“Active play is in our DNA.” What Richard Monette means, of course, is not quite that literal. The metaphor isn’t far off the mark either. Active play definitely is core to how children develop and thrive: it is the natural way they learn.
But, however instinctive the drive is, active play relies on ample space and time to unfold. Sadly, the rise of a sedentary culture–more sitting and more screens–can stifle that urge. Defending, reviving, and nurturing active play is LTAP’s purpose.
By the way, Richard Monette happens to be the program director of Learn Through Active Play, and its executive director. As a sport psychology educator, physical activity has always been his domain. Ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, he got involved with B2ten, the circle of private donors eager to support Canadian elite athlete development for the Games. After the Olympics, concerned about the decline of active play, Richard Monette persuaded B2ten to shift its focus to public health more broadly. With this funding, he launched Active for Life in 2012, an initiative that helps families build habits around movement so that children carry on with a healthy lifestyle beyond childhood.
Eventually, a few years into this new venture, Richard Monette sensed that there was a missing piece. Since Canadian children spend a significant part of their early years in child care, educators had to be part of the equation too. And that’s how LTAP came to be.
The story of that journey was recently retraced in a Toronto Star article. And the public conversation is moving beyond active play itself. Earlier this month, several LTAP board members and supporters signed an open letter urging fellow business leaders to support quality early childhood education as a “nation-building investment in Canada’s future”.
“Active Play is serious business when it comes to children’s development”, muses Richard Monette with his signature way with words. And the same could be said of early childhood education. Just as active play ripples outward from physical literacy into the way children think and feel, quality early childhood education ripples outward too, supporting families and enabling parents to participate in the workforce. What happens in early childhood matters, and it matters far beyond the early years.
A movement is building. Through this blog, we hope to document this journey as it unfolds, a work-in-progress, sharing our discoveries, questions, and ideas tracing where we go next.
Let’s begin!