On the importance of play
My father, amongst other things, was at one point in his career a pure maths researcher into N-dimensional topology. Which to many people might seem a bit silly. Not only can you not 'see' in more than the standard three dimensions plus time, but we don't know exactly how many dimensions there are - some theories believe up to 11 is how the universe works. So working out how topology works in 'n' dimensions might seem a bit redundant. As a child, I enjoyed finding out things like just as two 'rings' must touch in an overlapping two dimensional drawing, but in three dimensions could interlock as two rings and not touch each other, so you can prove that spheres do the same in five dimensions (2n-1 dimensions). I liked finding out what Klein bottles were. The below image is a 3D representation, but in fact in a true Klein bottle the 'tube' does not pierce the surface it goes through, it uses another dimension.
You might say 'well that's pointless' - it is basically intellectual play. But here is the point about pure maths: it's never pointless. In fact, it has two major points.
1. Discovering truths about the universe, even the universe we find hard to imagine, is a profound human need.
2. Those ideas always end up being used somewhere - and they are often transformational when we work out how to use them. Play leads to innovation and wonderful, practical discoveries.
Humans do not progress by hard work alone - hammering away at implementing what they already know, and thinking what they already think. We need to create spaciousness, frivolity and freedom in order to allow our brain to engage with new ideas, new perspectives.
In a week's time we have the holiday. It's quite long. If you ask 'why?', people will say 'it used to be the harvest time, so children were needed to collect in the harvest, and it's a left over'. To be honest this doesn't entirely work for me, as it is a few months early for harvest, and always has been.
For me, the holiday is for play. Children's brains need to be released to think widely and freely - to wonder and imagine - to explore new places or new friends. In short, it is for play - and the space to be and think new things. Whilst I recognise that the idyllic 'swallows and amazons' play we archetypally imagine as the stuff of summer holidays is both an inaccessible privilege and a lost art for most - nonetheless I deeply hope that your children get the chance to play this July, safe in the knowledge that it will be doing more for their well-being and learning than we can possibly imagine.
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