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Gender And Sexuality Education Philosophy with Children Reflections on Pedagogy

RHEA KUTHOORE

December 4, 2022 · 5 min read

Play is taken seriously in spaces that are thinking about education and learning. The conversations centre around the content of play (functional, symbolic, and rule-governed play), play behaviour types (such as physical or rough-and-tumble play, object such as purpose-made toys or pretense play such as role or sociodramatic play), participants in play (presence/absence of adults, such as free or guided) and benefits of play to development (such as cognitive, academic, social and emotional) (Bubikola 778). More recently, scholars have also engaged with the dichotomisation of play and learning and commented on the misguided understanding of the same (Bubikola 778). However, there is a gap, amongst play theorists, in engaging with the “playfulness of work” and the “workfulness of play.” In this paper, I wish to draw from the research on work-play conducted by Katz in “Growing up Global” to think about the potential and relevance of play to place and place to play. By shedding light on the role of place in play, I hope to speculate about another added benefit of play, which is its significance in connecting to (rather than being alienated from) and reimagining place (and hence, its impact to place based education). And, by focussing on the role of play in place, I wish to focus on the dynamism, creativity and spontaneity of play that is brought about by place.
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“Growing up Global” examines the process of development and global change through the perspective of children’s lives growing up in Howa, a village in central Eastern Arabic-speaking Sudan (Katz ix). The author studies the effects of a large state-sponsored agricultural project in 1971 over the course of a generation. In her research, Katz observes how “play and work were key and critical means through which children reproduced themselves and the social and economic life of their village (Katz 60).” Moreover, “much work was playful, especially that which took the children on journeys outside the village, and a lot of play activities were “workful,” such as Talal’s kitchen project” (Katz. 67). While herding their animals, young boys played with each other along the riverbeds, waterlogged depressions and the canal (Katz 69). When participating in farming, the children zig-zagged along the canal system for about an hour and a half to reach their family’s tenancy and upon reaching set up a snare to trap birds (Katz 85). During fruit picking season, young children would travel distances to eat and collect fruits from the Doleib groves (Katz 90).
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In all the aforementioned instances, children made discoveries while playing on new and old routes through the village. However, play was not merely a means to make discoveries about place (that is often presupposed by theorists of play pedagogy) but was also discovered in relation to riverbeds, canals, Doleib groves and bird snares (places). In other words, the way children played was moulded by the presence of various geographies. This is consequential as it infused children’s play with dynamism, spontaneity, and creativity by virtue of how places alter seasonally and over longer durations of time. As canals dry, birds migrate and fruits change over seasons, the same children discover new play in the new, yet old, places. The fact that play can take new forms as a result of morphing places stands out against play that is moulded by purposeful objects, toys and games. These objects, which often change nature under circumstances of wear and tear, on the other hand, make play dynamic by being replaceable rather than enduring enough to spark creatively different play.
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The second aspect I wish to draw attention to is how place is embedded in the excitement and joy that young people experienced while playing. As their enjoyment was derived from playing in different places around their village, they would naturally associate memorable moments of play with specific places. In this manner, young children can develop feelings of bonding to their places. This is a crucial addition to place-based learning which cares about strengthening connections to others and regions in which they live (Smith 594). As play-based learning usually focusses on intentional ways to connect young people to place by emphasising awareness of place through experiential learning of natural and historical phenomena and local cultures (Smith 594), play brings about a different and more affective source of awareness and connection.
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Besides the aim of connecting people to place, a critical place-based learning is also concerned with transformation, or the question of what needs to be conserved in any place (Gruenewald 10). Specifically, a critical pedagogy of place aims to 1. Identify, recover, and create material spaces and places that teach us how to live well in our environments and 2. Identify and change ways of thinking that injure and exploit other people and places (Gruenewald 9). Here, I believe that play adds significant value to place-based education because of its inventive capabilities. Katz notices how play is as much about fantasy and invention as it is about social learning (Katz 97). This was observed when young children played games such as “field” where there would be different outcomes; the poor did not always get poorer, nor did the rich always get richer (Katz 97). Similarly, even when children at Howa played at being shopkeepers, farmers, homemakers, parents, consumers, charcoal makers, and truck drivers, their play worked through parts of the activities that were mysterious or in which they did not figure centrally (Katz 98). In this manner, play enables young people to imagine certain transformations which are also an
essential part of critical place-based learning.
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In conclusion, through the course of this paper, I have aimed to pinpoint certain under-explored benefits of play, such as its role in a critical place-based learning which is invested in connection to and transformation of place. Additionally, I have tried to show how playing in place is a key aspect of play because of how, beyond its contribution to discovering place, it makes play creative, dynamic and spontaneous.

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Citations

(1). Bubikova-Moan, Jarmila, et al. “ECE Teachers’ Views on Play-Based Learning: a Systematic Review.” European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, vol. 27, no. 6, 2019, pp. 776–800, https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2019.1678717.
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(2). Smith, Gregory A. “Place-Based Education: Learning to Be Where We Are.” Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 83, no. 8, 2002, pp. 584–94, https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208300806.
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(3). Gruenewald, David A. “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.” Educational Researcher, vol. 32, no. 4, 2003, pp. 3–12, https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X032004003.
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(4). Katz, Cindi. Growing up Global : Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. 1st ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

RHEA KUTHOORE is an educator who is passionate about facilitating philosophical and feminist thinking amongst young people.

Thinking Rhizomatically

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