Freedom to Learn

The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning

Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, is a specialist in developmental and evolutionary psychology and author of an introductory textbook, Psychology. See full bio

June 25, 2009, Child Development

Comments on "Play Makes Us Human IV: When Work Is Play"

Play Makes Us Human IV: When Work Is Play

By Peter Gray on June 25, 2009 in Freedom to Learn

One of the first and most often reinforced lessons that children learn in school is that work and play are opposites. Work is what one has to do; play is what one wants to do. Work is burdensome; play is fun. Work is essential; play is trivial. But when we leave school and go on to the "real world," at least some of us, the lucky ones, discover that work is not the opposite of play. In fact, work can be play, or at least it can be imbued with a high degree of playfulness. . . . When work is play, it is humanizing. Read More

Work as Play

Submitted by Sue VanHattum on June 26, 2009 - 5:28am.

I like this. I hope your next post will talk about work in traditional societies being more playlike. (You know, I almost expected you to quote Marx on 'alienated labor'.) ;>

I'm working on an anthology on learning math outside the classroom, and my work totally feels like play. Partly because this is a break from my normal work (teaching math), and partly because there are less time constraints, and it's all self-chosen. I'm having so much fun!

I do enjoy my work teaching and often feel like that's play too. But most of my students don't want to be there, and I have to grade them, so there are some pretty constant reminders that all is not self-chosen.

Playful math

Submitted by Peter Gray on July 1, 2009 - 4:20am.

Thanks for your comment, Sue. The whole issue of math learning in our society is a fascinating one. We put so much emphasis on teaching math in our schools; we use math testing as one of the key criteria for college admission (via the math SAT test). Yet my experience is that most students really never develop a gut sense of what they are doing when they do even simple mathematical operations. Math anxiety is rampant, which leads people to try to memorize steps for solving problems but not to come to any real understanding of the meaning of the steps. It does seem to me that math, of all fields, should be the most playful; and it seems to be that for people who like the subject. But somehow we make it the least playful subject for most students.
Best,
Peter