Brian Sutton-Smith revisited.

Toys, intention
The Perfect Toy Library pedagogical
Training space in toys and play and culture of progress

Class material in Toys as Culture.

Author: Daniela Pelegrinelli
April 2021

Introduction Bibliography:
We have the task of freeing the game from work
Byung-Chul Han

In this work1My intention is to present some of the points Sutton-Smith, Brian (1986). “The
main ideas that Brian Sutton-Smith develops in Part III of his Toy as Education, Toys as Culture
Toys as Culture, "The Toy as Education", in order to New York, Gardner Press, Part III,
share and comment on your ideas from the present and in relation to pp. 115-166.
other authors. I will focus on their analyses related to that
theoretical construction that links toys with a perspective
evolutionary, a way of conceiving human and social existence that
proceeds through stages of progressive evolution. In works
later defined this idea more precisely calling it 'rhetoric'
of progress"; and a little later still, he redefined once again
all his thought system about the game, always in the
sense of supporting its variability, its flexibility, and its nature
exploratory. Because if something holds over and over again, it is the
conviction that the game takes many forms and means
many things. The intention of defining it in a single way would be
like looking through a keyhole. I think concepts
as rhetoric of progress or its critical perspective regarding the vision
of the game as a tool capable of promoting behaviors
precise have a lot of relevance today, in the context
of neo-capitalism and the society of performance and of
utilitarianism. That which was already a concerning trend when
he wrote the book -as the childhoods became custodians of
productive and achievement expectations - is currently an aspect
crucial that crosses the view we have about the game and the
toys.

1 In the present work, all the quotes correspond to the book Toys as Culture.
cited only with the page reference, unless otherwise stated
specifically another source.
 At the moment I write these lines, in the context of
pandemic and economic crisis, a population of 57% of children and
girls between the ages of 0 and 14 in our country are poor.2In parallel,
there is, among teachers, parents, educational and cultural managers, a
growing interest in the game, evidenced in my own classes and
classes, and the experiences of other colleagues. Additionally, it is observed a
flourishing in the production of explicitly content toys
didactic (didacticizing, I would say), offered as a guarantee of a better
development of children in the early years of life. The question
the relationship between play, toys, and education is more relevant than ever
never, and I believe that this rise could be explained, at least in
part, based on many of the premises that we will address in the
pages that follow and that Sutton-Smith expressed more than thirty
years. It goes without saying that there is a hiatus, a gap, between those
toys, generally expensive, and this 57% of children who do not
access to those toys and therefore would seem to be forbidden
also the appropriate stimulus that - like a kind of nourishment
mental - would be required for its optimal development. It does not seem to make
it is necessary to recharge the inks on the political implications that it has
way in which we think of an object as seemingly innocuous as
a toy.

Sutton-Smith wonders if toys, as technology, are

capable of generating changes in the development of the young child,
just as technological innovations transform our lives
daily, customs, habits and ways of doing things. If it is
Thus, the question that goes without saying is how they do it, which ones, and if it is
it is possible to establish some difference between one and the other in the
exercise of that function.

The question may seem innocent, yet it is fundamental.

because of the theory or interpretation that is constructed as
The answer to a question of this type is derived after a whole.
framework for action and intervention in something so
fundamental as it is the way we grant access to the most
boys to human culture.

2
Index. Technical reports. Vol. 5, No. 59. March 31, 2021. ISSN 2545-6636.
It can be consulted at:
Unable to access the content from the provided URL.
The toy as a tool for the child

Before fully addressing chapter 8, 'The Toy as Achievement', which inaugurates Part III, 'The Toy as
Education, I will revisit some points from Part II, where toys are analyzed as technology,
a more general sense, as tools, but also in relation to the technologized forms of
game, for example video games1because they foreshadow the topics that I will elaborate on in more detail.
Towards the end of that journey that links toys and technology, Sutton-Smith raises a
hypothesis that serves to deploy the analyses where he will attempt to account for his initial thesis:
establish whether there is a synchronization between the baby's physical development and the technology of toys2.
Part of a paradox: our civilization is based on technology and it is argued that toys are
important for development and learning, but despite that the study is neglected or underestimated
from toy technology3. Point out:

