If one asked Leonna this question, she would not give a simple answer about teaching or classrooms. Instead, she would take one into the world of children, where play was not just play, but a way of thinking, discovering, and understanding life itself.

A BS Biology major in Zoology, Leonna began her career as a middle school Science teacher in an international school guided by inquiry-based learning. Science, she said, had always been close to her heart. But it was her later transition into early childhood education at British School Manila that reshaped how she understood learning altogether. There, she encountered play-based learning, and never looked at education the same way again.

For Leonna, play was not separate from learning. It was learning. “Play is basically the child’s version of the scientific method,” she reflected. It began with wonder: What will happen if I do this? It moved into hypothesis: Maybe this will work, maybe it won’t, and unfolded through experimentation, observation, and discovery. All of it happened naturally, without children even realizing they were thinking like scientists.

What followed was a glimpse into her world: one where children became biologists building habitats for toads, farmers growing vegetables, artists shaping nature with mud and leaves, and storytellers stepping into characters from beloved tales. In these moments, Leonna found not just learning in action, but childhood fully alive.

This was her story, in her own philosophy, an invitation to see what she saw when children played.

Learning Through Play

Building on her understanding of play, Leonna often turned to the work of developmental psychologist Dr Peter Gray, one of the leading contemporary scholars on play. Gray offered a definition of play that moved beyond simple recreation and instead framed it as a deeply structured yet freely chosen activity:
Play, he explained, was self-chosen and self-directed. It was intrinsically motivated, meaning the process itself was more important than any end goal. It was guided by mental rules that still left space for creativity, inherently imaginative, and took place in a state that was active, alert, but relatively free from stress.

In his book Free to Learn, Gray expanded on these ideas, advocating for unschooling and for the protection of free play in childhood. He argued that human beings were naturally driven to explore, experiment, and play, and that this capacity was part of their evolutionary design. When children were given genuine freedom to choose what, how, when, and where they wanted to engage, learning became self-motivated rather than imposed.

Gray also raised concern over the steady decline of free play in children’s lives. He pointed to the increasing dominance of adult-led structures in both school settings and after-school environments as a shift that limited opportunities for child-initiated exploration. This, he suggested, contributed to what he described as a “loss of childhood,” where less space was given for children to simply be children.

He further connected this loss to broader emotional and psychological effects, arguing that rising levels of anxiety, stress, and other mental health challenges in children may be linked to the reduction of unstructured, self-directed play.

For Leonna, these ideas resonated deeply with what she witnessed in real classrooms. They reinforced her belief that play was not an accessory to learning, but its foundation, something essential, not optional, in how children grew, made meaning, and understood the world.

Guiding Parents And Guardians

Leonna was often asked by families what they could do to support their child’s development. Her answer, she said, had remained consistent over the years: choose environments where play was not treated as a break from learning, but as learning itself.

“I always tell families I have worked with that choosing a school that is genuinely play-based is one of the best decisions they can make for their child’s well-being,” she shared. “Children are naturally happy when they are playing.”

For her, the reason went far beyond happiness. Through play, children constantly practiced self-regulation, their way of learning how to manage emotions, control impulses, and navigate small but important challenges as they arose. They also developed essential social skills: taking turns, cooperating, negotiating, and gradually learning to see situations from another person’s point of view.

At the same time, play supported cognitive growth. It gave children space to plan, test ideas, solve problems, and explore creativity. These experiences, she explained, naturally built focus, decision-making skills, and adaptability, abilities that formed the foundation of lifelong learning.

But Leonna was also candid about what she saw as a growing concern in today’s world. In an increasingly structured and digital environment, she believed children were losing access to meaningful, unstructured play. She noted how play was often misunderstood, reduced either to screen-based activities or overly controlled setups where outcomes were predetermined and creativity was limited.
“People think gadgets or tablets will give the most intellectual kind of play, or that play has to be neat and controlled,” she said. “But from my experience, play is not in the toys, it is in the child.”

Some of her most powerful classroom moments, she added, came from the simplest materials: carton boxes, twigs, leaves, mud. In these ordinary objects, children created extraordinary worlds, reminding her that play did not depend on resources, but on imagination.

For Leonna, this remained the heart of her message to parents: protect the space for play, because in doing so, they protect the conditions where children truly learn, grow, and become themselves.

Rethinking Education Systems

Leonna’s reflections on play naturally extended into a broader question she often found herself returning to: what should education actually look like in the future?

Looking ahead, she hoped education systems began to shift their perspective, seeing play not as a break from learning, but as learning itself.

“I would love to see a return to more real-life, hands-on experiences in schools,” she said. “Gardening, cooking, sewing, woodworking, simple home livelihood skills. These used to be part of everyday school life, and they taught children so much more than just skills. They built patience, responsibility, and confidence. To me, that is real learning, and that is play too.”

For her, even the structure of the school day deserved reconsideration. She imagined a system where children were given at least an hour each day to freely explore, without constant direction or predetermined outcomes. In that space, she believed something important happened: creativity emerged, confidence developed, and children began to reveal who they truly were.

She also emphasized the importance of learning beyond the classroom. “Learning also shouldn’t be limited to four walls,” she said. “Let children go outside. Let them experience nature first. Let them get curious, observe, and ask questions. Especially in science, they need to see and feel things before we start naming them.”

In her own practice, she had already begun to see the impact of this approach. She shared how teaching phonics outdoors over the past few years had transformed the learning experience for many children, especially those who struggled with sitting still inside a classroom. Outside, they moved more freely, engaged more deeply, and participated more fully. For her, this reinforced a simple but powerful idea: sometimes it was not the child who needed to change, but the environment.

Leonna was also clear about her concerns regarding early academic pressure and excessive paperwork. She believed that pushing children too quickly into reading, writing, and formal mathematics could overlook the foundations they truly needed. Fine motor skills, language development, concentration, and problem-solving, she explained, were best built through meaningful play. Social and emotional development, she added, were not secondary goals but essential pillars of early childhood.

She extended this call for change to educators as well, expressing hope for greater trust in teachers, their understanding of their students, and their ability to adapt learning in responsive ways. “Play is learning, and the evidence is all around us,” she said. Whether it was a child building a bug house or tending a garden, she saw clear demonstrations of problem-solving, observation, measurement, and responsibility, forms of learning that may not always appear on worksheets but were visible in action.

Finally, she returned to parents, hoping for a continued shift in how play was understood at home and in society. “Play is not a waste of time. It is where connection happens, where confidence is built, and where children make sense of the world,” she said.

At the heart of it all, Leonna hoped for an education system that saw children fully, not only for what they were expected to achieve, but for who they were in their present moment. A system where learning was joyful, relationships were valued, and childhood was not rushed. Because, as she reminded us, children only had one childhood.