Awkward Encounters

Brown is exploring the ways that play can be used in corporate America. He is an instructor in a class that is teaching students how they can facilitate play in the workplace, and even shows a movie created by students using play in a corporate meeting. If we can include play in the workplace, certainly it would not be a stretch to use some of these same principles in the classroom. Fostering these play techniques early in life will, like Brown said, enable them to be able to look at situations from a different more creative lens later in life.

Play has been around for centuries, as Brown points out, and its importance and benefits are just becoming more prominent. Brown gives evidence that play has been a big part of our culture for centuries. Paintings from years past show people of all ages engaging in play: narrative, imaginative, and bodily. Brown also stated that the wave of play is just cresting, meaning that it is the prime time to do research on whether play has language benefits, which is what I am interested in studying. This talk gave me some interesting insight to play and its benefits in the corporate world which could be transferred into benefits in the classroom, by helping to make learning fun and motivate students to succeed, today and in their future lives.