The theories of evolution seem to suggest that particular environments and objects were
crucial in the development of humanity. From this same perspective, it could be argued
that contemporary ignorance about these issues arises from the fear of machines, from the
fear of losing freedom, fear of losing authority, and of an inability
adultocentric to recognize the sophisticated nature of imagination and a willingness to
attribute it to the children who still cannot possess it. In this, modern psychological science and
modern religion coincides in its belief that to understand human nature
The fundamental thing is the human being, not the human context. The defense of this position
modern is that physical environments and objects, despite their importance, are
interchangeable in their effect, and one is as good as the other. In this work, however,
we adopt the opposite point of view: that there is a relationship between evolution, the
technology and whether or not there is a set of toys of their own. In their own rooms, the kids
they wake up and go to sleep, they spend a considerable part of their time. There they receive
instruction and fun in those things that interest them. From a series of objects, they choose
first what to observe and then what to take to the mouth, and for minutes and hours and,
Finally, days and weeks focus on what is around them and in front of them.
We know that having refrigerators has changed our shopping habits and the way we...
eat; that automobiles have created suburbs, facilitated sexual encounters and the
mobility in general; and television has changed the way we behave together
during our free time. Does it make any difference to grow up with a room full of

1Its analysis covers chapters such as 'The toy as a machine: the video game' 'The technology of infants' and 'The
toy as a tool of the infant. 'infant' was translated as 'infante' to differentiate it from the term 'niño/a' since in
In these chapters, the author refers to babies during the first and second year of life.
2
The works that attempt to draw a reliable connection between body technology and toys, trying to
establishing evident consequences between the use of a certain toy and long-term development has not yielded until
the moment very conclusive tests. To delve into this topic and learn about some of the works that attempted it
see, for example: Muentener P, Herrig E and Schulz L (2018). “The Efficiency of Infants’ Exploratory Play Is Related to
Longer-Term Cognitive Development, Frontiers in Psychology 9:635. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00635
3
From my point of view, this strong statement could be relativized in light of the present. By the time that the
The author writes the book there were certain studies and research on toy technology; in fact, they could
to conceive the works of Frederic Froebel or Maria Montessori in that sense. In their own way, they tried to be scientific.
Montessori calls her methodological proposal that way. At the same time, the studies published by Robert were already circulating.
Jaulin, where toys are analyzed from ethnography and ethnotechnology.
 toys? The psychologists Csikszentmihalyi4Rochberg-Halton has been asked:
Does it matter if a king has a crown or a throne; a judge, a bench; a criminal, a weapon;
police, a uniform? Don't we need to identify people and they identify themselves?
the same due to their familiarity and ease with the appropriate objects? Do they not place the objects
order in the worlds of those who use them and the rest who can recognize them? In these
terms, aren't children nowadays those creatures known by their toys,
games and games, which are classified by age and gender, by their toys? Don't they organize?
their toys shape our perception of them and organize their ideas of who they are
same? There is no easy answer to these questions, but these psychologists believe that the
the things that surround us are inseparable from who we are. Just like our clothes, we
they define and adorn and create expectations among others and ourselves about how we
we will behave. They are not just objects that should be picked up and thrown away. They shape our
experience, and to our conscience. We are nothing without them. Material goods are a
measure of adults, and the toys, of the kids.” (p. 87)

In chapter 7, "The infant's toy as a tool," Sutton-Smith wonders if there exists

evidence that allows to draw a benefit relationship between toy technology and what it will call
the technology of the body. It raises a question about the relationship of the child with those objects, how much
what happens is indeed 'taught' by parents/adults by performing certain actions once and
again, whose result is precisely a learning. And it also wonders why arises the
the need to incorporate objects - that would not be essential in the relationship with the baby at that
period - as part of a provision whose origin lies in the value that objects have in our
civilization. The attitude is explained because the parents would be introducing the children in this way.
a way of appreciating material culture that is nothing other than one's own (p. 93).
From these ideas, it goes further to maintain that although the toys given to babies are very
small items like mobiles, rattles, soft dolls, musical toys, even the decoration
figurative on the walls or near the crib, they can eventually stimulate the baby, they are not necessary,
since the child is unable to distinguish between them and the rest of what surrounds him: the curtains that are
move, the light of the room, the people coming and going, the walls of the crib, etc. Those toys that
They are given to the child and they seek to stimulate him (how much stimulation does a baby need?) they work rather well.
like a habituation that serves as a stimulus and, in any case, relates to 'getting used to a
world where symbols of intelligence like 'hurry up' are everywhere. The most
part of cultural learning is overlearning: that is to say, if a society wishes to achieve a goal in

