Hey Peter, Great piece. I am generally a playful person. I have noticed for a while when working with kids, that the more I relax the better the quality of our time and learning together becomes. Looking back, I notice that the above description is missing a step. When I relax I become more playful. I agree with you that kids learn better when they are playing, being playful, and being communicated with in a playful way. And, it's not just that learning increases. A few days ago I volunteered to help with a field trip of public school kids to our local nature center. My manner with kids is generally relaxed and playful. I set and hold boundaries but in relaxed and playful ways. I noticed the kids listened to me more than the folks being stern with the kids.
It’s always nice to see research that supports what you do. I think stress reduction plays into this as well - perhaps as a first step toward a playful mindset? There are several things I do in my homeschool writing classes that I think help reduce stress and prepare the mind to enter play. First, participation is always optional. Next, I try very hard to keep things lighthearted. I emphasize that we are learning and practicing, not trying to produce something perfect. The class begins with free journaling. That can mean drawing, listing, brainstorming, or whatever. The lesson I give is taught with a story or a funny example. I often make up a crazy story on the spot, or start one and let the class continue it together. Toward the end of the class, I make word games available and everyone plays together, or we play a theater game of some kind. The result has been that several kids who “hated” writing have come to love it. Students with a history of “behavior problems” had no such problems in my class. I absolutely believe that taking the pressure off and creating a playful atmosphere helps with their creativity and increases their learning.
I choose daily to have a playful mindset. When I get the opportunity to play an activity I go with the belief how fortunate I am that I get to play. I laugh at myself, I talk positive thoughts to myself and I strive to compliment others. Having a playful outlook keeps one in a relaxed state and I believe brings out creativity. As I help to plan events that invite people to attend and play I strive to ask myself are there enough activities that a wide range of people would enjoy? I believe we all like to play and we do have a playful mindset if we choose to tap into it.
Peter, this, like most of what you write is provocative and interesting. I think the experiment with the physicians (using candy), is the wrong condition and does not induce “happiness” as you suggest. The allostasis model of cognition would predict that giving literal calories would indeed increase creative thinking, and the change in mood if it occurs, would also be a result of this.
I see Venn diagrams everywhere in this. Julia Galef’s “The Scout Mindset”, the predictive brain (numerous researchers), Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “How Emotions Are Made” and others.
All of these models (and yours on “play”), contribute greatly.
Of most importance is the recent trend in schools (at all levels) to initiate policies that make students (and teachers), fearful of heterodox ideas, silencing those with unapproved world-views or ways of solving problems, while at the same time restricting actual play. All of these things are likely to decrease creative thinking even if evaluation of comprehension/mastery is removed entirely.
In my early fifties I had been persuaded to “teach” a mixed age Sunday School group of young kids. There seemed to be no one else available and they reasoned, I WAS a teacher. Though it was a bit different from teaching HVAC to a class of High Schoolers and adults.
There I sat on the floor in the middle of a group of kids from age 3 to 2nd graders, doing my best to convey a Bible story or message with pictures, puppets or whatever was at hand. The small ones might be crawling over my back or running a toy truck up my leg. The older ones could be helping me with puppets or illustrations of the story, sometimes we would act it out. I was never quite sure just how much was getting through.
But we had fun and the kids all seemed to like being with me. Some of them always sat with me in the pews during church. In the middle of the sermon, while running that toy truck along the back of the pew or on the floor at my feet, I have had more than one of them suddenly lift their head up and say something like, “But that's not what you said in Sunday School.” So they had been listening, both to me in class and the Preacher in church.
I have always been fascinated with puzzles that require thinking outside assumed parameters. I have always approached problems, whether academically or life situations, by looking carefully at what is not specifically proscribed. Given dots within a circle or square and told to the connect the dots with a given number of lines, most people assume that they can not draw outside the circle though the instructions do not say so, and this is required to solve the problem. I am however still intrigued by your use of the terms play and playful. You seem to assume that a playful setting or attitude helps one to think outside the box or assumed parameters. I have read several of your writings and still not sure yet what you mean by play.
