Work and Play

Today I taught K-1st graders- and it was so much fun. First of all, it was nice to have confirmation that going back in to the schools is indeed where I need to go. It's always nice to have experiences that confirm decisions you've already made. :) Second of all, it really got me thinking about play v. work. Technically what I was doing would be considered "work." However, I ostensibly lost track of time. I think as a former teacher you lose the ability to COMPLETELY lose track of time (or maybe that's just my personality), but I definitely didn't realize just how long I had been teaching the kiddos. So, even though it was work, it would perhaps seem as though I was experiencing flow.

I've been thinking a lot lately about flow after reading about the construct in Ambiguities of Play and now having read Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. According to Csikeszentmihalyi, "The state of flow is felt when opportunities for action are in balance with the actor's skills; the experience is then autotelic." (p. 49) The following model is given:

Model from www.bioss.name

The question then that has been going around in my head is this- are work and play at their peak the same? Csikszentmihalyi would say yes, Sutton-Smith would say no. I think I'm finding myself agreeing with Csikszentmihalyi. (I do, however, reserve the right to change my mind). When I think about my experience today it is very similar when it comes to flow as play experiences. Now, there are still of course differences between play and work, as there is even within those categories. But when I think back to work today, as well as other days of work teaching pre-service teachers where I just felt great afterwards, I think I experienced flow, just as I would in a play experience.

So, the next question is how to experience work at its best all the time, or at least most of the time.

I Cannot Live Without Books

"I cannot live without books." Thomas Jefferson

I really love to read. It's perhaps my favorite thing to do. But with graduate school I often don't read for fun very much. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoy most of the readings that I do for school, even when I don't agree with the reading. But, there's something about choosing a book and reading it for no purpose except my own. 

Photo from barnesandnoble.com

This week I took time to read Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I read her first book in the series, Divergent, in about two days. I'd like to read Insurgent at the same pace, but due to a big statistics test this week and lots and lots and lots of grading, I'm only getting to read a bit here and there. But I still love it! I get to escape into the world of the story and forget about my worries and problems. 

I'm always amazed when people say that they don't like to read. But I have to be careful not to privilege reading or think it's better than what other people like to do. 

For me, reading is play. Thinking about play and reading, for me, makes me think about flow and Csikszentmihalyi. When I'm reading for fun and pleasure, I often experience a state of flow- I can read for hours and hours and not realize it. I rarely experience that when reading for school. It might be tempting to solely attribute this to the fact that the reading has been assigned, but I don't think that's the whole story. I think it has more to do with cognitive load and ZPD. When I read for fun, I am generally reading books that require little effort on my part, whereas when I read for school it is often very cognitively taxing. When I read for school, I am definitely in my ZPD, stretching from what I'm able to do on my own to what I can do with a little help (discussions of the reading in class). When I read for fun, I am rarely in my ZPD, as I can read with no help whatsoever. 

Perhaps play isn't always about the difference between work and play, or force and choice, but deals more with cognition and theories of learning.

Privileging Play

I've been thinking quite a bit about our class discussion two weeks ago, where we talked about how sometimes children's play is deemed inappropriate or cut off by adults who do not understand what the children are doing.

I've also been thinking about how we privilege certain types of play. I saw this in Sutton-Smith, where he quotes Neulinger, writing, "the primary dimension of leisure, then, is the freedom or, to be more specific, the perceived freedom. By this we simply mean a state in which the person feels that what he is doing, he is doing by choice and because he wants to". I can't say that I agree with this. In fact, I think this is an example of privileging certain forms of play. In the "west" we do tend to theorize about play as being a free experience in which you choose exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. But, that's not the only way to play. Often, I am forced to do something, but that experience ends up being a playful experience. Take, for example, class activities. In many classes we are forced to do certain activities. I don't choose to do them, yet they can still be playful.

On that note, we babysat this past weekend for our dear friends who have three wonderful children. The daughter, Leah, wanted me to make bracelets with her. While I love Leah, making bracelets is not my favorite thing. I'm not one to make stuff. So, you could argue that I was forced to do this activity. However, because I love Leah and want to make her happy, I made bracelets with her, and in the end found it to be quite fun and would describe it as play.

I think we must always be careful about how we define and therefore privilege and oppress certain forms of play.

Future Thinking

One of my most favorite things to do is decorate and organize. I just love furniture, art, and paint, and thinking about ways to renovate and decorate spaces.

Since finding out we are moving at the end of May back to Lubbock, TX we have been thinking quite a bit about where we will live. We have some dear friends who have moved to the Dallas area but have been unable to sell their house. So, we decided that we will rent it from them for a while! I'm really excited to already have a plan for where we will live.

Our house!

This weekend I spent quite a bit more than my allotted 30 minutes thinking about this house and our current furniture and perhaps future furniture. 

Living room, dining room, and kitchen

Using Pinterest I pinned different paint schemes, rugs, chairs, and accessories that I would like to someday have or copy. It was so much fun to just think about what might be someday.

I wondered though how others might feel about moving. I get excited, and planning and thinking about it is play for me. But for other people, like my husband, it can be really stressful. This got me thinking about our discussion last class period about norms and practices. For me, my parents encouraged me to rearrange my room and decorate it however I wanted. This was a common practice for me. I also spent a lot of time designing my barbies' houses. However, for someone like my husband, who never practiced decorating or designing homes, moving and planning a new home can be stressful. 

One person's play can be another person's stress.