4 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his text 'Why we need things?' explains that the human mind
is dispersed and chaotic, and it organizes itself through its environment, the surroundings that it builds around itself. The objects that
they significantly surround the vital experience, what we keep tells our life, reminds us who we are, outlines
the milestones of our existence, we can return to them from time to time to reconnect with that journey. There they are
represented are the characters and moments of our life. For this reason, he says, we become attached to objects, not it
we do it because they are beautiful or economically valuable, they may or may not be, but for their ability to help us
to narrate ourselves and share that which we are with others. This idea is beautifully applicable to toys. It approaches the concept
of a toy as a bow that Sutton-Smith develops in the first part of his book, but goes further in that it
each person assigns to their objects a sense with more or less awareness, and obviously their condition participates in that value.
to be a link with other significant people, but not only that. See: Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Rochberg-Halton.
The Meaning of Things. Domestic Symbols and the Self
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1993). "Why we need things", in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, Washington,
DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 20-28. Consulted at: https://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/mas714/fall02/csik-
No text to translate.
in particular, how to have high-performing youth, addresses that concern in multiple ways; not
leave the subject to chance" (p. 99). The toys in the crib are more a need for the parents than for the
babies, because it is necessary for the environment to convey the message that society wants to transmit. According to their
analysis, the usual environment of the cradle, the child's room, the world around him, is enough
stimuli in the first months of life, while toys are, before being stimuli of
growth, signs of parents' expectations about that growth. Use an example from
behavior of the baby, older than three months, to account for his main thesis, that the
the function of toys is not, although they have a certain degree of participation, to maintain curiosity of
baby, consolidate interest in an action, entertain, but mainly integrate into a system of
communication through which parents convey their values to their children. They will give those toys
that in some way continue their values: if they are vital they will give toys that shape and stimulate the
vitality, if they are parents jealous of their private spaces, they will give toys for the child to entertain himself
Be alone and build your own private space, you can enjoy showcasing the signs of your wealth.
buying luxurious and expensive toys, or they can, on the contrary, not buy toys because they believe that
freedom and creativity go hand in hand with playing with natural materials, or not buying toys
technological or too mechanical. There is a whole range of situations that could be traced to provide
counting the ways in which toys constitute a family communication system, without leaving out
side that can be used by children in a completely different way than the intentions with the
that received them.
Sutton-Smith (pp. 99-105) seeks to demonstrate, then, through comparative analysis between, by
for example, the concepts introduced by Jean Piaget, which would establish the needs of babies
according to their stage, and the toys that are actually bought and sold for these same periods.
Refer to Piaget's observations to describe some actions typical of babies over
three months in order to determine, first of all, what the child's needs might be, and
Then, if the toys given to them have any type of correlation. At three months, the baby focuses on
the repetition of a stimulus that was caused by itself (primary circular reaction) or to the repetition of
an action that caused an effect beyond itself (secondary circular reaction), from which it will go on
building the differentiation between the self and the external (between the subject and the object). At this point
it must carry out a series of integrations between the own and that of the world, a kind of synthesis, such as
example integrate your hands, eyes, ears and mouth. The main "toy" at that moment seems to be your
own body, its two hands and its two feet, with its small movable fingers to examine, that
can move and control as well as bring to the mouth. This observation could derive from
possible characteristics of the toys that would be appropriate to give to the baby during this period, those that
they would accompany this process with the technology capable of contributing to that need of the baby. They should
be soft and flexible, never hurt (like their fingers and toes do), have
multiple parts (like your feet and hands that have fingers), they should be able to take them to the mouth and
suck them, perhaps for this to have flavor, like its own body, and they could include some type of reaction,
just like the fingers that react when babies themselves bite them. To compare these
characteristics with what is truly bought for a baby of this age, Sutton-Smith
highlight the best-selling toys for this age group in the period 1982-1983 in the United States. These
they were: crib strips with rattle, stacking and nesting rings (Snap-Lock Beads and Rock-a-Stack, from
Fischer-Price), toy train (Rail Runner Train, by Mattel), plastic linking rings (Kiddie
Links, from Playskool, and activity boards with characters (Busy Poppin' Pals, from Gabriel). It is
Saying that the toys that, according to commercial reports, were bought and given did not match the interest.
of the child through his own body nor that exploration. Therefore, Sutton-Smith considers this finding
as the confirmation of their hypothesis, that toys speak more of the parents than of the real ones
children's needs (p. 102-103) 5 To reinforce this idea, it is noted that these toys are
accompanied by advertising that spreads a message, that it is worth creating devices
ingenious for children because pursuing their wisdom, their intelligence, is a defensible project and
even profitable. In this way, a commercial and cultural project is validated, which relates to the long
history of denial and cruelty inflicted on children (citing Lloyd de Mause), as they are placed in the
service to the needs of adults, a form of adultcentrism.
As reliable sources for recommendations for the first year, cite the Guide for the
Child Development (1978) by Johnson and Johnson, the book Choosing Toys for Children (1979) by
Bárbara Kaban, and The First Three Years (1975) by Burton White. Sutton-Smith argues, in
consonance with Kaban and White, which during the first six months could even be extended
during the first year, toys are not essential, but playing with others is (with or without)
toys), having things on hand that are interesting and curious (toys or other objects) and with the
that can be played or explored, and that is enough for the child's vital enjoyment and their growth. It closes its
analysis in this way:

Beyond all this is the culturally important issue of relationships between

tools and toys, and if the first toys, like the first tools for the child,
originate some of his later attitudes, both towards the tools and towards the
toys. (The history of invention sometimes leads to turning objects into tools.
that they are not from playing with them, or manipulating them playfully, while others
Sometimes it is the very tools that become toys for recreational purposes.
There is an intimate relationship between both, in human and personal history, and probably
it starts in the second half of the first year of life. To affirm, as we have said in this
chapter, that the first toys are really the first tools for babies is
perhaps to say something that deserves much more attention than it has received so far.
After all, our general argument has been that toy technology is
is being left behind regarding our technology for everything else. The toys that
they were once associated with the technological domain of science have been reduced to
issues of little importance due to their association with children and their play. On the other
side, what we have presented in these three chapters suggests that there may be a role
much more powerful for toys than has been researched up to the present. It is not
impossible for constant play with toys like real vending machines or
imaginary provide players with both a model and a validation of their

5 It would be interesting to update this analysis, in a time where the market for babies has grown tremendously, as well as
approaches to parenting that aim to be less invasive with babies have also been disclosed, or where the adult is more
present as support, like attachment theories. At the same time, the paraphernalia aimed at baby rooms has
increased, pedagogized and rationalized even more since the publication of the book. Under the invocation of Mary
Montessori, Rudolf Steiner or Emmi Pikler, all kinds of objects are marketed that supposedly stimulate development.
of the babies, with whom Sutton-Smith would probably not agree for the same reasons outlined here, because
They rather express a way of understanding the world that is embodied in the system of values and beliefs of the parents.
What are the values, then, that are conveyed with this paraphernalia of objects aimed at self-improvement?
constant obstacles with the goal set on performance and achievement?
 belief in themselves as automatic machines, as autonomous beings. The importance
The toy could mainly lie in the habit of control it imparts. The continuous
the player's immersion in these miniature worlds can actually validate the
belief in one's own internal powers. In these terms, the toy as something external
Yes, perhaps, the key to inner character.” (p. 112).

2- There is no progress that does not benefit you. Toys and education

I will now develop the key ideas of Part III, the central objective of this document.
work, which, as I mentioned, starts with chapter 8, "The toy as achievement."6In this chapter
Sutton-Smith develops his ideas on the Western conception of progress as ideology.
imperative, rooted in thinkers like Carlos Marx (social progress) or Charles Darwin (progress
natural), that is, in the positivist perspective of how to conceive science and human development.
This book, it is worth highlighting once more, was published in 1986, before the definitive fall of
the so-called great narratives, of the advent of postmodern fragmentation, during which,
Indeed, that idea of progress will come into decisive doubt. Even so, and despite the fact that the
postmodernity as a body of ideas and practices dismantled the fiction of a progressive history that
evolved towards good driven by utopias, the rhetoric of progress (Sutton-Smith: [1997]
2001:18-51) continued to dominate the conceptions of play. From my own perspective, that rhetoric
it was even renewed in various ways alongside the race for labor differentiation and
academic in a world of growing inequality in access to education and the labor market, for
to master the scene of the educational game and educational toys. I believe it is possible to build a bridge
between Sutton-Smith and his vision of the relationship between play and progress and the criticisms made by philosophers
Byung-Chul Han (Han:2010) to contemporary culture. Sutton-Smith argued that the psychology of
development mostly works like the hero's journey. In the fairy tales that we all have.
In our heads, there is always a progression that leads us to the conquest of a kingdom. Thus it proceeds.
the science of development, a science that dominates the field not so much of how people develop
They would soon do it. 'Everyone wants to rush children into the Kingdom,' he points out (p. 116).
If we bring those ideas to the present and align them with our super society
demand, where that passage from exploitation by an employer to self-exploitation occurs
through the increase in performance assumed as part of self-fulfillment (Han: op.cit.) seems
it is sensible to interpret that play and toys have not only not left the sphere of
instrumentalization and performance but rather, that function has deepened and
legitimized. If humanity has been heading towards exhaustion due to the way our life is organized,
It is quite obvious that we should guide children in the same direction. Is it not exactly what

