In my university library you will find a checkerboard table in a comfortable seating section, right next to a kiosk that sells teriyaki and sushi. During the academic year this area is busy with students grabbing cups of coffee, sharing lunch with friends, taking breaks between classes and simply studying. What you won’t find is anyone playing chess or checkers on this table.

Even though someone at some point ordered this table and must have imagined students taking a moment out of their busy day to have fun, day after-day, the table sits playless.

While a noble attempt to create an inviting and playful space for its patrons, the table clearly misses he mark. You could say that maybe the library needs to leave out chess pieces or provide game-oriented programming. You can imagine a chess contest or some sort of activity to bring the table to life. It’s easy to image ways to activate the playless table. Or maybe there is something else wrong. Maybe this table is exactly what it is: A kind of virtue signaling we might as well call  “play signaling”. That is, here is an exampe of an effort to suggest play, but never really commit to it.

Surprisingly, sometimes a little play isn’t better than no play at all. Sometimes a little play is a reminder that play can be an afterthought or merely a gesture on the margin. An empty play table doesn’t invite participation, rather, it sits as a monument to performative efforts to look playful. To quote the great cultural commentator Taylor Swift: “Band-Aids don’t fix bulletholes.” And checkerboard patterns don’t inspire play.

Beating up a poor university space planner on their choice of table top pattern might seem like a lot about too little. And, it is. But it’s also a metaphor for what we face in our own classrooms. For example, an ice breaker on the first class of the term signals play.  But never inviting play back into the lesson plan or the lecture for the rest of the term suggests an anti-play stance. “Yes, I know that play in this class would be fun. That’s why we did it in the first day of class. But I refuse to keep playing for reasons I will never explain.”

We reduce the value we place on play when we teach an overly serious and formal classroom and then surprise the students with a plate of cookies on the last day of class, when we finally show a funny You Tube clip to explain a complex concept or simply march through a tired and boring to lecture in a pair of colorful sneakers or wearing a wacky tie.

See what I mean? 

Increasingly, Lisa and I talk about play as a sort of transformation. Rather than see play in the frame of techniques you can use to raise the classroom clatter for a moment, we see play as a way of thinking about the complexity of life, about the apparent drudgery of academic achievement and the world itself. In our vision, when reality looks playful, every table holds the potential for games, every lecture a chance to play with ideas and every class a potential moment to ignite laughter and learning. And while we recognize that any measure of playful effort helps, the transformative power of play erupts from a continuous and repeated playful commitment. If we really believe in the power of play in our teaching then we can need to trust play and trust the process that ensues by letting play provide the foundation of our approach and not merely as an additive sprinkled on at the end.

 Our advice: Don’t be a lonely checkerboard table in the library. Be a full-on carnival of knowledge and playful pedagogy. We dare you.

You know those lists that people use to try and sum up something as big and unmanageable as an entire year? Yup! This is one of those. For us, we think of this as a playful exercise in reflection. After another year diving deeper into playful pedagogy, we reflected on what we learned, what surprised us, and what inspired us. Here’s our list, we’d love it if you would share yours too:

1. There are more professors playing than we ever expected.
   
   Every week new professors join our listserv. Right now we have 856 members on that list and have seen 7400 downloads of the Playbook! We regularly hear about new creative and playful approaches to teaching. We meet new professors in our home institutions and receive emails from teachers from all over the world reaching out to connect about play. Each time we hear from someone using playful pedagogy, it lights us up and encourages us to continue to support the far flung (dare we say rebellious) network of playful professors and to recruit even more.

2. Students will surprise you.
   
   Last summer, I was teaching a synchronous online course and I started each session with a playful connection-former activity. It was hard to tell for sure, but the students seemed to enjoy them enough. At least no one ever complained. So, I kept doing them. Then, in the middle of the term, I jumped right into the content and forgot to include play at the start of the class. One student interrupted me to ask: “Where is our ice breaker?” Even though I was sure they were just playing along, the truth was: They wanted their play!

3. Students will surprise you, part II.
   
   Lisa told me a story about one of her classes where the students decided to bring their own play to the classroom. One group of students took it upon themselves to sign up to lead a playful icebreaker each week. Another class decided to have a hippie-style ritual on the last night of class where all the students and Lisa sat on the floor on a hippie blanket (that a student brought) and played a card game that had each person reflect on their experience in the class and experience of each other. It brought many students to tears. And Lisa had nothing to do with those playful, unexpected moments. Those were all student inspired and created.

