Article I found interesting

The article is called 'Why Preschool Shouldn't be like School' and below is a link to the full article:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html

It talks about 'direct teaching' vs 'the playful approach'  and describes a controlled experiment to measure the two.

In one experiement, they gave two groups of 4 year olds a toy with four different tubes coming out of it.  Each tube did something different.  The only variable in each group was the way that the adults taught the children in the group about the toy.  In one group, the experimenter pretended she had just found the toy acted surprised at what the toy could do.  In the other group the experimenter acted more like a teacher and said things like 'Im going to show you how my toy works.'  They then left the children alone with the toy.

The children from the first group discovered more about the toys hidden features than those in the second group.

So, I put this into my own practice and thought about the way I teach young children.  I try and use props of different colours and base my class around a theme to make it fun.  However, I do enjoy structure to my class and a bit of direction.  For example, I was employed to teach in a nursery today and feel that if my class did not involve a bit of directed teaching then the other teachers observing the class may have questioned what I was doing and it may have looked like I was not in control of the class by letting them play on their own for too long.

I have decided to include this is a question in my interviews to other practitioners as I am interested to know what the best way of teaching is to ensure young children are learning as creatively as possible in my classes.