By David Thomas
If you listen to the dire warnings from the finance office, the gnashing of teeth of faculty and rending of cloth across higher education, you’d get the idea that the COVID pandemic has really put a strain on higher education.
And, of course, it has.
But just as quarantine helped many value their friends and family more, realize that making bread was more satisfying than a trip to Burger King and, yes there was a limit to the distractions that Netflix could provide, there have been some silver linings for educators as the virus rages on.
To put a fine point on it–COVID made us stop and think about what it means to teach. This plague triggered a personal inventory of how, what, and why we teach. As the Professors at Play mail list has grown, we have noticed a trend. We are gathered here to have fun, sure. But we all feel the need to improve out teaching. We need to reach out to one another and ask: How are you doing and how did you do that?
We are now swapping tips and tricks. We are open to trying things that–gasp–might make us look silly. We are craving a connection with our students over Zoom and discussion forums, and all of a sudden the idea of making a wacky video, or throwing pop culture into our teaching seems like–a lifeline.
As someone whose academic field of study is fun (yes, fun. F-U-N, fun. What it is. How it works. How to make more of it), I can assure you that your instincts are on target. In this uncertain, ambiguous and kind of crazy time, fun is a natural ointment. And that’s because fun itself is based on uncertainty, negotiation, ambiguity and being a little crazy.
We play to feel free. We make believe to push reality back into a place where we can deal with it. We laugh to blow off steam and throw ourselves into our sports, hobbies, games and pastimes because they keep us sane.
Finally, we are admitting that all those good feelings belong in the classroom too. When we play, we learn, we make sense of the world. When we learn that it’s okay to play while we learn, we finally reach the point where we come alive and leap beyond the curriculum. We do that thing we always want our students to do–self-actualize.
Seriously this COVID thing sucks. But if it makes us more playful and more adaptable and more open to change and challenge, then we’ve truly turned a loss into a win.
