The interview was conducted in Mandarin Chinese and originally published on 9 April, 2025 in Simplified Chinese characters. This translation was made using AI and then minimally edited for clarity and readability by Jesse Coffino. The original Chinese text can be found here.

Anji Play on the road of reform | Anji Play: an educational revolution leading a sustainable future (Part 2) - Interview with Cheng Xueqin, founder of Anji Play

Interviewed experts | Cheng Xueqin, Education Bureau of Anji County, Zhejiang Province

Text | Staff reporter Cheng Jie

In June, September and November of 2024, a reporting team from this magazine conducted three in-depth investigations into the Anji County region, and then interviewed Ms. Cheng Xueqin, founder of the Anji Play Approach, a dialogue that focused on the conditions and process that led to the development of Anji Play,  its underlying view of children, how to implement this new view of children, and how to continue to deepen the reform of regional early childhood education.

Reporter: In the second half of 2019, the World Economic Forum selected 16 future-oriented education models around the world that fit the "Education 4.0 Framework" and highlighted 5 innovative models. Anji Play is particularly lucky to be the only education model selected from China and the only selected education model in the world of early childhood education. You have mentioned that Anji educators strongly advocate reflection. With this new honor, is reflection still necessary?

Cheng Xueqin: The World Economic Forum commented that “Anji Play provides an ideal early childhood education model and leads the future of education in the 21st century.” However, I think this sentence should be more appropriately expressed this way - “by providing an ideal model for Chinese early childhood education–the educational concept of ‘play as a fundamental activity’ –the Ministry of Education of China is leading the present and future of world education in the 21st century.” Anji Play has continued for more than 20 years, because it is, in fact, an implementation of the requirement of "play as a fundamental activity" advanced by the Ministry of Education. In March 2015, at the invitation of Dr. Mitchel Resnick of the MIT Media Lab, I traveled to the United States to share Anji Play with more than 30 researchers there. At that time, I was also joined by Edith Ackerman, a famous American psychologist who studied the interaction between developmental psychology, play, learning, and design. After the sharing, they sat together to discuss and said: In the future, Anji Play will have a historic impact in the world of preschool education. At that time, Dr. Resnick said to us, "Anji Play is a global leader in preparing today's children for life in tomorrow's society," which gave us great encouragement.

In April 2018, I was invited by Dr. Resnick to share at his laboratory for a second time and met Dr. Otto Schamer, the proponent of “Theory U.” Dr. Schamer spent eight years interviewing 150 outstanding scientists and entrepreneurs, and had in-depth talks with Professor Peter Senge of the MIT Sloan School of Management for one and a half years. After two years of compilation, he created the concept of “Theory U.” He felt that Anji Play represented an empirical case of “Theory U,” and in May of the same year, he led a team to Anji for an in-depth interview.
The birth and development of Anji Play has been a non-stop process of reflective practice. I think that honors acknowledge past efforts, not present perfection, let alone the future. Only by keeping up with the pace of the development of the times, constantly seeing our own shortcomings, meeting new challenges, and breaking through new cognitive boundaries can we maintain strong vitality.
Are we really facing the problem of "preparing today's children for tomorrow's society" head on? Have we pursued this question to its end, explained it clearly, and done it right? The future is here, and the world is unpredictable. Facing the unknown future, as well as the unknown abilities that the future requires of people, and facing children who are active learners with unlimited talents, what should we do? I think that what we should do is create conditions for children’s true abilities to be discovered; we should remain resolute in response to the multitude of change. This is what the sage Lao Tzu proposed, "the Tao follows nature, and the Tao is simple." We should also create conditions to let go of children and let them discover the world; as adults, we learn from children in the process of discovering children and grow together with them.

But do we really understand what the "conditions under which children's true abilities are discovered"? How much of "children's discoveries" have we discovered? Have our practices gone backwards? These are the things we should always be aware of and reflect on.

