“True play is always ‘happifying.’  Play means happiness.  It is characterized by feelings of pleasure which tend to break out in laughter.  Play, like many other things, is best appreciated by seeing children who were without it. ~ Neva L. Boyd “The Theory of Play”

One day last week a random social media post began my trip down the educational rabbit hole regarding Neva Boyd and “The Theory of Play.”

Below is a brief biography of Ms. Boyd.

Over the next few weeks/posts I will offer more information on the Theory of Play and how I have witnessed first-hand, repeatedly, its’ transformative powers on our students.

Neva Leona Boyd (February 25, 1876 in Sanborn, Iowa – November 21, 1963 in Chicago) was an American sociologist. She founded the Recreational Training School at the Hull House in Chicago. The school taught a one-year educational program in group games, gymnastics, dancing, dramatic arts, play theory, and social problems. She was on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1927 to 1941.

Born in 1876 in Iowa, Boyd moved to Chicago after high school. She enrolled in the Chicago Kindergarten Institute (now National Louis University) and eventually arrived at Hull House, a settlement house for European immigrants. She taught kindergarten in Buffalo, New York, before returning in 1908 to attend the University of Chicago.

The Chicago Park Commission hired Boyd as a social worker, specifically to organize social clubs, direct dramatics, supervise social dances and play activities. At Hull House, Neva Boyd ran movement and recreational groups for children. She used games and improvisation to teach language skills, problem-solving, self-confidence and social skills. During the Great Depression, Boyd worked with the Recreational Project in the Works Progress Administration, (WPA). In 1927, Boyd accepted Northwestern University’s invitation to move The Chicago Training School for Playground Workers from Hull House to its own Department of Sociology. Boyd became a sociology and theatre professor at the University of Chicago and is one of the founders of the Recreational Therapy and Educational Drama movements in the U.S.[1]

Boyd also worked in military convalescent homes. The Red Cross, which established these convalescent houses, ensured that all wounded veterans engaged in playful games to prepare them for leaving the hospital. By the 1940s, Boyd’s methods found their ways into every military hospital in the country.

Colonel William C. Menninger, co-founder of the Menninger Foundation, an internationally known center for treatment of behavioral disorders and Viola Spolin,[2] originator of Theater Games improvisational theater techniques, were two of her students.

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It is still early in the third quarter of our new classrooms of students.  We are still trying to “win over” some of the most skeptical of them.

I noticed recently when we are in the heat of an activity that engages them, they transform.

They participate.  They smile.  They laugh.  We connect.

And what more can an educator hope for than a connection with their students?