a shovel.” You say, “Oh. I actually see a math game.” Or take balloons or beach balls, and ask parents to bounce them up and down. Make two or three teams, depending on how many family members you have, and see which group gets the most bounces. Have them count and compare. And at the end ask, “Did you enjoy our STEM activity?”
Here’s a really simple game you can do with families. Ask them to follow you: “When I clap once, you clap once. When I clap twice, you clap twice. Now what I want you to do, are you ready? This is the hard part: When I clap once, you clap twice. When I clap twice, you clap once.” You’ll see that hesitation just before they do it. Ask, “Did you feel executive function at work? That’s impulse control, and that correlates to later math and reading scores when children get into school.”
Michelle: We’ve been talking about play, and so many people who are reading know how important high-quality early learning experiences are. For decades, NAEYC and other organizations have been working to elevate the research as well as the expertise of early childhood educators in supporting high-quality, play-based learning. How do we convince policymakers and the public to support the field and to invest in early learning for all children?
Kathy: Isn’t that the million-dollar question? It’s astounding that the United States is among the worst in the industrialized world in supporting young children. The data, to me, are very clear. There are longitudinal data looking at the long-term effects of high-quality child care all the way up to age 26. We find that those who experienced high-quality early learning and care are more successful. They do better in school. They don’t get married as early. They don’t have as many behavior problems. All the data that I know of suggest that it is financially, dollar-for-dollar, worth it for a society to invest in its young children. If you were investing in a business and you could get, in some of the newest research, $8 back, and you could have brain building, and children are going to be better prepared for the workforce of tomorrow, do you invest in that business? You sure do.
Michelle: Those are good numbers. That’s a really good return.
Kathy: Economists have looked at this time and time again. I don’t know where we got the idea that everybody knows about education but educators. You don’t let somebody who is governor be a dentist who’s going to give you a filling for your cavity. Similarly, you can’t put just anyone in a child care setting. High-quality early learning and care demands that you have that lens, that ability to see the magic in a child and to help every child grow. I challenge policymakers to come into an early learning setting for two hours. I’m not even asking them to take the whole day. Come in for two hours, and look at what high-quality early childhood educators do. I challenge policymakers to see if they can do it and then tell me what they learned.
I bet you there would be new respect for what educators are doing. And if they don’t walk out of there blown away, then just take it as a business. A business where you can get this return on investment is worth the time and energy, so make it a priority.
Further Resources
To explore the sources mentioned in the interview as well as additional work on guided play, check out the following resources.
“Recent Discoveries on the Acquisition of the Highest Levels of Human Performance,” by Arne Güllich and colleagues. Science, 2025. In this review article, the authors examine research on peak performance in science, music, chess, and sports. Evidence indicates that exceptional adults reached peak performance with broad, multidisciplinary practice.
Focus on Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Equitable and Joyful Learning in Kindergarten, edited by Eva C. Phillips and colleagues. 2024, NAEYC. This book shows how kindergarten educators can create a robust learning environment that is play-oriented and supportive of required mandates and expectations.
Preschoolers at Play: Choosing the Right Stuff for Learning and Development, by Lisa Mufson Bresson and Megan King. 2022, NAEYC. This book offers ideas for play materials and describes how those materials can support the cognitive, social and emotional, and physical learning and development of children ages 3 to 5.
Infants and Toddlers at Play: Choosing the Right Stuff for Learning and Development, by Mary Benson McMullen and Dylan Brody. 2022, NAEYC. Discover tips for selecting play materials to support the learning and development of children from birth to age 3.
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8. 4th ed. 2022, NAEYC. With a strong focus on equity and teaching and supporting all children, the fourth edition of this classic text underscores the importance of social, cultural, and historical contexts of development.
“Developmentally Appropriate Practice.” 2020. NAEYC’s position statement offers guidelines for educators as they engage in developmentally appropriate practice to foster young children’s joyful learning.
“The Case of Brain Science and Guided Play: A Developing Story,” by Brenna Hassinger-Das and colleagues. Young Children, 2017. This article explores evidence indicating that guided play scaffolds young children’s development and helps them develop an understanding of how the world works.
Playful Learning Landscapes. This initiative reimagines and redesigns city parks and public spaces to transform them into places of scientific exploration, social interaction, and play.
About the Participants
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, is an author and professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
Michelle Kang is the chief executive officer of NAEYC.
Photographs: First photo, © NAEYC; second photo, courtesy of author. Copyright © 2026 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See permissions and reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.