Reporter: What are the conditions for children's true abilities to be discovered that you mentioned? When many kindergarten principals and teachers mention Anji Play, they think of unique materials such as Anji ladders, Anji cubes, Anji barrels, and charcoal-fired wooden blocks. Why did you choose to put in a large number of ladders, cubes, barrels, wooden blocks, planks and other materials? Are play materials a condition for children's true abilities to be discovered?

Cheng Xueqin: Indeed, our materials are one of the conditions under which a child's true abilities are discovered. Are you curious as to why we thought of using wooden blocks, cubes, barrels, ladders, and other things as play materials? This also begins with the childhood memories of play I mentioned to you.
I lived in the countryside when I was a child. At that time, large wooden cabinets and barrels at home were originally used to store grains, and large vats were used for pickling vegetables. Unexpectedly, they later became a good place for us children to play hide-and-seek. We hid in the vats and covered it with things, which were particularly good concealing at us. Even empty coffins used to hold millet became our “secret base” for hiding. When we were playing, we didn't have many taboos. We would hide in and play wherever we found an open space. It was so exciting.

Speaking of ladders, we loved climbing high when we were children, including climbing trees, climbing bamboo, and climbing in attics. At that time, the long ladder against the back wall of my home became a "good helper" for me and my friends to challenge ourselves. We used the ladder to climb to a certain height and then slide down from bamboo and trees. Although I might accidentally fall down while climbing, my urge to climb up was so strong that I couldn’t stop myself. When we were young, we built stone huts on the river bank, which was full of challenge. Stones, branches, and wooden boards were all materials for play. Now, the cubes, ladders, rollers,  wood blocks, etc. used in Anji Play were selected and designed by us inspired by our childhood experiences of play.
When we first started, we didn’t know what open-ended play materials were. When developing play materials, I asked my husband: “What materials are the simplest and the most complex?” As it happens, he majored in architecture. He blurted out: "Bricks! Standard bricks look inconspicuous, but they can be used to build even complex buildings." I thought, since bricks are so easy to use, we should give them to the children to play with.
We first found yellow bricks from construction sites, and the children loved using them to build. However, the yellow bricks are heavy and have a rough surface, which children’s hands cannot bear. It just so happened that a former colleague of mine went overseas to develop lightweight wall tiles after leaving a government department. So I told Teacher Sheng Yi, who was the director of Anji County Jiguan Kindergarten at the time, about this, and she immediately found the lightweight bricks. Although these lightweight bricks had a smooth surface and were much lighter, they were not wear-resistant and were brittle. Later, we processed wood into the shape of bricks, and were inspired by the production technology of local wood processing plants. We used fire technology to deal with the tendency of wood to develop mold, but it was still unsatisfactory. With the upgrade of the carbon firing process, we finally solved the problem of mold developing inside the wooden blocks.
Later, as the children played, we found that standard blocks were not enough, so based on the size of the blocks (240x120x60 mm), we added cubes, cuboids, cylinders, etc. with multiples. In this way, the outdoor carbonized building blocks used in kindergartens in Anji County were finally developed.
At that time, we were all obsessed with everything we saw, thinking: can this be played with by children? At that time, my office happened to be in Anji County Jiguan Kindergarten. Sheng Yi and I were the best partners in the development of play materials. She is very nimble. For example, if I drew a picture for her at night, within three days the materials would appear in the playground. For example, it only took two days for her to get a carpenter to make a four-sided climbing tower. Or take the climbing cubes. She discussed the production process with the carpenter many times - at first, she used plywood, but it was too light, so she used five layers of boards to increase the weight. However, because it was too thick, the carpenter said no, and the children could not move it. So, we added wheels to the bottom of the box and continued to optimize and improve it. At that time, there were a large number of companies producing office swivel chairs in the Anji County area. I found that the synthetic board for making swivel chairs was very suitable. It was lighter and thinner than five-layer boards, but had better wear resistance than plywood. Finally, we used this to make the climbing cubes, which can withstand the children’s self-determined play and allows the child to manage the cubes on their own.
I remember one time, when I came back from a business trip in Hangzhou, the shuttle bus I took happened to stop at Anji Qingshan Station. At that time, I saw a pile of huge cylindrical water tanks and threaded water conduit with a diameter of 60-70 cm on the roadside. I thought to myself: aren’t these the little moveable houses I wanted most when I was a kid? Aren’t those conduit pipes great toys that you can play with up, down, and inside, and even roll? I was so excited that I immediately called Sheng Yi. The next day, in addition to the large water tank, and conduit pipes of different lengths, two-way and three-way pipe joints appeared on the playground of the kindergarten. Another time, I drove by a road construction site and spotted extra-large tires being replaced on a crane. I called Sheng Yi right away. The next day, the oversized tires had become a platform for children to play on the zipline, or a base for building with wooden boards and ladders.
At that time, we even visited scrap car recycling stations, looking for anything we could give our children to play with. My next door neighbor is in the steel and scrap car business, so I told him how a car would be good for the child's development. In principle, scrapped cars cannot be taken out for reuse. My neighbor was so moved by me that he actually removed the engine of the car and sent the car to the kindergarten for the children to use. This made the children very happy. However, the scrapped car was not designed for play, so after it was put in, we carefully inspected it inside and outside, and for safety’s sake, we removed the doors and reinforced the bottom.

