One of the most insightful things I noticed as I made my way through the first twelve years of Shultz’s Peanuts, was that the characters will often start out as infants and grow up into children, which they remained for as long as fifty years - as if to imply that there is no such thing as an adult, only a bigger kid. This is how I like to conceive of the teacher: a fellow player who is trained to lead.In sharp contrast with the instructional teaching for knowledge, it embraces the uncertainty of the world to cultivate a sense of wonder, and ideas exist to be played with and not just collected or admired in books. The role of teacher is simply to provide the toys.Now, before we get into my methodology, I want to establish that this is grounded in the interests of society. Kane-19 suggests that play at all ages can strengthen resilience, well-being, identity, free-thinking, and autonomy, which makes it essential preparation for the interconnectedness, complexity, and unpredictability of 21st century living. But more fundamentally, Elkind-10 suggests that play is an instinct most central to our intellectual and social development.Hence it is far better to co-opt this behavioural tendency than to fight it in the name of imposing content. As noted by Goleman-17, the best way to enhance performance — for both productivity and creativity — is to promote buy-in via consultation and the alignment of individual and organizational goals. But then, what do the students want and how can their interests align with the educators?Starting with the students as players, there is a genuine need and desire to develop ownership of their learning and become self-directed, in which case they need an environment that is conducive to exploration and experimentation via the provision of stimuli and sufficient time and space (see Elkind-11). Furthermore, as noted by Csikszentmihalyi-6, what actually makes any learning activity stimulating is that it involves skill in a symbolic domain with rules - a goal, a way of obtaining feedback at the level of one’s skills, and autonomy over their thoughts.Applied to the curriculum, less is more. One can scaffold for the ownership of learning by gradually moving toward less provision of backgrounding and reading guidance/selection, while also seeking to connect material to what the students are already passionate about (see Guthrie, Wigfield & Perencevich-18; Silvia-25; Babbage-1). That said however, one must keep in mind the role of variety. One reasonable critique of current emphasis of relevance in schools; is that it can limit the scope of curriculum to contemporary discourse and society (see Morgan-20). Indeed, the values underpinning which news is reported in the media — impact, proximity, prominence, timeliness, conflict, currency and oddity (see White-27) — serve to sell newspapers, being what people want to read, but tend to exclude as much as they include.If the educator is to develop creative students then the curriculum should serve to expand their interests beyond what they already know. After all, insight actually tends to occur where an individual is both informed and flexible (see Runco-22), and the types of people who develop original ideas are those with both a mastery of their subject and ongoing exposure to concepts from unrelated; fields of study (see Simonton-26).What this means in terms of pedagogy is that a significant part of learning to think develops from the social interaction that develops in response to content. As noted by Billig-4, much of our reasoning skills develop as the internalization of socialized argumentation and, according to Schugurensky-24, the development of deep thinking skills depends on an environment that allows for open discussion of contrary points of view.Furthermore, and contrary to popular belief, social interaction with people of different backgrounds and expertise is essential to the creative process (see Csikszentmihalyi & Sawyer-7), which means that the creative classroom is one where students are free to interact with both the teacher and each other.To sum, if students can be encouraged to own their learning and find pleasure in it, they are likely to become better thinkers, continuing learners, and well adjusted beyond the classroom. The method for this is the provision of curious materials and sufficient space for students to explore them on their own creative terms. Let us work with, and not against, our own playful instincts.Footnotes1. Babbage, K.J. Extreme Students: Challenging all students and Energizing Learning. 2006. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 60-3.2. Batra, N.D. Digital Freedom: How much can you handle? 2008. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. p. 128-30, 133-7.3. Beder, S. Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. 2000. Melbourne, Victoria: Scribe. p. 166-74.4. Billig, M. Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology 1989. Newcastle, Great Britain: Cambridge University. p. 110-7.5. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Classic Work on how to Achieve Happiness. 1992. Sydney, New South Wales: Rider. p. 141.6. Ibid 118-20, 1417. Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Sawyer, K. Creative Insight: The Social Dimension of a Solitary Moment. In Sternberg & Davidson-30. p. 358-608. Dawkins, R. The God Delusion 2006. London, Great Britain: Transworld. p. 191-201.9. Diamond, J. Guns, Germs and Steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years 1997. Sydney, New South Wales: Random House. p. 36010. Elkind, D. The Power of Play: How spontaneous, imaginative activities lead to happier, healthier children. 