What is it about “modern society” that so strongly believes that play is merely infantile? Stuart Brown presents an amazing talk on play and how it seems to be a natural extension of any intelligence. It seems to be the extension of some work ethic gone mad that “we” need some reason to do something, that tools and objects have only one method of use.
I really agree with what Brown mentions about the JPL and their hiring practices, the social smile of mother/child (though I’ve got a good argument that it happens with dads as well). Play allows us to explore, find what is safe and to solve problems.
Putting this talk together with Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on creativity seems to suggest that the world has gone and got itself too serious. Granted, serious can be safe, but it is also very limiting, if we allow ourselves to be creative as we are in early childhood and to play as we ought to, we can achieve great things. Perhaps those people who are very successful – those who never “work” but rather play and are creative with their entire body (the thinking bat returns) – are the ones we should be looking to when we are considering how to teach the contemporary student (check it out at 19:25 in the video).
Edit – an interesting idea is to use play as a tool to combat (cyber)bullying
Leave a Reply