I hear this from pre-school leaders, too. The whole philosophy of pre-school education is "learning through play."* As far as the children are concerned, they're playing and having fun; they just happen to be learning subliminally while doing so. However, some parents apparently get quite pushy and say that this isn't good enough. They want to see concrete results and firm evidence of things that look properly like Learning. They don't want their children to do "just playing". We're talking 3 and 4 year olds here! It's very sad.

* Yes, there is a Pre-School Curriculum, which the press got all riled about a few years ago, saying how awful it was that little three years olds were going to be put at desks and taught tables and dates. However, had they bothered to read the curriculum in question, they'd have seen that it was about learning through play. The curriculum was just there to ensure that a full range of play opportunities were provided that fulfilled certain developmental needs.