Teaching and Learning in Beijing : "Dress Up" turned "Masquerade"

Jacky and I have noticed that the concept of childhood play is very different here in China. We seldom observe our students engaging in pretend play; when it is free choice time they often do puzzles or play with manipulatives alone. This is unlike what we learned in the US where cooperative "dramatic play" is seen as crucial to young children's learning! I was hoping to introduce the the idea of playing pretend through "dress up" to my students while we were reading a story called "Dressing Up" a couple of weeks ago. Unlike in most American preschools, the classrooms don't have a dress up bin filled with clothes for the children to use so I was hoping to have the children's parents bring in clothes we could use for this lesson. I sent home a letter and had my Chinese partner teacher, Ann, translate it for the parents who can't read English. The day after I sent the letter home Ann told me that the parents were very excited and would have their children bring dress up clothes the following Friday. But the next day Ann told me that the parents expressed concern over not having enough time to prepare for the "dress up party" so she wanted to change the day to the next Tuesday. She said that the parents were hoping to get their children beautiful costumes for the event! I reiterated what "dress up" is to her and explained that it was not going to be a party but just a chance for the children to play pretend freely. I told her that the parents did not need to buy fancy costumes, rather bring old clothes and dolls from home. That afternoon a parent told me that she was very excited for the "masquerade event." Eventually the "masquerade" was pushed back even further by my Chinese partner teachers to the following Friday...Parent Open House Day! What was to be an ordinary lesson turned into a lavish masquerade! I expressed concern to Ann that my lesson was free play, I wanted the children to have a chance to freely use their imagination. I told her that it would mostly be a hands off experience--I wouldn't be directly teaching them, rather just encouraging their pretend play. I worried that the parents would not understand this since the concept was so foreign to them, and thus think that I was a bad teacher!

The day finally came and after I did my usual morning meeting and reading lessons in front of the parents it was time for the children to change into their costumes. They changed with the help of their parents and seemed very excited to show off their costumes. The excitement quickly faded and they all seemed a bit lost, there seemed to be no use of imagination, pretending that they were the doctor, pirate, princess etc. that they were dressed up as despite my encouragement (acting sick and asking the doctor for help etc.). The parents seemed confused too. I approached Ann and asked her if she could help me encourage more play, she said that the children did not know how to do this and that a lot of them didn't understand what they were dressed up as! She continued, "why don't you lead them in some dances?" After some failed attempts at getting the group together to dance I approached the principal of the school (who was observing all of this) and she suggested that I do a fashion show. After a short and messy "fashion show" we got together for some group photos and the open house was over. The children and parents definitely had fun, but my goal of fostering imaginative play was not met! The whole experience was a bit frustrating and embarrassing (I must have seemed so unorganized to the parents!) but it was so interesting to observe the children's confusion over what is such a normal part of preschool for American children.

Recently, the professor who owns the school and hired us discussed with us the opportunity to conduct research this year and present it with him at NAEYC's fall 2014 conference. After many interesting observations like this we are considering studying our students' play patterns and comparing them to those of students in the U.S. as our research topic! We'll keep you posted!