4. Playing is hard work.
   
   Teaching playfully takes a lot of effort but the creative time spent making teaching more fun is rich and rewarding. But the level of effort it takes to be a playful professor also reminds us that teaching is much more rewarding when we put our heart into it. Every time I decide to rewrite a class to make it more playful, I have that moment where I realize, “I don’t have to do this.” Yet, every semester I teach my more playful class verison, I feel deep satisfaction and connection with my students because I did.

5. The “play world” is vast.
   
   Planning the 2024 Playposium has reminded us how big the play world is. While we worked hard to recruit Stuart Brown and Gary Ware to speak at the event, we have been overwhelmed by the unsolicited emails from folks outside the bounds of higher education who are interested in also participating in the event. We simply don’t have enough room to include them all. Guess that means we have already started planning the 2025 Playposium! In our planning, we have met experts of adult play, of play at work, play in K-12, and beyond. While we continue to work towards our mission to induce a playful transformation of the academy, it’s nice to know the movement is bigger and more inclusive than our colleges and universities.

6. People love stickers.
   
   Ok. Maybe this shouldn’t surprise us but we’ve given out a lot of stickers this year and people get really excited. From students to fellow professors and senior administrators, at workshops and in book talks – people are diggin’ our sticker game. Who would have thought so many people share our love of stickers?

7. Change is hard.
   
   Play is awesome and the benefits are clear but sadly, sharing that aspect is not enough to get people to become more playful. Call us naïve, but when we started sharing our experience with play, we thought the hard cold facts and excitement alone would be enough to get people playing. This year was a bit of a wake up call as we realized that change is hard and there are some deeper, systemic barriers. It takes awareness and deliberate effort. We find ourselves more likely to focus on how to help people change to become more playful than on why they should.

8. Our students need play now more than ever.
   
   You’ve probably seen it in your classrooms, we know we’ve seen it in ours. Students are generally not well. It’s notable enough that it makes the news. Our students are struggling. Covid took its toll. The divisive political environment creates scarcity and hopelessness. A gloomy economic outlook saps the enthusiasm for life so learning can’t be a priority. With the external pressures on students’ well-being increasing, the need to light that inner fire–that love of learning and the optimism about changing the world–brings play to the forefront. Play can’t fix the world but it can inspire a new generation of students to trust the people around them, to develop a flexibility of mind and behavior, and inspire optimism that the world needs.

9. We need play more than ever.
   
   It’s not just our students who are struggling either. We are tired, burned out and stressed. We can’t lead a class of future change makers if we have to drag ourselves into our classrooms each day. We need to reignite our love of teaching. Play is a pathway to recovering joy and wholeness. Playing with our curriculum, our courses and our assignments brings a spark back to lesson planning. Playing alongside our students rekindles the connection that makes teaching the job we originally fell in love with.

10. Play is elusive.
    
    Even though play remains this elemental form of life, it also remains as slippery as a fish. We get reminded all the time that you use it or lose it. You keep track of play or it slips out of sight. Play requires us to stay mindful, intentional, and practice it like a religion or workout program. When it comes to teaching, play is naturally intriguing but also foreign. It’s up to us to invoke, feed, and stay in the dance with play. Otherwise, the spirit of play will dart off to those willing to tumble with it and experience its joy.

Have A Wonderful and Most Playful 2024!

Are you ready to change the world? Or at least higher education? Then welcome to the revolution. Or the Playvolution as we call it. 

What is the Playvolution? Like any good revolution it’s an rallying cry to hoist out the old and establish something new. So, what are we trying to toss? How about hegemonic, classist, hierarchical, didactic, sexist, racist and wildly inefficient practices that have, through managed flows of endowment cash, historical inertia and traditions of power, become adopted as very nature of higher ed.

That is to say: Is there anyone who thinks higher education couldn’t do better?

As a professor, I read the trade magazines and watch what the pundits say. I engage in the scholarly debate around the purpose of higher education and the social contract between education and society at large. I see policy solutions at the federal and state level. I see campus initiatives around student success and innovation in teaching and learning. The higher education solution industry is hard at work developing the next big thing and our various faculties and staffs work tirelessly to make things better.

As a professor at play, I think we are trying to fix massive environmental issues with incremental solutions. We are, collectively, building the sea wall higher and higher a brick at a time against rising oceans instead of looking at the systematic effects of global warming. So to speak.

When I’m honest, I am part of the problem because I love higher ed too much to tear it down and sometimes I think I love it too much to be willing to do the hard things it’s gonna take to fix it. Then I remember play.

