A playful city: Opening up dialogues about what we mean by playful learning by Aarhus University

About the illustration

Though the idea that playful learning should have a central role in schools is gaining traction, the reality—apart from early childhood and recess—is that learning through play is not available to most children, particularly in lower-resourced schools. A false dichotomy is partially to blame, positioning play, enjoyment, and emotions to be at odds with learning and rigor. Creating powerful learning experiences for students means breaking down this distinction. It means opening up our understanding of what playful learning can be and creating space for a dialogue about what we mean by learning through play.

The shared illustration is a first step in this direction. It is a core part of the research-based book A Pedagogy of Play: Supporting playful learning in classrooms and schools that was written by the Pedagogy of Play research group and published in March 2023. Its aim is to provide teachers and educators with a shared reference point to begin conversations (e.g., in workshops and online courses) about what they mean and don’t mean when they talk about play. It also allows the readers of the book to understand how the Pedagogy of Play group has come to understand the concepts around playful learning. In the book, we invite the reader to notice where people are having joyful experiences, are socially interactive, and are actively engaged. And then reflect on how these experiences might help them learn, develop skills, gain information, and think more critically, creatively, and collaboratively.

Though set in an imagined city, the drawing is based on real situations: the architecture is inspired by buildings from our four research sites (Denmark, South Africa, the U.S., and Colombia). The activities, too, are drawn from real situations (a group of friends playing Pokémon Go; some members of the Pedagogy of Play team exploring materials in our offices). In this city, citizens have the resources to play and value spending time playing. Their activities are inspired by play around the globe. The drawing depicts play among children, play between children and adults, play among adults, and play between people and other animals. People are playing in groups and alone. There are games with rules, pretend play, play in nature, play that involves computers, play with materials, and play with ideas. Although the drawing captures many types of play, of course not all forms of play are represented (e.g., there is no rough and tumble play or extreme sports).
When you look to the left, you will first see a neighbourhood and business district with apartments, offices, and street life. Here you will find families, friends, neighbours, and colleagues playing together. You will find the South African artist Esther Mahlangu painting on the side of a building and the physicists Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli discussing the spin of electrons. There is also a carnival parade led by the Blaumeier Atelier, an inclusive art collective from northern Germany. On the right, you will see a school, field, and forest. You will find students and educators engaged in playful activities, many inspired by the book’s Pictures of Practice (examples of playful learning from the classrooms of our research sites). If you look closely, you will find that the drawing has some fanciful elements (you’ll see a playful mascot in the attic).

Context about each element is provided at https://www.savhannahschulz.com/teaching-materials/playful-learning-visual.

About me, the illustrator

Currently, I am a Doctoral Fellow at the Interacting Minds Centre, the Danish School of Education, and the Playtrack Research Group. My interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research focuses on the role of reflection in learning and attempts to identify the underlying cognitive processes that cause learners to reflect.

I am also a Research Fellow at the Pedagogy of Play Research Group , short PoP (which is part of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education). I started to collaborate with the group in 2018 to explore the relationship between play and reflection.

When it came to writing up our research, we decided to go the self-publishing route as we wanted to make the ideas and content available to as many teachers and educators as we could. We developed two financially supported processes: a peer-review process for our research and an overall DEIB-process (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) to gain regular feedback from a diverse set of educators. Since publication, I have also secured additional funding to translate the book into an audio-format to allow for wider accessibility. The Podcast Companion (incl. an audiobook) is to be released later this year.

Drawing on my semesters in Visual Design during my Undergraduate years, I designed and illustrated the book and accompanying resources (it comes with a complete teaching toolbox for practitioners to use in their classroom). I hold a deep passion for Science Visualization and communication and it was an utter privilege to gain the opportunity to work on developing my abilities in this regard on this project.

For the toolbox part of the book, I developed an icon language to help people navigate the different kind of resources available. It draws inspiration from constructivism (a core underlying learning philosophy of the ideas in the book), South African Ndebele art (a research site of the project), expressionism (to highlight embodied and emotional cognition), and geometric color shapes commonly used in educational visuals.