Reflections on Reverence, Play and Social Action
It was a pleasure to be around a group of people at the Bristol workshop who are passionate about and dedicated to children’s right to autonomous, self-directed play.
In remembering my own play – which was so beautifully triggered by the invitation to bring a token that reminded us of our most cherished play memory - I find two aspects of play really interesting (which of course have blurry lines in reality, but for the sake of thinking about it, I will divide it up this way): One is re-enacting the very immediate social and cultural practices of the surrounding culture. I played endless hours of shop, school, house, car mechanic, farm, dentist (like one of the other participants, which really made me laugh) etc etc. And there is also the other aspect of playing in a fantasy world, in the realm of story, of other times and cultures, fairytales, adventure and myth – play that was populated with pirates, warriors, explorers (and yes, they were female!) princes and princesses, wizards, witches, monsters, aliens. While my most cherished memories are most definitely about the latter category (as expressed in the wooden sword I brought along), I’m not saying that one is better than the other. I think that both are needed for a rounded experience and development and that if enabled to play in as free and self-directed way as possible, children can learn in both these ways how to be within in a group, be leaders, how to negotiate, cope with failure and pain, how to handle conflict, how to take risks, how to be resilient and creative.
I don’t work with children and I don’t have children of my own, yet the idea that children need and have a right to this kind of play is very important to me and so I was asking myself, why?
As adults, we recognise these same issues I think, and I came away from the event feeling that the concern for preserving spaces where children have these kinds of experiences also echo in the world as a whole and equally apply to adults: The spaces for adults to continue that development and practice that kind of freedom are also limited, and it feels increasingly so. It is true, as we discussed in the management meeting after the event, that adults have much more power and choice, that children need the advocacy of adults to exercise their rights to these spaces and that time. Although of course adults also have varying degrees of choice and access even within this culture, depending on educational, social, economic status, gender and so on. I see it a bit like a sliding scale. While we can’t ignore the clear differences in power between children and adults, I do see parallels between the confinement of children in ever longer school days and ever more mediated and supervised out of school activities, plus the distraction provided by games and social media, and the confinement of many adults in long working days, often in jobs that that don’t mean anything to us, that are not self-directed, and with leisure activities pushed down our throats that are geared towards consumption and control, not expression, creativity, exploration and adventure. I feel it’s important to acknowledge that. I do see in the children I am in contact with the pressure of being within an education system and a leisure complex that to a large degree controls how they spend their time and is geared to develop them into well functioning participants in mainstream culture and society. Of course it is, how can it be otherwise? And of course there is also the other side of the coin to control, which to me is neglect and which is certainly not the same as freedom. This twin evil of control and neglect was really brought home by stories we heard at the workshop about children whose only safe space of any kind was at the adventure playground, the only space where adults showed them any care or concern.
Thinking about how the concept of reverence was reflected in the workshop, I realised that I see it in the reverence I have for a certain mental freedom, an ability to imagine otherwise, an autonomy that is not ever completely crushed or co-opted by whatever dominant system it finds itself in. Whether that system is openly tyrannical and violent, as Constance’s blog post about Chile reminded us of, and as Allie also commented on in the management meeting, where a Victor Jara found it in himself to sing “Venceremos” to his torturers after he was forced to play guitar with his crushed hands. Or whether that system is the much more covertly oppressive, seemingly benign one that we are in at this point in history, where a lot of the violence is manipulative or simply outsourced to somewhere else. In fact, the question of how we can develop, preserve, re-discover that mental freedom becomes really important, because the way we live almost makes it look like we don’t need to worry about it any more. But we do, and it’s a precious thing that needs to be cared for while allowed to roam free, in ourselves as much as in others. I know I had it when I was a child, when I had access to unsupervised and risky situations. Away from the plans and designs that adults had on my life. Things were possible that were not possible even in the most liberal, supportive school or organised play environment with the most progressive teachers or adults around. It allowed a kind of outlandish creativity that is not tethered by what is presented to us and perceived by us as “real”. And it also allowed the small, doable "good enough" actions to go with that imagination, the things that Amy Rose spoke of so inspiringly in the context of the Playing Out project.
It seems to me that as children we are quite good at holding the outlandish idea and the small and doable act together in our consciousness at the same time, while as adults we seem to be much less capable of coping with that seeming contradiction, feeling instead that we have to compromise our dreams in order to act, or making our dreams so big and overwhelming they keep us from acting because nothing we do can ever be enough. And so I realise that an autonomous spirit combined with the capacity to act is what I revere in anybody and anything. And I guess that’s why it is important to me that children are supported in having spaces to play with that by adults who are aware of the big picture in which this also plays out.
One thing I’m grappling with in this context, is the role of technology and social media. I know I can sometimes be a bit of a basher of both. But in reality, I have got a lot out of social media for my real life in recent years. My childhood was pre the major explosion in gaming, but I did watch a lot of TV. Really quite lot. It does not seem to have hampered my ability to be imaginative, actually quite to the contrary, I feel it has contributed to it in a similar way that books have. And I can completely understand the very positive potential of gaming for example as a trigger for imagination and as a space generally to play. Maybe the thing I’m worried about is when I see children (and adults) in a situation where the mediated, technology driven aspect of life is taking up the vast majority of time. Maybe the thing is as always that there needs to be a balance. That all these things are not harmful in themselves and can be positive as long as there is a whole life being lived. What I mean by that is a life that acknowledges the fact that we are embodied, sensual beings who have relationships with the wider world that simply cannot be fully experienced and negotiated via technology. I watched lots of TV, I sat inside for hours reading books but I also spent many hours outside, in any kind of weather, in beautiful fields and forests, in semi-industrial wasteland, with the part of the world that is alive but not human. It is not about glorifying the access to natural spaces for children (and adults) and elevating it to the highest form of play, but about making sure that children have opportunities to build relationships with the other life forms we share the planet with.
I just feel that it’s important. And that really is what it is, a feeling that I find hard to intellectualise, or argue for in an intellectual way. It just seems to be who we are, as humans. Or maybe of course, evolution is taking us away from that and we will be something else in future. That may just be as it is, but I would find it heart breaking. I feel that the disconnect and disembodiment of much of the way we live our lives in this time and this culture is what has enabled us be so inventively destructive in the world and to ourselves, and I suppose I wish for children to have a chance to build a richer kind of relationship with it all.
Thanks again to everybody who was there!