Reporter: Does studying play force you and your teachers to become “toy designers”?

Cheng Xueqin: We develop play materials, which is different from being toy designers. To be honest, we are more like “garbage pickers.” Since we had no money to buy materials, we had no choice but to turn waste into treasure. We traveled around various processing plants across the county to collect and purchase leftover materials and processed products that the factories wanted to throw away. Most of the business owners said generously, “You can take them away yourself, no money required.” Kindergarten teachers are often seen at various scrap collection stations. They often ask “do you have anything you don't want” first. After receiving a positive answer, they go in and look for it themselves. Slowly, our entire county’s understanding and support for play is getting stronger and stronger.
We also trained local carpenters, because the collected play materials needed to be processed twice. Principals and teachers often instruct the carpenters to process them according to their intentions before giving them to children to play with. Often after communicating on the first day, the carpenter will use his skillful hands to make the play materials the next day. During that time, in the evening, a group of principals and teachers often appeared at the entrance of the kindergarten, dusty and dirty, followed by a tractor loaded with materials. School helpers cleaned the materials overnight and put the usable ones directly into the play area. The next day, the teachers immediately observed how the children played with these materials. If they found that the materials were not used by the children in their play, they would talk to the carpenter again that evening about how to change them, and then reintroduce them once the changes were made.
Slowly, as found materials appeared in more and more of the kindergartens in Anji, I felt more and more pressure to address safety. Take the research and development of our roller as an example. I used large diameter sewer pipes at the beginning. Because I was worried about the safety of the material, I began to think about whether I could use a wooden barrel instead, so I asked a drum master to make a wooden tube, and a bamboo craftsman to weave four of them. However, after introducing these materials and observing the children's play, I found that they were not feasible, so I found water conduit pipes instead of sewer pipes. I remember once, I bought a double-layer conduit pipe and worked with the security guard in the communication room to make it. Now, the children were having a lot of fun, but the protective edges on both ends of the pipe would regularly fall off, easily scratching the children's hands. Later, I asked around for any large pipes that did not require protective edges, and finally accidentally found a childhood playmate who happened to produce PVC water pipes, so the current white PVC roller came into being.
At that time, although we invested a lot in developing play materials and sometimes had to pay out of our own pockets, we were very happy. Do you know why? Because through observation, we saw that these seemingly unrefined materials we developed were in the hands of children, and they had a variety of ways to play with them. The children's imagination and creativity were suddenly stimulated, and it also brought us back to the wonderful childhood memories. Any combination of materials results in a changing environment, providing children with space to explore complex cause-and-effect relationships. Children explore deeply, apply experiences, reflect and create through constant hypothesis and testing, triggering profound and complex learning.
These play materials have become a medium for children to show their true abilities and wisdom, so these materials are indeed one of the conditions for children's true abilities to be discovered.

