Playing: A Lost Art
We built a ship upon the stairs All made of the back-bedroom chairs, And filled it full of soft pillows To go a-sailing on the billows. We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; And Tom said, "Let us also take An apple and a slice of cake;"-- Which was enough for Tom and me To go a-sailing on, till tea. We sailed along for days and days, And had the very best of plays; But Tom fell out and hurt his knee, So there was no one left but me.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
A confession: I find the concept of play in its truest essence to be generally incompatible with the high school English classroom. If play is, as is stated in the Root-Bernstein text, “the enjoyment of doing and making without responsibility,” then play seldom if ever occurs in my classroom. Creativity and experimentation, certainly. The “modeling, play acting, empathizing” of symbolic play, yes. But if play, as the authors insist, “has no direct or directing purpose outside of itself,” then no, play does not occur in my class. I strive as an instructor to design my curriculum and the plans I use to deliver it with intent. There is a purpose to everything my students do. I try to provide them with skills and background knowledge, with effective models, and with confidence to put these into practice. I also try to given them some freedom to explore their own unique strengths, and to demonstrate their understanding or mastery of the concepts and skills that make up our curriculum in individual ways. But, true play, devoid of responsibility or intent, does not occur. Even when students engage in free writing, they are still responsible for expressing themselves clearly and my purpose, even if unstated, is to increase their confidence as writers and their comfort with written expression.
The activity that I used in my classroom that was intended to be my “playful introduction,” was fun for my students and effectively introduced them to the sonnet form, but I am doubtful as to whether it truly qualifies as play. My students watched a video for homework that explained the differences between Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets. When they arrived in class the next day, I divided them into small groups and handed them sonnets that had been enlarged and cut into 14 individual lines. I also told them whether they had a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean sonnet. Students worked together to put the lines in order, using their knowledge of rhyme schemes and shifts within each sonnet form to help guide them. It was interesting to watch each group develop a method for organizing the pieces of paper they had in front of them, and it was even more rewarding to eavesdrop on my students as they discussed the way in which ideas were developed in the sonnets in front of them, bringing order to the chaos of the individual lines by identifying the central thought of the poet and following it through to its conclusion. Upon reflection, while the activity I developed helped create understanding and engaged my class, I do not think that it qualifies as play.
During my first year back in the high school setting, I taught standard sophomore English and read the book, The Wave by Todd Strasser. The book tells the story of an innovative history teacher who engaged his students in an activity meant to demonstrate the way in which the Nazi party rose to power in Germany prior to World War II. Rather than writing an essay when we concluded the book, I decided to try and assess my students’ understanding of the text in a different way. I assigned them each a character from the book, and we held a “community meeting” in which the students, in the guise of the novel’s characters, discussed whether or not the history teacher in question should be fired from his job. While this would seem to fit within the definition of symbolic play, with its emphasis on empathy, the fact that students had a responsibility to demonstrate their understanding of both the text and their assigned character, as well as the fact that the activity had a specific purpose (assessment), would seem to disqualify it from being an example of play.
Reflecting further, upon my entire teaching career, it seems that once I moved from teaching fifth and sixth grade to teaching high school, I left play behind. I also recognize that the moments when my fifth and sixth graders and I were playing were the moments that I miss the most.
