'Oh, to be a child again.'
Unknown
Unknown
Play stimulates a range of creative senses and enables people to start thinking about a subject in a non-threatening manner, yet while still maintaining a learning perspective. It also allows us to look at the familiar and create new patterns or interpretations for it (scroll down to see an example of this….)
A simple and fun (hopefully) introductory game to explore decision making and how we think about things…
Would you rather…?
· Be able to read other people’s thoughts, or be fluent in any language?
· Be Superman, or Aquaman?
· Travel into the past, or see into the future?
· Be blind, or deaf?
· Have a big group of acquaintances or one close friend?
· Visit space or the ocean floor?
· Have a perfect sense of direction, or a perfect sense of time?
· Be in this class, or die by a thousand cuts?
This is decision making – and in a different way. It gets students thinking about ‘why’ I made that decision. Some of it involves historically related questions (the past or the future.) Some involves ‘empathizing’ – visualize yourself in a situation. But most will be completely irrelevant and not be rationally explainable – the embodied thinking - what’s in your gut? If we wanted to turn this more directly into something history related, actual people, countries or events could be substituted. But then it would lose some of its ‘play’ qualities, wouldn’t it?
Playing like this allows students to develop and use skills in a fashion that seems less like work or study. It takes the pressure off the decisions made, because there are no real consequences. As Ross-Bernstein state ‘Play is simply for the fun of it, for the enjoyment of doing and making without responsibility.’ (p.248.) But like in the ‘game’ above, it also allows students to examine why they made the decisions they did, and by extension, what their priorities are and how other students think about a particular subject. It helps students to develop their ‘intuitive thinking’, because again, from Ross-Bernstein, ‘Play takes us back to using gut feelings, emotions, intuitions.’(p.267)
As much creativity stems from wider exposure, seeing new ideas and concepts and synthesizing them, engaging in cross-disciplinary exercises such as those in play exercises becomes a non-threatening environment for students to explore new ideas and ways of thinking. In fact, any type of simulation or role play is in its essence ‘play’, and the essence of it incorporates many other skills found in creative thinking: patterning, modeling, ‘body thinking’, perceiving, empathizing, abstracting (Root-Bernstein, p.249.) The Model UN that students participate in is a good example of play, where students play at being diplomats and will use all of these skills – not unlike the real diplomats in the UN who also play at being leaders and decision makers.
In the more specific application toward history, role playing and/or ‘alternative history’ is another way that students can get out of traditional study and learning modes. Students asked to re-enact a particular event in their interpretation would naturally be empathizing and modeling, as they are placing themselves in the event. Re-creating scenarios as we see them provides opportunities for perception and abstraction, so that the core situation can be better understood. Re-writing history based on a new set of scenarios would require students to think forward and bring new facts and information to bear. For example, a Civil War module:
· What if Lincoln had not tried to relieve Fort Sumter?
· What if Lincoln had not been assassinated?
· What if the South had won the Civil War?
There would also be learning points in this, as the students would need to project (empathize), based on relevant outside information related to that era, and justify their scenarios. In this situation, there would be no ‘right or wrong’ answers; evaluation would be based on the logic and plausibility of the scenarios presented.
Finally, think again about the humble ‘turducken’ from Module 4 ‘Abstracting.’ Does anyone think THIS would have been possible if someone had not been goofing around in the kitchen??
A simple and fun (hopefully) introductory game to explore decision making and how we think about things…
Would you rather…?
· Be able to read other people’s thoughts, or be fluent in any language?
· Be Superman, or Aquaman?
· Travel into the past, or see into the future?
· Be blind, or deaf?
· Have a big group of acquaintances or one close friend?
· Visit space or the ocean floor?
· Have a perfect sense of direction, or a perfect sense of time?
· Be in this class, or die by a thousand cuts?
This is decision making – and in a different way. It gets students thinking about ‘why’ I made that decision. Some of it involves historically related questions (the past or the future.) Some involves ‘empathizing’ – visualize yourself in a situation. But most will be completely irrelevant and not be rationally explainable – the embodied thinking - what’s in your gut? If we wanted to turn this more directly into something history related, actual people, countries or events could be substituted. But then it would lose some of its ‘play’ qualities, wouldn’t it?
Playing like this allows students to develop and use skills in a fashion that seems less like work or study. It takes the pressure off the decisions made, because there are no real consequences. As Ross-Bernstein state ‘Play is simply for the fun of it, for the enjoyment of doing and making without responsibility.’ (p.248.) But like in the ‘game’ above, it also allows students to examine why they made the decisions they did, and by extension, what their priorities are and how other students think about a particular subject. It helps students to develop their ‘intuitive thinking’, because again, from Ross-Bernstein, ‘Play takes us back to using gut feelings, emotions, intuitions.’(p.267)
As much creativity stems from wider exposure, seeing new ideas and concepts and synthesizing them, engaging in cross-disciplinary exercises such as those in play exercises becomes a non-threatening environment for students to explore new ideas and ways of thinking. In fact, any type of simulation or role play is in its essence ‘play’, and the essence of it incorporates many other skills found in creative thinking: patterning, modeling, ‘body thinking’, perceiving, empathizing, abstracting (Root-Bernstein, p.249.) The Model UN that students participate in is a good example of play, where students play at being diplomats and will use all of these skills – not unlike the real diplomats in the UN who also play at being leaders and decision makers.
In the more specific application toward history, role playing and/or ‘alternative history’ is another way that students can get out of traditional study and learning modes. Students asked to re-enact a particular event in their interpretation would naturally be empathizing and modeling, as they are placing themselves in the event. Re-creating scenarios as we see them provides opportunities for perception and abstraction, so that the core situation can be better understood. Re-writing history based on a new set of scenarios would require students to think forward and bring new facts and information to bear. For example, a Civil War module:
· What if Lincoln had not tried to relieve Fort Sumter?
· What if Lincoln had not been assassinated?
· What if the South had won the Civil War?
There would also be learning points in this, as the students would need to project (empathize), based on relevant outside information related to that era, and justify their scenarios. In this situation, there would be no ‘right or wrong’ answers; evaluation would be based on the logic and plausibility of the scenarios presented.
Finally, think again about the humble ‘turducken’ from Module 4 ‘Abstracting.’ Does anyone think THIS would have been possible if someone had not been goofing around in the kitchen??