Here’s to Hoping 2020 Leaves a Playful Residue
by Lisa Forbes
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.” Charles Dickens
I am a mental health counselor and I can’t help but apply what I know about counseling and the change process to the problems of faculty life and higher education. (Higher education needs lots of therapy, but that’s a whole other blog post). In terms of change, you cannot avoid problems. You cannot simply continue to do the same things and expect a different outcome. To change, you have to face your fears head on. You have to go straight through the uncertainty and discomfort – you don’t get to go around it. And oftentimes, people don’t realize they need to change until they’re put through a difficult situation.
So, 2020 was a shit show of a difficult situation. It pushed us outside of our comfort zones for sure. It’s made many of us have to completely rethink and redesign how we do our jobs. It’s been downright brutal for many people. So, is there a lesson we can take from 2020? To not take routines for granted? Not to get too comfortable with the way we know things to be? To be ready at any instant to be flexible and reconceptualize…everything? I hope all of these things were lessons learned but I also daydream about the kinds of invigorating change people have found from plowing through the discomfort.
It’s easy to lose perspective on life at times. Admittedly, it easily happens to me, but I try to do an exercise with my kids where when something bad happens (after I let them feel the sadness/frustration/etc, because I’m a counselor after all) I ask them: “What good came from this?” Even in the most difficult times in our lives I think we can always find something good that came from it. As I reflect on the past year, I can honestly say that, for me, the development of the Professors at Play community was a huge piece of good that came from the pandemic. This community has inspired me, given me a sense of camaraderie, and allowed me to deepen my understanding of play and my allegiance to it within the learning process.
I hope that Professors at Play had some small part in the change process for others too. I hope that heaps of other people realized the power and value of play. That’s a huge part of our dreams for Professors at Play – that it will provide the push or the support that inspires people to become more playful. Leading them to increasingly infuse play into their lives and their teaching. It was unintentional that Professors at Play was developed during a global pandemic – it just kind of happened that way. But, looking back over this year, what wonderful timing!
At a time when many people were struggling with the abrupt transition to teaching virtually – play seemed to save the day. (Doesn’t it always though?) At a time when teaching became a foreign and uncertain endeavor for many, play seemed like an antidote. I don’t think everyone joined Professors at Play for the same reasons. Some would have joined pre-pandemic but I think many joined to survive teaching through the pandemic. And for those people, I hope they initially joined Professors at Play for the “tips and tricks” to make their digital teaching more engaging but I hope they exit the pandemic with play as their trusted sidekick to their teaching – digital or otherwise.
That is, I hope that play wasn’t a pit stop for people as they find their way back to “normal.” Instead, I hope they plowed straight through the uncertainty and difficulty and found play. And at the same time, I just bet that play helped people plow through the uncertainty and difficulty of this year. Play is pretty cool like that. But, wouldn’t it be fun if when the COVID dust settles, we emerge from the smoke and find ourselves more playful? And we find that higher education is more tolerant and welcoming of play in tertiary learning. And we don’t take ourselves so seriously.
I hope that the play movement will create a seismic shift in the philosophical underpinning of higher education…I’m getting all sweaty just thinking of such a world. Because play matters and I think it would allow us to break free of some tired traditions that prohibit us from reaching the very things we say we’re all about. And, for higher education, that would certainly be a big ol’ heap of good that came from 2020.