Understanding Play: What it actually means

I never realized that a single thread pulled from my school belt could hold the weight of so much learning until I sat down for our first session of EAS409: Understanding Play in Early Childhood Education . The session wasn't just a lecture but included several activities which we tend to ignore but actually shapes who we are. 

The most profound moment for me came during the “Storytelling” strategy with my left-shoulder partner .

As we were asked to recollect a special play memory, I found myself back in my primary school days, playing “chungki” with my friends. We would spend our free time between classes and after school hours hunting for the perfect, fresh leaves to bundle together. To tie them, we would surreptitiously pull threads from our own belts, carefully unravelling them to create our bundles. By the end of the year, our belts were literally falling apart, and we would get scolded by our families for the "damage," but in those moments, the scolding didn't matter. The joy was in the creation and the shared laughter . 

Sharing this story made me realize that my "chungki" sessions were the perfect definition of play: they were freely chosen, personally directed, and intrinsically motivated . We weren't playing for a grade or an adult's approval; we were playing for the sake of the play itself, exhibiting the "positive affect" and "process-oriented" nature of true play . 

This personal reflection grounded our more academic discussions, such as the “Then-and-Now” comparison . It made me think about how the socio-cultural context of Bhutan—where adults often prioritize "learning alphabets and numbers"—can sometimes clash with the natural, messy, and "belt-destroying" way children actually learn . We discussed how today’s children are often exhausted by “drill-and-kill” activities, which are a far cry from the meaningful, playful learning I experienced with my leaf bundles . 

Concluding the day with a "Meta Moment," I realized that play is not just "free time"—it is the "work of children" and a universal language through which they understand their world . This first class has challenged me to ensure that as a future educator, I provide my students with the space for "chungki"-like moments, where learning is found in the process, the creativity, and even the occasional loose thread