Play is transformational. That’s in the literature. That’s in our gut. We know it’s true. Play builds resilience, community, compassion, empathy and curiosity. It ignites our minds and our hearts. It leaves satisfied and alive. And when I look at what play can do, I think this is a solution. We can play ourselves out of this mess.

To get there, it starts with personal play. To be a professor at play is to learn to play in your own life. Then with students. Then with assignments. Then with whole classes. Eventually, with everything. It might be a long way between a fun little ice breaker in a freshman class to assigning committee work and teaching slots by rolling dice and betting on winners. But it can be done. We can take what is serious, seriously and have fun with the rest.

I know. A lot of words from a would-be Playvolutionary. But all the best revolutions start with a battle cry, a manifesto, an idea that leads to action. So that’s where we have decided to start: Telling everyone about play in higher ed.

When you see the Professors at Play Playpsoium 2021: Welcome to the Playvolution, know it’s in earnest and it’s a part of an effort to turn all these words and ideas into action. The next easy step is to join us at the event. If not, just join us in solidarity in play. 

by Lisa Forbes

I’ve been pleased and inspired to find more and more people talking about play and interested in how to use it in higher education. But the more I hear people talk about play, the more I realize we might not be talking about the same thing. And, if we aren’t really talking about the same thing then that means our idea of the function of play may vary too. 

Overwhelmingly, when I hear people talk about play in learning the words “student engagement” soon follow. There’s nothing wrong with this – it’s true that one of play’s super powers is getting students engaged in the content and the learning process. This was a key finding in my latest research study but my issue arises when we reduce play to a tool that saves us from having bored and disengaged students. Play can do more than engage people. If academia wants to fulfill its missions and aspirational promises we make to our students, it behooves us to see play as bigger than an engagement tool.

I see play as a broader means to impact organizations, institutions, societies, and problematic status quos. I see play as a medium that puts people in a position to solve the world’s most concerning social problems. And, fostering this ability for change starts in our classrooms. 

If you’ve read any of my other work, you know that I train students to become mental health therapists. I feel a heavy responsibility to teach my students to think flexibly and creatively in an ever-changing diverse society with complex problems and people. My students get frustrated with me because I start almost every answer to most of their questions with: “it depends” because it does – no two people or circumstances are the same. No one counseling theory or approach fits everyone. Therefore, I must design my classes in a way that allows students to grapple with ambiguity and uncertainty, that forces them to exist outside of their comfort zones, that sharpens their flexible and creative thinking skills, and that places importance on personal growth through community and self-reflection. 

Although foundational to the field, I must resist focusing on only teaching the facts, theories and histories of counseling. I must resist the status quo of lecture-based education, note-taking students, and testing assessments that run counter to what the profession and clients are going to ask of them once they graduate. 

Imagine your loved one finds themself in a “rock bottom” moment in time and winds up in my former student’s therapy office. I bet you won’t care what my student’s GPA was. I bet you won’t care what they got on the midterm exam. I bet you wouldn’t even care how “engaged” they were during lectures and class time discussions. But, you would care how well they could see the complexities and uniqueness of your loved one. You’d care how well they could critically analyze the situation and think flexibly in order to provide the most individualized and effective mode of treatment. You’d care if my former student could think beyond textbooks and worksheets in order to have a part in saving your loved one’s life. Right?

But, then I think about how many students are being taught within rigid and lecture-based classes that are supposed to be teaching people to counsel complex humans in a complex world. So, yes, play can be about leisure and joy. And, it can be about student engagement but it is way more than that. Play is a vital tool that trains people to be more playful, flexible, creative and effective in their jobs with the ability to change people’s lives, their profession, and the world. 

In his book, Free Play, Nachmanovich (1990) stated:

“Looking at the state of our planet, we can easily see that only major breakthroughs will pull us through. Miracles. What is needed in the coming generation is a whole series of adaptive, creative, and evolutionary jumps…creativity arises from play, but play is not necessarily linked to our values. What we call creativity involves such factors as intelligence, ability to break out of outmoded mindsets, fearlessness, stamina, playfulness, and even outrageousness” (p. 183-184).

Similarly, In his book, The Play Ethic, Pat Kane (2004) summarized words from Brian Sutton-Smith, “our brains need to maintain a perpetual state of play to keep the human organism adaptable for any circumstance or challenge” (p. 343). 

