“Rough and Tumble”
Play: Lessons in Life
by: Pam Jarvis, Carnegie Faculty of Sports and Education, Carnegie Hall, Leeds
Metropolitan University, Headingley
Campus, Beckett Park
P.Jarvis@leedsmet.ac.uk
Presented By: Kemi Ayanfalu, Mike
Naphtal, and Alex Kraszewski
Jarvis R&T play
Hypothesis
Hypothesis:
evidence from bio-evolutionary theory and
developmental research indicates that there is a
pressing societal requirement to provide
opportunities for children to bring forth shared
free play activities within safe environments, and
that, as evolved primates, such opportunities are
as crucial to their healthy progress and eventual
adult capability as instruction in literacy and
numercy.
Single gender Rough and
Tumble play Theory
• found that in all three chimpanzees species, males
undertook a higher frequency of R&T than female.
• the findings relating to single gender play
supported previous human an non-human animal
observational findings in this area, indicating a
greater prevalence of R&T among all-boy play
groups in terms of amount, pace and intensity, and
a gender difference in R&T based fantasy
narratives that reflect the findings.
Mixed Gender R&T
Theory
• The evidence gathered
supported a
case of children creating and
practicing complex social
skills, concurrently challenging
and planning within a highly
gendered, independently
directed activity.
• For example The girls usually
initiated the chasing games
and competed to be “most
chased,” while protecting one
another from the boys’
attention when it became too
energetic, marshalling adult
assistance when necessary.
Life Lessons
• Jarvis feels that the playground is a
classroom of its own.
• He states that mixed gender children
create spontaneous, autonomous,
competitive and co-operative interaction,
developing many of the complex social
skills that fundamentally underpin primate
adult life.
Continued
• He argues that adult defined, structured
tasks are just as important to free play,
due to adult-led goal structures.
• children create shared narratives through
which they can practice independently
controlled and motivated behavior relating
to both competition and cooperation within
their peer group, whether they are male or
female.
Critique
• The study only includes eighteen subjects, nine
girls and nine boys. Furthermore, children’s ages
are within a small range.
• Study also mentions that schools are providing
children with less and less “recess” time, and even
the allotted recess time is highly structured and
adult supervised. And yet Jarvis chooses to study
“free play” in this school structured environment.
Critique cont
• Parents are less inclined to allow children to play
unsupervised, unrestricted outdoor activities
because of potential dangers ie cars, and child
predators
• The other issue is one of observer effect and
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which states
that the act of observing anything, changes it.
• The article mentions Congenital Adrenal
Hyperplasia (CAH) but fails to give an accurate
definition.
Critique cont
• Jarvis uses perceived imagination and
language with in children’s “free play”
to assert that abstract concepts
separate humans from other primate
species, however there is no proof
that primates lack these skills
Questions
1.) According to Jarvis R & T play are crucial to their healthy
progress and eventual adult capability as instruction in
literacy and numericy.
True or false.
2.) There is a greater frequency in all girl play groups than
boys.
True or False
3.) Jarvis feels that the playground is a _________of its own.
a.) sandbox
b.) chuckie cheese
c.) recess
d.) Classroom
References
• Jarvis, Pam Evolutionary Psychology
“Rough and Tumble” Play: Lessons in Life
human-nature.com/ep – 2006. 4: 330-346.
• Bishop, J. and Curtis, M. (2001). Play Today
in the Primary School Playground.
Buckingham:OU Press.
• See article for more references.
Video
• http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23556514
?GT1=43001