Two basic words that I’ve been thinking about lately: lecture and play.

First, lecturing. I think about this a lot as an educator. What’s the right amount? As a (sometimes) constructivist teacher, is there even a right amount? How do I do it appropriately while not boring my students to death? Can technology help, or is it just another way to bore people to death.

While checking my morning feeds, this popped up from BoingBoing (a spectacular blog, by the way). Here’s the link to the video, and a summary of Patrick Winston’s main points in list form. I guess if you have to give a talk, perhaps you should, you know, spend some time trying to think about how it will be received/delivered. I can’t tell you how many talks I’ve gone to that are utterly useless. I’ve probably given some myself too, come to think of it. I found Dr. Winston’s list helpful for thinking about lecturing, but I still am a bit dubious, given that students only remember something like 10% of what they are told. You know, I’m starting to get bored just thinking about lecturing right now. Time to move to the polar opposite.

Play. Two things have been driving me to write about this. First, The New York Times Magazine has an excellent piece on the importance of play:

Of course play is good for something; it is the essence of good. Watch children at play, and the benefits are so obvious: just look at those ecstatic faces, just listen to those joyful squeals. Stuart Brown alluded to it in his library talk last month. ‘‘Look at life without play, and it’s not much of a life,’’ he told the audience. ‘‘If you think of all the things we do that are playrelated and erase those, it’s pretty hard to keep going.’’ Without play, he said, ‘‘there’s a sense of dullness, lassitude and pessimism, which doesn’t work well in the world we live in.’’

Secondly, Trazzle and I went to the Strong National Museum of Play yesterday. Whoa. Sensory overload. It was a very cool experience, and I can see how kids would absolutely love it. I was thankful that I am not a parent yet, although I’m beginning to get excited about this aspect of my life. Still, right now I have a dog and that’s really enough of a handful. Kids are fun, and I’m surrounded by them for a large portion of my day, but being by myself is really nice too.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to think about how play is represented in schooling structures, especially within my classroom, and it’s kinda depressing to think about. I definitely feel like my classroom is a pretty engaging environment, but I’m not sure I work in authentic “play” enough. When it is present, it still smacks of teacher construction, and thus seems disingenuous for the learner. After all, I have standards that must be taught, for the state demands this for their accountability structures. Am I the only one who senses that we’re going in exactly the opposite direction of what our students need: creative outlets that allow time for struggle, and innovation, and play? My sense is that this has probably been getting worse over the years, especially given the neoliberal nature of NCLB, but I don’t have the time invested in schooling to provide perspective. Sigh.

Still, I don’t think it’s a simple either/or. Lecture isn’t always bad, and play surely isn’t always good. It just seems to me that we’ve sacrificed much, and received little for it. There was a story on 60 Minutes the other day about how the Danes are the happiest nation on Earth. When asked to give advice to Americans, one Dane said, “Well, okay. I have an advice. Don’t depend too much on the American dream. Yeah. I think you might get disappointed.”

Sage advice for educators these days.