Reporter: In addition to play materials, what are the conditions for children’s true abilities to be discovered?

Cheng Xueqin: We advocate using play as the basis to support children's active learning, which is divided into three stages: before play, during play, and after play. Before play: the teacher creates and adjusts the play environment and embeds development goals into it; during play: the teacher maintains the maximum degree of letting go and the minimum degree of intervention to support the children's learning in their play; after play: the teacher listens to and records the children's representations and expressions, and shares back play experiences with the children. The teacher facilitates sharing activities with the whole class of children or with large groups of children, which is commonly known as "playing sharing", to support the development of children's thinking. These three stages create the conditions for young children’s true abilities to be discovered.
During play, we have found that in addition to play materials themselves, the rules we have about the use of these materials also lay a foundation for how children exert their autonomy and creativity. Only when children can freely move and manipulate the open-ended materials we have provided, materials such as cubes, ladders, planks, rollers and blocks of various sizes, and any number of other supplementary materials, can they fully immerse themselves in play, build and imagine without restrictions, and create challenges that rise to the level of their own needs and abilities. Moreover, only by allowing children of different ages and developmental levels to infinitely combine play materials and play in any number of ways, will each child be able to achieve higher and higher levels in their play, at their own pace, and the more they play, the more complex the play becomes.

Therefore, our rules for the use of play materials are also a condition for the discovery of a child's true abilities.

Reporter: It seems that the discovery of children's true abilities requires the trust, understanding, and empowerment of adults more than just hardware such as play materials. It requires principals, teachers, and even adults around children such as security guards, child care workers, and carpenters to reach a consensus. It requires the whole society to jointly discover and affirm the power of children, jointly recognize the value of play in promoting children's development, and jointly create a social ecology that supports children's play. And when this all comes together, children's true abilities can be seen.

Now, I have a better understanding of why some kindergartens have changed their environments, put in a lot of minimally-structured materials, and even put in similar play materials to those used in Anji kindergartens, but the quality of the play never seems to improve.

Cheng Xueqin: Because their view of the child and their view of play haven’t changed. If you don’t believe that children are better at play than we are, then you won’t be able to take on all of those intricately designed “educational play materials,” you’ll spend a lot of effort on decorating your school environment, and you won’t be able to reflect on whether these interventions are more for the children or are in pursuit of a formalistic drive to meet the requirements of superiors. And deep down you will still be reluctant. So how will you be able to remove unnecessary decorations, break unnecessary rules, leave space for children to play? How will you be able to give children the opportunity to make their own choices, and how will you truly break with this "formalism"?

To make the environment a blank canvas, to reduce the control that materials exert over children, and to allow children to decide how they want to play, as teachers, we must break through ourselves - we have to believe that a blank canvas of an environment will give children greater room for creativity.

In Anji, we created minimally-structured, movable play materials that don’t look like toys. These low-structure or even no-structure materials with no set play instructions are suitable for all children. Young or old, weak or strong, every child will develop higher and higher levels of play at their own level in the process of interacting with these materials, and the more they play, the more capable of play they will become.

The most important thing is not to imitate the materials of an Anji kindergarten, but to grasp the ways of thinking behind them. If a kindergarten simply imitates and copies Anji Play, and thinks “Anji has a cube, we should buy one too,” it may not understand the intention behind our selection, design, and placement of this material. We support children playing however they want and support returning the right of play to the greatest extent possible. When your objective conditions are limited, you may end up "waiting, relying, and wanting." In other words, you may find yourself waiting for the higher-ups to make arrangements, relying on their guidance, wanting funds to be available, and waiting for materials to show up in place, without thinking about how to identify materials that are available around you according to local conditions. When the materials do arrive, you may not observe whether these materials are really needed and liked by your children, whether they are really useful to them, and so you may not see improvement in the quality of their play.

