The Toddler Brain by Laura Jana

Author:Laura Jana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

8

QI SKILL 5

WIGGLE

Putting Wiggles to Work

Creative thinkers try new things and move with the changing world.

—Elaine Dundon, Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy That Fosters New Ideas

I RECENTLY SAT DOWN TO WATCH the morning news and catch the lead stories for the day. First up was a story about parents in a Florida town who were protesting the elimination of recess in the local elementary schools. Sadly, this story wasn’t the first of its kind; many schools struggle to meet rigorous national assessment standards and have cut recess as a way to create more time for academics. To my disbelief, however, the very next feature story was about the growing popularity of walking meetings and treadmill desks to help increase physical activity in the workplace. The broadcaster commented on how today’s employers, increasingly aware of how beneficial getting up and moving can be to the overall health and productivity of the workforce, were implementing practical solutions to encourage such beneficial behaviors. The focus of this story, as with the one it followed, wasn’t exactly breaking news either. In fact, the gist seemed to have entered our nation’s consciousness more prominently a couple of years earlier when prominent Silicon Valley–based business innovator Nilofer Merchant presented her 2013 TED talk, “Got a Meeting? Take a Walk”1 (which more than two million people have viewed to date), followed shortly thereafter by her Harvard Business Review blog in which she ominously but astutely declared, “Sitting is the smoking of our generation.”2

Seriously? The striking disconnect between eliminating physical activity from our children’s curricula while simultaneously working hard to incorporate it back into the workplace was jarring. I found myself cynically thinking about how employers could easily provide opportunity for employees’ physical activity simply by using nearby elementary school playgrounds. After all, at the rate recess was being cut across counties, school facilities would soon stand empty and available. On a less pessimistic note, this juxtaposition convinced me it was high time we take a closer look at what we are—and are not—doing in our children’s earliest years to encourage them to get up and get moving, not only for the sake of improving their health and well-being but also for their learning and future productivity.

That, of course, leads in to the fourth QI Skill, WIGGLE, which is about children’s innate propensity to move and play as a way to explore their world and learn.

What’s in a WIGGLE?

WIGGLE SKILLS DESCRIBE EXACTLY WHAT the verb “wiggle” suggests: the physical act of moving; being active; being in constant motion. Whereas moving and being physically active are essential elements of WIGGLE, they represent only part of the picture. Key to understanding the concept of WIGGLE is also recognizing that WIGGLE actually represents both physical and intellectual restlessness. Children’s ability to physically move around and explore their world, starting from day one, is essential not only for their physical health and development but also for their cognitive development, learning, and ability to put their natural-born inquisitiveness into action.

You’d be hard pressed to dispute the fact that children learn through play.

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