Let’s play!

There are many aspects in the prescribed articles that resonate with me and that I could respond to like teachers having different capabilities, digital pedagogy is the use of electronic elements to enhance or to change the experience of education and that pedagogy is ”the place where philosophy and practise meet (aka ‘praxis’).”

 

However, now that I have at least showed Mr Knoetze that I read the articles, I would like to proceed by thinking about “digital pedagogy calls for screwing around more than it does systematic study” (@slamteacher) and that “pedagogy experiments relentlessly, honouring a learning that’s lifelong-transferences of skills to different settings” (@slamteacher).  In addition to this “pedagogy has its core timeliness, mindfulness and improvisation” (@jessifer) and Cathy Davidson, who wrote:” sustain innovation by finding the cheapest, fastest, least bureaucratic way to make ourselves perpetual learners.”  The possibility of the pedagogy, including digital pedagogy, as an art that requires creative thinking and therefore also time to play. 

 

To create is to “bring into existence “and in art all work is and in art all work is seen as new because it has been brought into existence.  Creative thinking is often a messy and “screwing around” process and as a result ideas are rejected.  Creativity needs time and it is something that needs to be cultivated and allowed to grow because creative thinking aims to bring a new innovation to an old idea, a new solution to a problem and a new way of doing something.

 

The playful nature of pedagogy is such a refreshing idea!  As a social worker, I know for a fact that different forms of play are used with great success in the healing journey of trauma survivors.  It is fun to play!  According to developmental psychology, it was our work to play during our early childhood.  More recently everyday my fellow PGCE student and I drive to Stellenbosch and we park the car next to a crèche.  Every morning we watch the pre-school children at crèche playing and just being happy, which makes me green of envy.  This leads me to wonder when did work and learning become effort instead of being fun?

 

In conclusion, if you want creative workers, give them enough time to play” (John Cleese, British comedian).  Therefore, students and lecturers even though PGCE is a fast-paced and compact course but let us not forget to have fun within the PGCE course…let’s play!