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.