A few posts ago we introduced you to Neva Boyd and mentioned her Theory of Play.
This week in one of our classes we had a female student who didn’t want to communicate because she had a troubling short-term emotional experience in her life.
We didn’t force her to participate in our class activities, but before long she volunteered to do so because the rest of the students were having so much laughing, smiling, being creative, using their imagination, and most importantly having fun while playing.
(Below) is a post from www.spolin.com that take a deeper dive into Theory of Play and Ms. Boyd’s thoughts on the subject.
The Theory of Play
For Neva Boyd, play is its own end. Further, she sees play as transcending cultural and historical lines and believes that human play has the same characteristics in primitive man and in modern man.
Beyond this, she finds play to be not only a voluntary activity but also a biological necessity. In effect, a human cannot “not play.” Yet, she distinguishes between play that is aimless or rudimentary and play that is directed and properly structured to maximize results.
Play takes many forms‑ songs, dances, games, drama, sports, and various arts. Chiefly, this refers to her view of play as behavior that does have an indirect effect on routine life. Miss Boyd examines this concept in connection with her use of the term “play behavior.” Play is a joyful experience. Play takes him into another world of its own creation, disregarding conventional behavior yet subject to a special set of social controls. Withal, play is not merely amusement or escape from reality, says Miss Boyd Social values are found and observed in play that are unlike any in other behavior, for play has its own rules and it provides incentive for one’s best behavior and expression of one’s ultimate capacity. Play requires intelligence, imagination, aesthetic feeling, sensitivity, spontaneity, originality, and productivity. At some length, she develops her thesis that play provides for ethical education through pleasurable disciplined behavior in moral education. Moreover, play call be a powerful toot for correction of deviant behavior. Miss Boyd’s view here is that the deviant behavior should not be discussed with the child. In particular she insists that play has its own rewards and that prizes or undue recognition tend to rob play of its true value, which she holds Io be self‑realization.
In the final section of this paper Miss Boyd discusses the transfer value of play. She uses the term “transformation” to describe the process through which values of play become a part of wider social behavior. Play helps the child translate and express his experience.
Activity in which reciprocal responsiveness via play is dominant provides a basis of unconsciously acquired understanding of self and others. The real point is the influence of play on human learning and the development of the human being socially, mentally and physically. In the early period of their existence, the settlements provided social activities in the nature of play, programs ranging from nursery schools for young children and athletic games for youth to social clubs for youth and adults. Within this range of cultural education organic normality and social ethics were prompted as by-products of play activities.
The schools at that time were not wholly unmindful of the educational value of play and a play program comprised of games was introduced experimentally in a public school system in Massachusetts. The experiment was not successful, probably because of the rigidity of the play activities as taught by teachers of physical education, which largely prevented the emergence of spontaneity in the games and play and also because of the prevalent emphasis on physical activities in the play curriculum. Formal education has utilized in some small degree the form play activities but has in its individuated and competitive system failed to preserve the spontaneity that gives the play activity vitality and makes it play and art and therefore gives it organism-as-whole value.
The writer had observed children at play in the early social settlements and had noted their failures in their efforts to create their own play as well as their occasional happyfiying successes.
Play takes innumerable forms and varied content. The play of a human being has its beginnings in his dynamic impulsive behavior, which becomes play when he employs it for his own satisfaction.
Many attempts have been made to define play none of which are wholly satisfactory and yet most of them state facts about play.
Experience reveals the difficulty many adults and even children have to get into play psychologically and yet there is no genuine play without it. Play is a universal form of behavior common to man. Play is a way of behaving and therefore play behavior is a common form of human behavior. The play impulse finds expression in many forms of behavior and is indulged in for the satisfaction it affords in itself. The essential factor in play is the processes of playing. Simple play behavior patterns are easily understood when one realizes that human bodies are similarly constructed and therefore function similarly whether that of primitive man or civilized. Play is likely to remain rudimentary unless it takes place in groups.
Play for aesthetic satisfaction the process of playing affords:
Play stems from man and presses for expression. Perhaps no phase of human behavior is so spontaneous as play. Pleasure, enjoyment, imagination, fun, and so on, are sometimes offered as the marks that distinguish play from other forms of behavior. Through many generations man has created, throughout the world, patterns, which are expressive of human play behavior.
The structures of a material function of the body not only produce a rich array of play activities but include aesthetics, social behavior and social relationships, etc. Throughout the world and through eons of time, play behavior has found expression in similar play patterns. This has resulted in a rich production of play activities. Like many forms of primitive human behavior, the outward expression of play has become conventionalized play and playing, dramatic acting, drama, sports, and the graphic and plastic arts. Play behavior can find expression in both crude and refined forms among all peoples.
The play of each involves similar patterns of play behavior.
It is quite probable that all of us are able to determine whether the behavior which we observe is play or whether it is work or behavior of some other sort than play. Because of this evident difference between play and other forms of behavior, in this discussion, the term “play behavior” is used to refer to play.
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Planet Improv believes that play is essential in some form for all of our students on a regular basis.
However, we as adults, often chastise our students for playing by verbalizing, “Grow up! Be more mature! Stop being so silly! Sit down! Be quiet! Be serious!”
Over our seventeen plus years of experience, hundreds of educational and community sessions and activities and direct interactions with tens of thousands of students we have experienced first-hand the transformational power/Theory of Play.
And with each new class, session, activity and group of students we deepen our enthusiasm in sharing this powerful educational tool.