The Yin and Yang of Play
Yesterday, as I was on the underground (to go to a protest to demand the Swedish government took action, not only in the safeguarding of Greta Thunberg taken my Israeli military illegally in international waters, but also to take action to ensure aid to a starving people and demand a ceasefire as first steps towards justice and peace for everyone in the area) I noticed that one of the other passengers had a yin and yang t-shirt that included a text, that I couldn’t read properly but was something about the balance dark and light and that harmony and peace is not the absence of darkness..
It felt reassuring.
There is so much darkness, chaos, hate and division in the world at the moment, and it often feels overwhelming. My instinctive approach is to meet this with light, love and connection (which is not always easy) as a way to find balance and achieve harmony.
In Julian Baggani's (2019) book "How the World Thinks", he writes about a meeting with a Chinese woman who had lived in Edinburgh for five years. When he asked her about the differences between China and Scotland, she commented that in China people strive to please others, while in Scotland people strive to please themselves, and she described this value of pleasing others as "harmony".
The word "harmony" comes from the Greek language, ἁρμονία (harmonía), which means "a fastening or joining." The concept of harmony goes back as far as Pythagoras. It therefore seems obvious how the word harmony can be used to refer to a connection between people who join in peace.
The more I have thought about Original Learning as an educational utopia, the more I believe it is about peace - where harmony is when all the different instruments can create music together, that is, all the different people can contribute in their own way. This does not mean that everyone agrees all the time, but that life has a rhythm that gives permission and that people have the knowledge and/or curiosity to be able to make informed decisions that neither diminish nor harm others. In play, this harmony can sound in many different ways - noisy, laughing and screaming when it comes to adventurous play, or, as I describe in my book “Risky Play and Teaching”, like a loud purring cat. Harmonious play is not only the quiet and calm moments. It is when the play has flow together with everyone who wants to participate, and with the others that are playing in the same space.
Maybe it is because children do not get enough time to be in flow, that they do not know what harmony or peace feels like in the body?
Maybe having a balanced yin and yang is where we find flow?
Yin and Yang is a philosophical concept in Taoism that describes the interconnectedness and interdependence of seemingly opposite forces. This I think is the essence of flow - the ability to find balance between all the different participants of play (human and more than human). One might be more passive, observing, and strategic (yin), while the other might be more active, assertive, and decisive (yang). And these don’t have to be fixed to an individual - in many of my play observations I have noticed how the children can switch between passive and active roles and the whole group adapting too in order to maintain that balance, and to sustain the flow.
The character “yin” originally meant negative, the dark side where there is no sunlight. The character “yang” originally meant positive, the bright side where the sun shines. The traditional view is that yin and yang represent basic opposing forces within everything
In play, as in life, embracing both yin and yang allows for flexibility and adaptability in the face of changing circumstances. And as a mother of autistic children (and being actually autistic) I truly understand the importance of flexibility and adaptability, not only for social interactions, but also cognitive, physical and emotional development, as well as psychological well-being. Much of my parenting and teaching has been about scaffolding children’s ability to be flexible and adaptable through creating safe and brave spaces that are reliable enough (with daily rituals to frame the day as a safe space, trusting relationships, creating a sense of belonging for every child etc) as well as appropriately challenging - which risky play is a part of, as risky play allows every child to engage in self challenging experiences that is at the edge of their own personal capacity. I will also create activities that are not simply about creating calm interactions, but are about safe spaces that allow children to practice their flexibility and adaptability without exhausting their resilience.
In Original Learning it is the balance of teaching, learning and playing that is vital - their interconnection and interdependence.
In my three roles as a play-responsive educator I think considering yin and yang can be useful
Teacher Role - we are aware of what motivates children, and also what demotivates them. We take into consideration that often all children will not be motivated by the same things and that negativity towards learning is only a problem if we do not take the time to understand how to motivate those children, and that yin is not balanced with yang and children constantly fail to achieve learning flow.
Facilitator Role - we are sensitive to our need to be both active and passive. We are active when the flow, both learning and play, requires us to take appropriate action in order to sustain it. But when there is flow we remain passive.
Playworker Role - we observe the play flow and understand the yin and yang of the flow - that play can be perceived as both negative and positive by observers depending on our personal attitudes and bias. That there is a need for us to better understand the rich diversity of play in order to contribute towards sustaining the flow in such a manner that the children are unaware of our contributions. We do of course intervene as a matter of safeguarding and enter facilitator role with the intention to resume the playworker role as soon as possible.
More thoughts of yin and yang for play responsive educators. The italics indicate the essential threads of Original Learning. I have also not written these words as a yin or yang - because while I like this concept, some of these words are not inherently positive or negative, as both can be both.
individual-group play/learning (both are important as is parallel play - check out my post on the play scribble)
product based-process based play/learning (this is something that I have written about multiple times over the years - it is not just about one or the other but a balance of both - see Art v Craft)
knowledge-imagination (I always like to think of imagination as speculative knowledge, and in my book I talk about just how entangled these two are)
rational-intuitive (what we learn through research, theory and reason as well as phronesis)
whole-part (often I think that teaching is connected to a detailed part, while play allows a more wholistic approach)
safe-risk (being too safe can have devastating results when children fail to be able to do their own risk assessments and become dependent on others for their safety - equally, a risky environment with no consideration of safety is often a dangerous place for humans of all ages)
positive-negative emotions (we all need to experience a wide range of emotions in order to know how to self regulate them, so that we can do what we want to do, and are not limited by an inability to control our them. Controlling emotions does not mean not feeling them, it means that we can experience them all without negatively impacting our physical, social, emotional and cognitive well-being) I would place joy here.
wonder-disgust (children are attracted to disgusting things just as much as they are wondrous things - the number of times I have seen children poke dog poop with a stick!!! They are both there to motivate us to make sense of the world)
curiosity-disinterest (often children are disinterested because either they know it already or they are not ready for this experience, knowledge etc yet. As teachers finding the balance within the group will be a constant work of art, especially to ensure it is not the same children who are always experiencing disinterest)
unhurried-stressed (this is where I would place time. I think stress can be a good thing in small doses, as it releases as extra boost of hormones that can get us through tricky experiences, including time sensitive experiences. Risky play, games that have to be completed within a set time etc fall under this category. Stress is a negative experience when it is not properly balanced with unhurriedness, as our brains and heart should not be in a state of stress for prolonged periods of time)
open-closed (here I will place both listening and reflection, as I think it is important that we learn to be open through listening to others in order to understand, to be open to reflecting on this and to make informed decisions. It can be equally important to close ourselves to harmful comments and actions others direct towards us so that they do not negatively impact us. So only being open can be detrimental to our well-being, but only being closed can be detrimental to our own well-being and the well-being of others.)
pride-shame (I assume several essential threads would work here. But I believe this is also an important yin-yang balance because we should be proud of our achievements and the achievements of others - but without shame we forget our ability to reflect on our accountability and how our actions can both positively and negatively affect others. Shame is there to remind us of our humanity. But only experiencing shame can have massive negative impacts. I often think that many children are forced to constantly feel shame by the adults around them because they struggle to react, play, act and learn in a way that the adults want them to. Children who are unable to recognise their own strengths or feel good about themselves will struggle to learn and be with others much more)
play-work/teaching (the Original Learning Approach was created because I struggled with the lack of balance here. Original Learning’s whole focus is to create balance between play and work, play and teaching, and play and learning - as inter-related, interdependent parts of a whole)
There are, of course, many other yin and yang aspects that we could explore. But I think this is probably enough reading in this post - not too long, not too short!!
note: all comments are welcome. I am open to learning. But I am closed to hateful comments - and I will delete them.