In short, if you simply imitate others and lack your own active thinking, you will have no sense of accomplishment and your intrinsic motivation will not be strong. In this way, it is easy to become bored with external tasks and lose sight of the educational value of self-determined play itself. If kindergarten reform only changes the surface and does not change the core, it will not be completely successful. Teachers must first have faith in children and play, secondly, establish a pragmatic way of thinking, and then add a quality and spirit of active reflection. In this way, what can’t be achieved through reform?

Reporter: However, we seem to have become accustomed to imitation. Many colleagues are also curious: Is Anji Play created based on a certain educational theory or theories? Have you been influenced by Western educational theories, such as Dewey's educational theory, or have you borrowed some foreign practice models, such as Reggio Emilia, HighScope, etc.?

Cheng Xueqin: I remember, in 2014, I went to the United States for the first time. At Mills College, after listening to my speech, American experts asked: "How could such an early education model happen in the East? It should happen in the West!" "Have you ever studied in the West, or studied Dewey?"

I answered, of course not. Anji Play is something we have constantly explored in practice. I am ashamed to admit that I have not even fully read the relevant works of Mr. Dewey and Mr. Chen Heqin. As for theory, our ancestors’ concept of “the Tao follows nature” is very consistent with our practice. We respect children's nature and do not violate the laws of nature.

Of course, during the development process, we have also come into contact with some Western educational concepts, but Anji Play has never deliberately imitated or copied any theory or model. It neither draws from Reggio Emilia nor imitates HighScope; it is neither a product of curriculum gamification nor a product of play-based curriculum. We always start from our own problems and look to develop local education methods that are suitable for our local children.

Reporter: Therefore, the five keywords of Anji Play, "love, risk, joy, engagement, and reflection", as well as "close your mouth, put down your hands, open your eyes, open your ears", "play story", "one-on-one listening", "play sharing", etc., are all original concepts from Anji, right? Some of these concepts are easy for people to interpret. To avoid misunderstanding, can you explain them?

Cheng Xueqin: Yes, these are all things we boldly put forward in our practice. We have integrated play that reflect children's nature with curriculum goals that promote children's development, and have proposed the five key concepts of love, risk, joy, engagement, and reflection as criteria to continuously create conditions for children's true abilities to be discovered, and return the autonomy of play to children, allowing children to gain experience, form ideas, express opinions, improve plans, and constantly challenge themselves in autonomous and free play, thereby unleashing their greatest potential.

First, let me talk about love in the five core concepts of Anji Play. “Love” here does not refer to any grand truth, but the psychological safety we give children. Love allows teachers to establish a trusting relationship with children. Love is about letting our children know: the teacher is here, the teacher will not disturb me, the teacher will not blame me, the teacher will not interfere with me, but if I need it, the teacher will help me. When our children feel psychologically safe, they will devote themselves to play and express themselves to the greatest extent. As long as the child does not harm others, does not harm himself, and does not damage the environment, as teachers, we keep our mouths shut, our hands restrained, and we do not disturb them. When young children feel trusted by adults, they become confident that their ideas are reasonable and do not need adults to tell them what to do. At this time, they will realize, "I can make decisions", "My point of view is important", "I can solve it". Only when they are no longer affected by evaluation based on right or wrong can they be able to express their ideas freely and firmly believe in their own ideas. Owning your own thinking is a cornerstone of early childhood development. When a child expresses his abilities to the greatest extent, the more they express, the more they develop. The more they develop, the more they can be seen by us. The more they are seen by us, the more we believe that the child is an active learner. The more we believe, the more we can let go. The more we let go, the more we can infinitely extend the child's potential. This is what we hope for each child to be the best person they can be, and to constantly create conditions for children's true abilities to be discovered, so as to realize the child's own maximum potential.