So, remember that play in learning is bigger than making teaching a more joyful experience. It’s bigger than a tool to engage students. Play prepares students to be adaptive, creative, and innovative in their careers. We don’t need more mindless, straight-A students who can take exams well. We need students who have the ability to break out of outdated systems and mindsets. 

Enter play…

by David Thomas

Do our students want to play? Do they want to have fun in class?

Maybe.

In the movie The Shining, Jack Nicholson plays a writer who hauls his family into the mountains of Colorado to caretake for a massive, seasonal hotel. His ideas is that while trapped in the wintry Rockies, he will finally complete his novel. If you’ve watched the movie or read Stephen King’s book, you know what happens next to Nicolson’s character, Jack Torrence. On his way toward complete madness and attempt to take out his family, writer Jack manages to produce hundreds of pages of his manuscript. When the camera pans to the progress he has made, page after page is filled with the same line:

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Not only is this a chilling cinematic reveal, it pretty much lays bare what we deeply feel about play. You’d have to be a madman to think that play is primary.

Sigh.

I think about this when facing a room full of students. I know they want to play. I know they need to have fun. But I also know they grew up in a world that is “working for the weekend”. My students have been steeped in an ironic world where play is the obsession of a possessed caretaker in creepy hotel. Play is just something you might get a little of, after you’ve done your chores, punched out for the day, eaten your vegetables and finished your homework.

Sure, I am exaggerating a bit. Then again, the reality is—you can teach an entire class and not let anyone have fun and keep your job. Even more, you might even win an award for academic rigor for all your humorless instruction. The risk is in playing, not in being overly serious. And the same thing goes for the students. If you want them to take your course seriously, that’s easy. They will at least pretend on paper that they care. College students have learned to be serious. They know education is serious work.  But ask them to play their brain goes on alert: It’s a trap!

All this is to say, do our students want to play? Yes. Do they want to have fun in class? Yes. Do you have to make it safe for them to play? Yes. Do you have show them how fun can stimulate learning? Yes you do. As a professor at play, you have to do more than just offer fun. You just might have to teach them how to have fun at school in the first place.

All work and no play will make Jill a dull girl. So, why not reclaim the fun? You students will thank you.

by David Thomas

The summer term starts next week. And I’m not ready.

Oh boy.

Even though I study fun, publish about fun and am teaching The Architecture of Fun this summer, I’m really worried that I won’t be, or the class won’t be, or the students won’t have any…FUN. Knowing play matters and making play matter are different things. Sometimes I feel like a play expert. Then again, every time I get ready to teach, I start to worry that I’m not as much fun as I think I am. As a result, I am always challenged to be more playful in my classes, to find more playful ways to teach and to encourage my students to have more fun in their lives and studies.

Sure, I have surrounded myself with playful professors and learned from their techniques. Still, I still find myself stalling when it comes to adding new fun stuff to my class. Lisa addressed many of the reasons why in her post The Wall. Suffice to say, The Wall is a real thing for me and I still cast a jealous eye toward those teachers who can pull off a costume or a regular classroom carnival. As for me, I am always worried that my new play techniques won’t be good enough.

To beat back that worry, I remember: I know how to do this. As someone who has worked in and around faculty development for the better part of my career, I have some good advice to give myself. Here’s a few things I am coaching myself on these days. Maybe they can help you too!

• Don’t try a million things. Pick one or two new things and them out. If they don’t work, no big deal. You can rely on the tried-and-true stuff to ensure your class is going to be effective.
• Tell the students what you are doing. Don’t buy the Karate Kid school of training, where your pupils suffer some random stuff until you enlighten them later how your arbitrary lessons were actually teaching a core truth. Just explain your approach at the start: Play is good for you. Play will make you more effective as a student. Play will make you more effective as an employee. Play will make a difference, so we are going to play in this class.
• Don’t be afraid to be foolish. Your students already expect that you are an expert. You don’t have to prove that. Bring a little vulnerability to the classroom. Your students will forgive you if you try something cool and it doesn’t work.
• Plan ahead. Play is fun and freeing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare. In fact, if you try something new, feel free to overprepare. You can always adjust on the fly!
• Be patient. The classroom isn’t a comedy club. You don’t need immediate feedback. Give your students time to digest and integrate. This play stuff might be new to them. It will take them time to trust it.
• The research is on your side. This isn’t just something to do for novelty’s sake. The outcomes have been shown. I just need to trust the process.
• Have fun while you play and teach. If nothing else, it will make you feel better. And that can’t help but make this summer class one worth teaching.