6
As I mentioned earlier, it is advisable to read this section in connection with the approach to the so-called rhetoric of progress, a
conceptual framework that the author completed after the publication of this work and is described as a
of the ways in which play is understood and legitimized in our society, a hegemonic form that associates play with the
evolutionary tradition. Cf. Sutton-Smith, Brian ([1997] 2001). "Rhetorics of Animal Progress" and "Rhetoric of Child Play"
The Ambiguity of Play, Harvard University, pp. 18-51.
It can be consulted at:
Unable to access external links or content.
Cq82GXv66S&sig=KMQuWOk2a18rnPEAIhV2t6eYj3A#v=onepage&q=the%20ambiguity%20of%20play&f=false
what we do when, from a very young age, from babies, we give them toys that are meant to
fragmentedly stimulate their cognitive skills, self-evaluating toys that aspire to
promote good performance at each of the steps that organize the always upward
obstacle course of individual progress? In 1986, Sutton-Smith was already warning about these issues.
that deepened until they shaped the 'society of fatigue' (Han: 2010)
This image of 'pushing childhood towards the kingdom' of the future reminds of some works by Carlos.
Skliar, when referring to the time of childhood, which is a non-utilitarian time. "Childhood is no longer
it has the experience of a time freed from constant occupation, the pressure of
"Prepare for the future," says Skliar in an interview conducted in 2020.7The performance and the
progress represents an adult society, a world where everything has been condemned to utility and to
marketing. From Han's perspective, in the society of fatigue, there is no play and no childhood.
It is possible, there is a humanity, and therefore a required childhood.8I would like to highlight the way in which
Sutton-Smith, with his rhetoric of progress and the analysis of toys as devices of achievement
valid from birth itself, extends the temporal arc in this devastation of childhood,
because that training for the future starts as early as possible, that is, from babyhood,
when the crib is filled with gadgets and devices so that the child is constantly stimulated.
And of course, he continues with haste and without pause when we give him educational toys that include in the
way to manipulate it - I don't dare to write 'play it' - its own sequencing and evaluation.
The idea of progress, linked to the myth of the hero, excludes the children who do not achieve that.
adaptation parameters, "normality" and expectations, but also, Sutton-Smith points out, devalues
the cultural practices and ways of life of peoples who maintain other ways of producing, using the
time and survival. It is from that hegemony in the way we conceive progress and play that
Sutton-Smith tries to analyze, explain, the role of toys associated with human progress, and what
what consequences that conception has.

3- The long history of cursed toys

In the section 'Toys as Progress,' Sutton-Smith recounts the successive milestones that
they were marking the course of toys associated with education. Like the recognition itself
from childhood, this gradually began in the 17th century but fully took hold in the 18th, during
that long period we call modernity and during which the idea of progress was outlined. The quotes are
the already known, John Locke and his alphabet of cubes, which proposes to teach the difficult with subtlety that
provides the game while disciplining the body prescribing as the ideal place for childhood
the interior of the houses and not the street which, as in other times, was the area of life and play (and
the vices) shared with adults9It comments that in the 18th century playing cards were created for the
teaching of geography, spelling and astronomy, many board games -like goose-

7
The interview was originally conducted for the newspaper La Capital on September 19, 2020, and published on the site
from Flacso Argentina. it can be consulted: https://www.flacso.org.ar/noticias/la-ninez-pierde-la-posibilidad-de-hacerse-
childhood
8
Francesco Tonucci (Frato) often illustrates this idea brilliantly in his cartoons. Some can be seen at:
The importance of play during childhood
9
At this point, Sutton-Smith turns to the same Locke, and although he does not cite them, it is quite likely that he follows Philippe Ariès and
to Johan Huizinga to describe the changes between the old and the new regime, and the course of modernity.
they acquired the function of teaching moral or strategy of war. Around 1760, puzzles were born.
to promote the teaching of calculus, patience, and solitary concentration. And by the end of the century
manufacturers were already promoting them as 'improving toys' mentioning
in their promotional texts that combined entertainment and instruction. The beginnings of the century
The 19th century saw this trend consolidate, and throughout the century the toy market had a
exponential growth (p.119-121).
At this point, I am interested in making some digressions and comments. This process that he points out is
very complex and wide-ranging, involves several countries, different styles and concepts of toys, adhesions
and criticisms, rapid transformations in the techniques, materials, and types of toys that were going
producing. Increasingly present in a market that expanded along with an economy
sustained in the colonial organization of the world and the mode of production of industrial capitalism. The
the second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of children's literature, compulsory school systems, and a
industrial bourgeoisie that demanded luxury consumer goods while the audiences were segmented
consumers. But, alongside mass schooling, new disciplines and theories also emerged.
pedagogical, psychological, medical, that defined a way of understanding and prescribing life
childish. Children came to have their own spaces, the school, the nursery - whose function later
it will slide into the conception of the baby's room - and consumer goods associated with the new
needs that emerged from the new perspective. In the long century that spans from the late eighteenth century to
principles of the XX, from Heinrich Pestalozzi to Maria Montessori, passing through the work of Frederic Froebel,
the foundations of playful-educational object systems were laid that we still use or for which
We are highly influenced. Very succinctly, it is worth mentioning the materials conceived by
Marie Edgeworth and her father, Jean Gaspard Itard, Édouard Claparède and Ovide Decroly. Also, the
artistic-educational toys derived from the Bauhaus design school, those created at the beginning
instances of Johannes Itten and those who came after, of an educational and rationalist spirit, not as
oriented towards the instruction of specific but highly influential content, and all the variations
industries that resulted from these developments. No less will be the influence, in these last years very
marked, of the pedagogical materials originated in the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner. The theories
psychological, especially concepts such as the post-Freudian comfort, the transitional object of Winnicott and
the manipulation objects of the sensorimotor stage of Piaget's theory were combined with these
universes of devices and materials, to shape various mixtures and routes10The important thing