Regarding the concept of risk, I remember Professor Hua Aihua of East China Normal University, who was working with us at the time, reminded me that using the word “risk” can easily make people think of the word “danger.” I think of the exciting and fun things in our childhood play memories that satisfy our curiosity, all of which are gained from risk. Learning is essentially moving towards the unknown. Because any time humans push the limits of what they know, they are learning, hence the decision to use the word risk. Without risk-taking, there is no problem solving; without problem solving, there is no learning. However, risk-taking does not mean danger. Only by allowing children to take risks and explore, and allowing children to engage in trial and error, can they develop good intuition and learn to identify what is dangerous and what needs to be dealt with with caution. Learning happens when children freely determine their play and manage risk, when they explore the limits of their abilities, discover and solve problems. Therefore, I asked our teachers in Anji to observe, record and support during play, but not to interfere, intervene or guide, to ensure that children are exposed to and enjoy physical, social and intellectual risk to the maximum extent. So risk is a key concept.

When the concept of joy was first proposed, I did some research on which one to choose, “happiness” or “joy”? I found that joy is the result of children's independent participation in play, their own adjustment of play difficulty, and their constant reflection during play. When children are truly engaged in their own affairs, they are learning, growing, challenging themselves, building relationships with others, and experiencing infinite joy. This experience is an emotion that naturally emerges from the heart of a child. It is not affected by external factors. It is a creation of the soul and involves the recognition of life and self-worth. We say that play lights up the life of the child, which means that the mental state of joy constantly nourishes children's lives. So, without joy, play cannot be true play. One of our criteria for evaluating kindergarten curricula is whether children reach a state of joy. When joyous, young children can be quiet or focused, or noisy or expressive... let go to the greatest extent. Children have space and time to grow in their own way and at their own pace, and there will be many "Wow! I did it" moments of joy. This is the basis for learning and growth. Professor Hu Hailan of Zhejiang University's “Neuroscience Research: The ‘Winner Effect" Allows Children to Have Sustained Internal Motivation” concluded that small successes contribute to big successes, that is, “success is the mother of success.” This phenomenon reveals that the experience of victory can change the body’s internal mechanisms to create a state more conducive to winning again. In other words: “success is the mother of success.” Being able to always feel a sense of accomplishment brought by success is the key to greater success. Children with internal motivation will continue to feel the joy of progress and a sense of accomplishment. In this way, you will not rely on external motivation or be obsessed with the happiness you get from comparing yourself to others. Continuously feeling one’s own growth is the key to making the “winner effect” effective in education.

Regarding the concept of “engagement,” we know that engagement is a state that gathers all the power of life into one point. It is not only an act, but also a state. For young children, real engagement occurs in their passionate exploration and discovery of the physical world and society. In observing play, we found that engagement can bring children a concentration that is beyond reality, a profound sense of joy and satisfaction, which is described as a “state of flow” in psychology. The joy that meaningful engagement in play brings to young children is like the relationship between a car and its engine. If engagement is the vehicle that drives learning, joy is the engine. They provide motivation and energy for the journey of exploration, learning and understanding.

The last concept is “reflection,” which is the key process in which young children’s experiences are transformed into knowledge and wisdom. In play, children are fully immersed in their own experiences, in gaining direct experience. After play, we give young children daily opportunities to reflect on and make sense of their experiences. Children's rich play experience and teacher-assisted reflection and expression jointly support children's metacognitive processes and cultivate children's insights. This is a key process of high-level thinking and long-term cognitive development that we should seize on. Therefore, we take reflection as a core concept. Teachers play a key role in this process, but this role is not to load teachers’ existing knowledge on a parked ship, nor is it to turn children’s unfettered bodies and minds into educational content, but to provide conditions for children’s exploration and discovery, to provide opportunities and conditions for children to think seriously about their own experiences, and to promote children to think and express their discoveries and insights. Children's understanding of their own experiences is fully valued, and children's reflections and expressions are faithfully listened to and recorded.

The five principles of Anji Play are not only pursued in regards to the experiences of young children. Our principals and teachers also use these five principles to think about their own work every day.