Play As Exploratory Learning : Studies of Curiosity Behavior

Play, whether serious or lighthearted, is a serious topic. Psychologists and other social scientists generally acknowledge its importance, as well they must in view of its human universality, its salience in the long developmental sequence of human immaturity, and its polar opposition to "work" in the coordinates of the meaningful adult world. Having paid their respects, however, they have mostly lapsed into inarticulateness. Since the grand speculative syntheses of Groos and Huizinga went out of fashion, the topic has eluded satisfactory treatment. Only now does it promise to come into its own as a focal concern in "the proper study of mankind" -- and in the formulation of appropriate strategies for the realization of human potentialities and the remediation of damages and deficits in the course of human life.