2007. Cambridge, Massachusetts: De Capo. ch. 111. Ibid ch. 5-6.12. Ellis, E. S. Watering up the curriculum for students with learning disabilities. Remedial and Special Education 18, 6 (1997). p. 327-8.13. Fendler, L.. Educating Flexible Souls. In Hultqvist, K. & Dahlberg, G. (eds.) Governing the Child in the New Millennium 2001. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. p. 134-9.14. Fleming & Marien. Fleming’s Art and Ideas 2005. Belmont, California: Thompson & Wadworth. p. 301-3.15. Florida, R. The Rise of the Creative Class 2002. New York: Basic Books. ch. 3.16. Goleman, D. The New Leaders: Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results 2002. London, Great Britain: Little, Brown. p. 92-6 & 194-517. Ibid 59-63 & 66-918. Guthrie, J.T., Wigfield, A., & Perencevich, K.C. Motivating Reading Comprehension: Concept Oriented Reading Instruction 2004. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 61-8.19. Kane, P. The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living 2004. London, Great Britain: Macmillan. ch. 6.20. Morgan, P. Education Made Easy. Quadrant, January-February 2007. p. 50-52.21. Okagaki, L. & Sternberg, R.J. Teaching Thinking Skills: We’re Getting the Context Wrong. In Kuhn, D. (ed.) Developmental Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Thinking Skills. 1990. New York: Karger. p. 74-6.22. Runco, M.A. Creativity, Cognition and their Educational Implications. In Houtz, J.C. (ed.) The Educational Psychology of Creativity 2002. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton. p. 25-40.23. Salter, D. The Media we Deserve 2007. Melbourne, Victoria: Melbourne University. p. 62-324. Schugurensky, D. Tranformative Learning and Transformative Politics: The Pedagogical Dimension of Participatory Democracy and Social Action. In O’Sullivan, E.V., Morrell, A. & O’Connor, M.A. (eds.) Expanding the Boundaries of Transformative Education: Essays on Theory and Praxis 2002. New York: Palgrave. p. 63-525. Silvia, P.J. Exploring the Psychology of Interest 2006. New York: Oxford University. ch. 6.26. Simonton. Foresight in Insight? A Darwinian Answer. In Sternberg & Davidson-30. p. 478-8627. White, S.A. Reporting in Australia1996. Melbourne, Victoria: Macmillan. ch.128. Zimbardo, P. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how Good People turn Evil 2007. New York: Random House. p. 273-85.29. Zuboff, S. Managing the Informated Organization. In Webster, F. (ed.) The Information Society Reader 2004. London, Great Britain: Routledge. p. 31630. Sternberg, R.J. & Davidson, J.E. (eds.) The Nature of Insight 1995. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
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Article comments
1 - Anon
This may totally be besides the point, but the paper assumes that an ideal of encouraged learning exists whereas there are situations that learning is deliberately stunted by that hegemony who hold the capital on said information to keep it within a select few of those who can afford it while the rest rot. It also assumes that learners who learn outside the system around aren't hunted down and killed.
2 - Belle 2
Jonathan,
Very interesting!! I agree with your ideas and I try to encourage my student's love for learning, but I feel as though I'm losing my edge. Which resource do you recommend over all the others? I need practical suggestions to enhance my classroom. How do you suggest implementing your ideas in the current educational climate which has all the focus on standarized testing? My usual teaching assignment is three different subjects, six classes, 40 minute periods and 150 students!!
3 - Jonathan Scanlan
Hi Belle,
In regard to implementing this within classrooms, I'd suggest simply playing the system and testing it at this stage. See what works for you.
In my own experience however, sometimes this can work too well, and it is very easy to fall into the trap of trying to regulate the classroom noise and energy when the students seem to be doing all the work for you.
Another problem is that this can also be incredibly resource intensive. Building activities on a full schedule is problematic because it will often overwork you.
Now, I have yet to test this properly but one way I am planning to cut down the workload, and increase autonomy, is to hand students a simplified version of my syllabus documents at the start of a unit and then have them brainstorm and plan the work ahead - leaving me to edit and refine.
Essentially OpenSourcing their education, and including them in the planning process will - I expect - give you better indication of what students will find intrinsically interesting and promote a sense of ownership over the materials.
4 - Belle 2
Thanks for the advice. I'm excited to give it a try. Summer is such a great time for me to read and plan for the next year, can you recommend one great book to help get me started?
5 - Jonathan Scanlan
Best book among all those linked above, is FLOW. It's entirely about engagement and life satisfaction.
So far as education in particular, it is unfortunately the case that no one is writing about the incorporation of play in the middle and senior curriculum. I've actually had to resort to primary education texts.