Hey Peter, Great piece. I am generally a playful person. I have noticed for a while when working with kids, that the more I relax the better the quality of our time and learning together becomes. Looking back, I notice that the above description is missing a step. When I relax I become more playful. I agree with you that kids learn better when they are playing, being playful, and being communicated with in a playful way. And, it's not just that learning increases. A few days ago I volunteered to help with a field trip of public school kids to our local nature center. My manner with kids is generally relaxed and playful. I set and hold boundaries but in relaxed and playful ways. I noticed the kids listened to me more than the folks being stern with the kids.
It’s always nice to see research that supports what you do. I think stress reduction plays into this as well - perhaps as a first step toward a playful mindset? There are several things I do in my homeschool writing classes that I think help reduce stress and prepare the mind to enter play. First, participation is always optional. Next, I try very hard to keep things lighthearted. I emphasize that we are learning and practicing, not trying to produce something perfect. The class begins with free journaling. That can mean drawing, listing, brainstorming, or whatever. The lesson I give is taught with a story or a funny example. I often make up a crazy story on the spot, or start one and let the class continue it together. Toward the end of the class, I make word games available and everyone plays together, or we play a theater game of some kind. The result has been that several kids who “hated” writing have come to love it. Students with a history of “behavior problems” had no such problems in my class. I absolutely believe that taking the pressure off and creating a playful atmosphere helps with their creativity and increases their learning.
I choose daily to have a playful mindset. When I get the opportunity to play an activity I go with the belief how fortunate I am that I get to play. I laugh at myself, I talk positive thoughts to myself and I strive to compliment others. Having a playful outlook keeps one in a relaxed state and I believe brings out creativity. As I help to plan events that invite people to attend and play I strive to ask myself are there enough activities that a wide range of people would enjoy? I believe we all like to play and we do have a playful mindset if we choose to tap into it.
Peter, this, like most of what you write is provocative and interesting. I think the experiment with the physicians (using candy), is the wrong condition and does not induce “happiness” as you suggest. The allostasis model of cognition would predict that giving literal calories would indeed increase creative thinking, and the change in mood if it occurs, would also be a result of this.
I see Venn diagrams everywhere in this. Julia Galef’s “The Scout Mindset”, the predictive brain (numerous researchers), Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “How Emotions Are Made” and others.
All of these models (and yours on “play”), contribute greatly.
Of most importance is the recent trend in schools (at all levels) to initiate policies that make students (and teachers), fearful of heterodox ideas, silencing those with unapproved world-views or ways of solving problems, while at the same time restricting actual play. All of these things are likely to decrease creative thinking even if evaluation of comprehension/mastery is removed entirely.
In my early fifties I had been persuaded to “teach” a mixed age Sunday School group of young kids. There seemed to be no one else available and they reasoned, I WAS a teacher. Though it was a bit different from teaching HVAC to a class of High Schoolers and adults.
There I sat on the floor in the middle of a group of kids from age 3 to 2nd graders, doing my best to convey a Bible story or message with pictures, puppets or whatever was at hand. The small ones might be crawling over my back or running a toy truck up my leg. The older ones could be helping me with puppets or illustrations of the story, sometimes we would act it out. I was never quite sure just how much was getting through.
But we had fun and the kids all seemed to like being with me. Some of them always sat with me in the pews during church. In the middle of the sermon, while running that toy truck along the back of the pew or on the floor at my feet, I have had more than one of them suddenly lift their head up and say something like, “But that's not what you said in Sunday School.” So they had been listening, both to me in class and the Preacher in church.
Thank you, even research shows that feeling good is good!!...and creative.
I have always been fascinated with puzzles that require thinking outside assumed parameters. I have always approached problems, whether academically or life situations, by looking carefully at what is not specifically proscribed. Given dots within a circle or square and told to the connect the dots with a given number of lines, most people assume that they can not draw outside the circle though the instructions do not say so, and this is required to solve the problem. I am however still intrigued by your use of the terms play and playful. You seem to assume that a playful setting or attitude helps one to think outside the box or assumed parameters. I have read several of your writings and still not sure yet what you mean by play.