Recessing School: Bridging Play, Joy, and Learning for Liberation

• In Event: Critical Digital Pedagogies: Educators, Parents, and Rsearchers Co-Designing Consequential Learning Through Play and Transformative Agency

Abstract

Play is traditionally conceptualized as separate from learning and considered an unstructured activity that is driven by youthful impulse (Vygotsky, 1978). In line with research in the learning sciences, we instead consider how play is essential for psychological development (Gutierrez, Higgs, et al, 2019), joy, and consequential learning, supporting the design of culturally-sustaining and liberatory relational and pedagogical. This poster explores the design considerations and conditions necessary for sustaining playfulness and joy in learning across digital and face-to-face learning interactions, in effect creating generative recess learning environments.
This poster draws on two theoretical concepts for its framework: play as a leading activity (Gutiérrez, Higgs, et al, 2019) and culturally-sustaining pedagogies (Alim & Paris, 2017). In our view, play encourages students to re-envision what is possible by imagining and interacting in a world without typical norms and boundaries and building on youth people’s everyday cultural practices. Learning environments that are designed through playful and culturally-sustaining principles provide the possibility for the multiplicity of being, learning, demonstrating knowledge, and authentic expression that manifests through discursive and participation practices. Our theoretical framework led us to design and study the social organization of learning and participation that we see in the playard during recess, a rich context for imagination, joy, and imagining new possible futures.
Our study draws upon digital ethnography (Murphy, 2008) to examine digital game-play between young children and adults over the course of three weeks. Video recordings and written reflections were analyzed through an inductive coding process, informed by the theoretical concepts of culturally sustaining pedagogy and play as leading activity. We paid special attention to salient discursive and participation moments that illustrated these concepts as well as the consequential learning that emerged as a result.
Findings suggest that there are conditions for sustaining joy and transformation in learning through play: young people are positioned as experts and leaders of activity; and learning environments are saturated with a variety of meaning-making and interactional tools that facilitate multivoicedness. We argue that when these conditions are present in our interactions with youth through play, educators can cultivate an environment for sustaining learning that is not only joyful but puts young people on the path to imagine and start organizing for new possible social futures.
Because play allows young people to imagine themselves and the worlds around them anew, it has the potential to be used as a vehicle for resistance and liberation. By recessing learning environments, students are able to apply their experiences, knowledge, and expertise to understand and engage in more generative ways. In times of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to think about how to rethink mainstream notions of learning by leveraging play.

Authors

• Jazmine Fortes, Oakland Unified School District

• Kyley Hironaka, San Francisco Unified School District

• Denisha Jones, Sarah Lawrence College

• Catherine Powers, Boulder Valley School District

• Mariela Ramirez, San Francisco Unified School District

• Beatriz Salazar-Núñez, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Arturo Cortez, University of Colorado - Boulder

• José Ramón Lizárraga, University of Colorado - Boulder