PLAY !

Shall We Play: Part 1 [Blog post] (Henry Jenkins)

Children at Play : An American History (Howard Chudacoff)

Forum Theatre: A Tool for Social Change [Blog post] (Naomi Joseph)

Theater of the Oppressed New York [5-minute video]

In Youth Development we often hear about play. Purposeful play is one of the first things that I learned while working in an after-school program although I didn’t know I was doing it. However, after going through the readings I realized that play doesn’t necessarily need to be purposeful. Play is many things and has many benefits but as adults we tend to look at things too rationally and dissect the concept of play. With play children can build on their social skills, imagination and much more. But play is a time to let loose and not really think. This made me think a lot about youth and kids and how we don’t give them enough credit for not over thinking or analyzing. An example of this is when conservative parents’ worry about their children seeing a same sex couple. They argue “how will I tell my kids” and if you do tell kids their response is along the lines of “Okay” and they quickly dismiss it and move on with their day which in my opinion is a much better response than many adults have.

While reading these articles I also found the concept of gamification. While reading the definition given in Henry Jenkin’s Blog, I realized that this is something I have been doing in my own after school programs. I try to create lessons that will be fun and engaging but still based on learning. Although I do this, I also make sure to always leave a few minuets of free time at the end. I do this unconsciously without any thought than a break for the students and myself. Looking back at the Youth study we did I realized that it was during this free time that my very quiet and shy student joined a conversation about a k-pop group. This allowed me to see a different side of her I have not seen during any lessons previously.

The more I think of play and how play is associated as a waste of time in the adult world the more I think of the definition from the Tom Sawyer books in the Children at Play: An American History article “Work consists of whatever a body is obligated to do… Play consists of whatever a body is not obligated to do…”. I began to look back on this month and wondered if I had participated in on play. I began drawing again recently for fun, not to improve my skills or for a project, just because its fun. Due to work and class I have not been able to do that these past two weeks and noticed just how much my mood has changed, however, if I did take the time to draw I would have regretted it as well because it would have been a “waste of time” if I choose to draw instead of do my work. There was a lot more to play than I realized and it connects to a lot of the work I do, the students I service and myself.