10In addition to the Sutton-Smith chapter, a comprehensive overview of the history of materials can be accessed.
educational in the book by Gilles Brougère Play and education, published in 2020 by Editorial Prometeo. Brougère considers
It was Édouard Claparède who, building on the work of Karl Groos, transferred issues from animal psychology to psychology.
human to give a twist to the function of pedagogy, redefining it as the art capable of "exploiting trends"
nature of children, especially the tendency to play" (Claparède cited by Brougère, Brougère:2020:118). Play is
self-development engine, therefore the main engine of education. In Claparède, Brougère says, the pedagogical discourse is
Justify in the psychological discourse. It is not surprising that Piaget is considered a continuer of Claparède, whom he regards as
as the great interpreter of Groos's ideas. Piaget retains the notion of exercise play from Gross-Claparède (not from
pre-exercise whose purpose would be the final development of the instinct that is pre-exercised) to which it relates to its concept of
assimilation, that is to say the integration of a type of behavior from its repetition. Brougère says: "Whatever the
the scientific value of the arguments from K. Groos served to establish that new paradigm of play that
we explore, a paradigm that makes possible the association with the notion of education and has effects on the discourse about the
teaching, particularly at the preschool level. This establishes a theoretical framework that justifies an assessment of play
converted into pedagogical in itself. Its source is romantic, but the conception is reformulated within the frameworks
scientific biologicals arising from Darwinism, from the theory of evolution. É. Claparède ensures the passage of the
psychology to pedagogy. Everything is ready to justify the use of play within the school framework. So, we must look
What we must not overlook in this process is that a close relationship is beginning to form.
between play and childhood, but not always in a positive sense. Childhood develops as an entity
cultural separated from the transformations in the conceptions of childhood, the emergence of a
"world" of childhood, which includes specific goods, and as it gains value, also
Toys gain value as they are privileged possessions of children. The representations
from childhood -as it continues to happen- determine the functions assigned to play and to the
toys.

4-Play. Child labor

Sutton-Smith begins chapter 9 by stamping, as is his custom, an uncomfortable proposition.

as lucid: that play as the child's work is the great cliché of the 20th century11and add: "This
shibboleth12(password) has allowed some parents, teachers, and researchers to orient towards
achievement 'to use' the game as a means for education; or to justify it as a type of activity
useful. Others, perhaps with a sharper and more restricted eye on the nature of achievement, have denied with the
the same severity as the game has something to do with learning. We are faced with the dilemma of not
to be sure whether the game is a form of problem solving or a creative activity, such as
the first group thinks, or if it's a form of hilarity and nonsense that makes one pass time and lose time,
how the second group thinks. Similarly, there remains the problem of knowing whether the use of toys is
educational or a waste of time.” (p. 129)
One of the difficulties we face, she says, when trying to understand the game of the early years is the
to distinguish between everything that a small child does that is play and what is not, that's why
we ended up calling everything a game, but it is necessary, he says, 'to think about whether listening to music or stories is
game, if manipulating objects to learn to manipulate them better is a game, if helping parents in the
Household chores are a game, it's not easy to separate play from the constant activities that flow in the
life of a small child" (p. 129). For some authors, play is like language, it is
learning in these early years, an archaic language, older than the tongue, used even by
animals (recovers the works of Robert McCall and Diana Kelly-Byrne), so they are the parents and
older siblings who teach the baby and the small child what it is to play. Thus, by imitation.
acquires 'the external forms of the game' (p. 133). What remains as a question is, for the author, whether
solitary play can be discussed before the first year of life. Many authors have referred to play as
actions that do not necessarily have to be so (for example, Piaget). It recognizes that there is something playful, a
luck from the origin of the game in the combination of the incongruous and the grace that it entails, the
absurd and the reaction, which obviously requires the ability to compare the incongruous with a version
congruent with the same thing, which demands familiarity with that which gives grace. Sutton-Smith associates

