Creating new knowledge through collective play

Remember a time when you played cops and robbers, doctors and nurses or mothers and fathers.

Play is a way for children to explore what it's like to be an adult. In play, children actively create for themselves, by themselves, their own knowledge in a safe and fun way.

Play evolves as the child matures. In early infancy, children engage in practice or sensorimotor play, and then, prior to going to school, symbolic play emerges in the child, where things represent real artifacts. A stick for a sword. A chair for a house. A cuddly toy for a baby.

By middle childhood, play is conducted as games with rules, collectively. At age six, or thereabouts, children become conscious of their own activities and are able to organize games independently of adults. They explore novel ideas and worlds they do not initially comprehend, absorbing what they are ready for. Progressively, their make-believe creates new meaning and understanding.

Then, during the teenage years, young people are socialised out of play and into study, which is a form of work. In the senior years at school, the main remaining form of play is rule-based school sports.

Collective play has some of the features of self-developing systems, whereby new order emerges that is due to the activity rather than any conscious goal seeking. Vygotsky (1978) showed that through a process that begins with imitation of adult activity, children are able to explore collectively what they cannot do alone. "In play, a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behaviour; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself." (p. 102)

We can use this same approach in the classroom to simulate worlds with which the learner may be only partially familiar. We may start with limited knowledge about the characters we will play, but very quickly we start to discover "if this, then that" type knowledge just jumps out of the system.

For example, when we explore the dynamics of an art critic expressing a view about an artist's latest works, we quickly discover that readers want to hear/learn about the artist's role in society and the way their works reflect or comment on changes in society rather than the colors, textures or techniques employed by the artist.

See for yourself:

1. You are the art critic for the New York Times. Thinking about a picture created by Andy Warhol, craft a check list of things to think about when writing art criticism for the newspaper (Marilyn Monroe painting).

2. You have just been to your first Andy Warhol exhibition and seen this painting. In 25 words or less, write the opening paragraph for tomorrow's column (Campbell's soup painting).

3. You are a New York Times reader. Write a letter to the Editor which says what you think about the Art Critic's criticism of the Warhol exhibition.

4. Craft a new list of Things to think about when writing an art criticism. Respond like this (1....., 2......., 3....... etc.)

5. It is several years later. You have just been to another Warhol exhibition. Write a new criticism using your new check list as a guide (Coke bottles).

6. In your opinion, who in society do you feel would have most admired Warhol's work and why?

7. In your opinion, who in society would have least liked Warhol's work and why?

8. Make a list of the roles of the art critic.

9. How did you know how to act/think/talk like an art critic and a newspaper letter writer? What informed the way you wrote?

10. How easy would it be for new kinds of roles to be created in society (that did not exist before), and why would this be so?

11. How easy would it be for new kinds of art forms to be created in society (that did not exist before) and what would be the barriers?

12. What are the major influences that help to shape our opinions about various art forms?

13. If you want to become a successful artist what would you probably have to do attract public attention or gain recognition?

Here's an iterative activity to create a method for learning via play. It has two stages. The first stage is to create a set of questions and to experiment with them. You then apply what you have learned during the first round to create additional questions that allow you to explore the topic more deeply.

1. Craft an idea for an interaction/world you would like your class to explore e.g. Prosecutor, defender, judge and prisoner interacting during a trial. Mechanic and car owner discussing a needed repair. Aircraft pilot and air traffic controller on approach. The US and China as economic powers and what they expect from each other or fear the other will do.

2. For each role, write a short story about the role they might play.

3. Craft a series of questions/instructions for a workshop/classroom group to explore the interaction.

4. Trial the questions and record what you learned from the activity.

5. Write some meta-questions about the issues that the role play exposes.

Note: You can download the images of the Warhol artworks from www.artchive.com.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.