For this week's blogger post I wanted to focus on the works of Johan Huzinga. As well as ask some bigger picture questions at the end. I found Huizinga’s thoughts to be so interesting due to how complex the idea of “play” was, especially when society sees it as a simple task. In the passage Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon, Johan Huizinga goes into detail about what “play” is defined as. While much is said about “play”, Huizinga never really sets a solid definition for play. There is no one way to describe “play”. Rather, the idea of play is more like a spectrum. From my understanding, play has a number of contextual factors that make up “play”. The factors contributing to this range from the historical context of all the way to how it affects primitive rituals. For this blogger I wanted to focus on how the degree of “seriousness” affects the definition of play. From my own perspective I always viewed play as a way to burn time and relax. Oftentimes ignoring how serious I take an activity. I felt like activities that were less serious would be categorized as “play”. Huzinga argues that this is not the case. Huizinga states “ the contrast between play and seriousness proves to be neither conclusive nor fixed”(Huizinga,5). They basically describe that the level of seriousness has no effect on what is considered play. The author then goes on to list activities that are considered play and their degree of seriousness. Just like the other factors to describe play, the contextual importance of seriousness can alter the definition for what play is.
While Huizinga’s writing describes the aspects that make up play, there really is not any example or case study to apply its knowledge to. I decided to do some of my own research to showcase what play is seen in the modern day and how the idea of Seriousness affects it. In the article What is play and why is it important for learning?, Vicki Hargaves talks about the importance of play for kids. She argues that food kids play is normally always non-serious, and that the main purpose is to further their development(Hagraves, 2010). The author then goes on to speak about how adults help facilitate children's’ learning by guiding their play. I think Huizinga’s ideas of seriousness can apply to this idea. While “play” for kids is seen as a non-serious act at the surface level, I think the purpose behind it can be labeled serious. Using Hargraves logic that “play is for development, I would argue that the intention of single games and activities would make it categorized as a serious act.
I found both authors to have interesting takes on the subject of what describes “play”. In the future I want to definitely look more into the aspect of seriousness as well. I'm also very curious to see how my classmates feel about my analysis of the seriousness when it comes “play” for kids.
Works Cited
Hi Jacob! I think the take on play as being a serious thing for young people is really interesting. I worked at a summer camp over the summer and it was interesting to see how much kids struggled with playing and making friends after being in lockdown because of covid. Being with other kids, and more importantly, playing with other kids is so essential to the development of young people.
ReplyDeleteWe also had a lot of kids at camp who would return each week and I loved seeing them grow as they continued to be immersed in camp and be around other kids. Especially right now I think it's so important that we understand the value of play because it is something kids have missed out on for the past year.
Hello Jacob, I think the topic of play is a very diverse and interesting topic so I'm glad I get to respond to your idea of play. Play is such a big part of our socitey as a whole, but it's not really emphasized in our culutre unless you're a child. Play can be great for developing so many aspects of a child's personality as well as increasings one's social skills. This summer I took a child psychology class and learned how essential play could be. For example, certain things like rolling down a hill, being thrown up in the air and turning cartwheels all affect a child's balance as they grow up. The more often they do these sorts of things the better their balance and spatial awareness develop. The same can be true of mentally extraneous games, these can also improve children and adults cognitive skills. Play is also an essential skill for developing relationships and connections. Many social situations include some form of play like a board game, going bowling, messing around with your friends; we can all benefit from taking more time to play. All in all play deserve much more appreciation and attention than it gets.
ReplyDelete