towards the pedagogical discourse that, whatever criticisms are made about the analysis of animal play, internalized from
some way the animal reference to support the project of giving a place to play in education." (Brougère:120).
Another reference author, Gary Cross (Cross:1997), takes a look at this period in American society.
Nineteenth century in chapters 2 and 3 of his book Kid's Stuff. Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood: 'Modern
Childhood, Modern Toys” and “Shaping the Child's Future.
11Should we owe it to Maria Montessori?, I wonder. Or was it not her who stated that children did not want to play,
they wanted to do useful things, and from that idea (not only) their whole system arose.
12We leave the Hebrew word used by Sutton-Smith, and clarify the meaning in parentheses.
this quality to the rhetorical figure Bathos, an anticlimax, a sought or accidental contrast, a
abrupt transition from an elegant or elevated style or a grand theme to a common or vulgar one.
As a derivation, Sutton-Smith reformulates his own idea of play in the following terms: play
it is "a primitive form of communication" (which we share with animals and non-human humans
enculturated), "a primitive form of expression" which is reflected in the exaggeration of their gestures.
In their own words: "The exaggerations, the iconic sounds, the mimicry, the leaps and gallops"
The signs of the game are not just signals of the message 'this is a game', they are characteristic of the actions themselves.
of the game and of the game structure itself. The children who play 'the little house' do not do so in a way
detailed and realistic; they do it with quick gestures, covering the span of a day in few
minutes.” (p. 138). The game schematizes life, simplifies it in strokes, and loses its references.
originals. It is not simply an imitation of life, it alludes to it or parodies it. Here is a third
issue: the game "is a paradoxical form of expression and communication," which, in its functioning
paradoxically unites opposites: something is and is not game. Fourthly, and given this ambivalence in the
relationship between game and life, the game generates constant conflicts about its limits. It explains:

The very induction of schematic rules by the game is in itself a

violation of the everyday rules, and this state of affairs seems to generate in the game a
constant succession of bipolar and unbalancing structures that balance themselves in a way
recurrent. The most basic forms of play involve the successive repetition of states
alternates: up and down, here and there, inside and outside, round trip. You climb and jump towards the
floor. You throw the ball and the ball comes back. You fill the bucket and empty it. When it is reached
greater maturity, these antitheses are absorbed into broader patterns of cultural play
approach and avoidance (peek-a-boo), order and disorder (knocking down block structures)
chase and escape, attack and defend, reach the goal or surpass it, win and lose. The game
it becomes a vehicle of captive alternations, as if suspended between a reality
what is challenged and a reality that can never be overcome.” (p. 140-141)

The fifth premise of Sutton-Smith is that play "is a primitive form of symbolization of
underlying motivations." If children are not playing, what is all that they are doing? They are
exploring and acquiring mastery, expertise, about that which they explore. It asserts that in the life of that
In young children, there are three types of activities: exploration, mastery and dominance acquisition, and play, and
except for the moments when children play with their parents, the rest we cannot (it is not safe)
call it a game. In this sense, the presence of toys takes on another dimension: what are they for?
Do we give small children? Because they serve as a sort of curriculum for them to explore and
gain that mastery over oneself and the world. We give toys to children during their first year
of life so that they exercise the work of learning13We do not tell them: "These are tools for
your mind, go and train yourself,” we tell them they are for playing. Sutton-Smith does not address in this text the
place that marketing has in the clarification of these messages, because it deals with it in the section referring to
toy market, but it's worth mentioning: marketing operations, but also some
pedagogical speeches do express these intentions, uniting the actions of learning and playing. E
even associating them with seductive promises of having fun and enjoying.

13
The underlining is ours.
5- The game is taking shape

When Sutton-Smith analyzes what happens in the second year of the child's life, in chapter 10, 'Play
and Work after infancy: The second year”, part of the hypothesis that during that second year should
possible to find more activity that can be identified as play. The second year of life is
one of the most important in human transformation, you start to walk, new skills are acquired
forms of language, one slowly accesses a new symbolic universe through the word and the
ability to move. Most of the activities during the period correspond to intelligence
sensorimotor, which for the author means that exploratory activity continues, where the
domain search is linked to the physical and there is little play in that. However, when there are others,
parents or siblings, the game appears prominently. In the second part of this period, the
In the second half of the first year, the simulation game appears, but in a small percentage.
of the other activities, which are of exploration and mastery. Sutton-Smith cites works where it is noted
that six-month-old babies spend almost 80% of their time alone or keeping themselves entertained
little by little, during that second year of life, children acquire behaviors
conventional ones that correlate with the functions of toys, and generally do what the
The toy proposes: if they are dolls, they are placed on the bed; if they are pull toys, they are pulled. According to the
Author, until those conventional behaviors are well established, a non-usage does not appear.
conventional or innovative of those toys. It asserts, following these ideas, that in this period it is more
it's difficult for a child to play with an abstract toy they cannot relate to. To illustrate this thesis,
resorts to the analogy of the astronomy student who, when just starting out, requires a model to
scale of the universe but when one is an expert, a mathematical model is enough to understand.
celestial events. The symbolic behavior, which Piaget took care to describe and analyze, implies
the ability to refer to something that is outside of oneself and eventually is not even in
scene. In his words: "It is safer to assume, not that many of the first proper uses of the
toys should be completely symbolic for the child, but rather that the child is simply
imitating what they have seen other children or adults do with those same toys or similar toys.
There is evidence that, just as children learn to play by playing with adults, often
they even start their solitary play by imitating what they have seen others do with those same objects
of toy." (p. 152-153). Now, when does the child realize that the toy car
Is it a real one or is the doll a version of a person? It's not clear, mainly because
symbolic behavior is not acquired all at once but develops step by step and includes
imitations and identifications with that which surrounds it14.
And here appears one of the most audacious theses of Sutton-Smith, who recognizes that these actions
they are part of the development of the symbolic world, imagination participates in them, but although the
we call it a game, nothing allows us to assure that they are not mere exercises to improve the mastery of that

14
Sutton-Smith adds a table of symbolic activities resulting from the work of various theorists who continued the ideas.
primordial of Piaget, who points out - once again - as the insightful mind that observed these behaviors and tried to
interpret them. The list includes the symbolic activities that appear in the second year of life. 1) simulate an action
own (to take from a toy cup), 2) to simulate about the action of another (to feed the doll), 3) to substitute with
imagine an object for another (drinking from something that is not a cup), 4) to pretend or simulate a sequence of actions on
himself (eating, shopping, going to sleep while playing), 5) to intend a sequence for an object (putting a doll to
sleep, dress her, feed her, etc.), 6) double substitutions (a stick for a doll, a rag as a bed).
symbolization and the possibilities of imagination, a type of exercise that first involves the self
same and then to objects and things external to the self, and which are structures that must develop
regardless of the game. These types of actions do not seem to meet any of the characteristics
previously defined. The game is present, says Sutton-Smith, not when we see a
parallel with development events or life only when the Bathos is fulfilled.
It is only during the third year that -although not everything the child does is play- they appear
actions with the characteristics of the game, as it has defined. It is supported by various studies15for
It can be asserted that during this period, the child not only explores but also plays.

Because ours is a culture that increasingly separates children from life

everyday (in the home, school, and playground) and considers almost anything that
children do it by themselves as a game, they learn to use the word themselves
"to play" or the expression "pretending" as signals for anyone to
their own activities. If you ask them what they are doing, they might say 'doing
of account." And they may be pretending, but they may also be exploring or
dominating or imagining something more. It can be a defensive use of the mode of the word.
game to justify its own activity space. The rejection of the game in our
civilization and contempt has led to the use of the expressions to play and to pretend...
these defensive modes. So, when someone says they are playing, it may not be
the case. What we try to do to clarify things for ourselves and for the children
to give them toys and put them in playrooms, nurseries, or playgrounds and then
to assume that what happens in those spaces is indeed play. By being labeled, it is supposed that
those objects and spaces transmit signals for us, but it is not that simple.
Between the ages of two and four, children become increasingly interested.
but not only for the toys, but also for the scenery or the settings that the
they accompany, a realization that has made Fischer-Price earn a fortune with its series
of toys of the type scenarios such as gas stations, towns, hospitals,
restaurants, fire stations, etc.” (p. 164-165)

Ultimately, Sutton-Smith argues that "historically, toys have increasingly been associated with
some kind of progress in development, some type of learning, whether it is considered a type of
evolutionary, mental health, motor, or cognitive. We have bombarded our babies with toys in
partly due to the opinion spread by psychologists that such toys have a healthy effect
about exploratory and cognitive activity." (p. 165). Toys serve as tools
first two years and - progressively - objects to play with in the following years. They represent our
intention regarding progress, but at the same time we see the game as something not serious, in one more of the
contradictions that exist in society regarding childhood.
It is worth noting, lastly, that when the game is taken seriously, it risks being turned into only
a tool at the service of a type of society where progress and performance are values
hegemonic, something we have already raised following Sutton-Smith. It is worth remembering, to
to conclude, a central idea of the thought of another of the fundamental theorists in the study of
toys and their functions, Gilles Brougère and the fact that "play is not an internal dynamic of the subject but
what is an activity endowed with a precise social significance that, among other things, must be the subject
15
Edward Mueller, in Mueller, E & Brenner, J. (1977) 'The origins of social skills and interaction among play group'
toddlers. Child Development, 28, pp. 854-861.
from a learning perspective, so what happens in play is not the responsibility of chance
of the natural endowment that we bring when we come into the world, but the format and the meaning that this
he has and therefore we acquire in the society in which we are enculturated.16

16Brougère, Gilles: "The child and play culture". In Ludicamente, Year 2 No. 4, October 2013, Buenos Aires (ISSN 2250-
723X). Translation Carolina Duek. First version received on August 5, 2013; Final version accepted on 5 of
September 2013.