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An education researcher and an Advanced Placement teacher collaborated to examine the concept of playful pedagogy in the high school English classroom.
Playful teaching.. . acknowledges and draws on the drive to play, the joy of learning, and the humanity of teacher and students-but it is more than that. It is the act of taking over your own practice to make it more faithfully an expression of yourself and your students.
-MISTY FERGUSON, "HARNESSING PLAY FOR MUTUAL HUMANIZATION IN THE CLASSROOM"
We (Shelby and Lindsey) have known each other for almost a decade. Lindsey has taught high school English for the last fifteen years at the same school, where she serves as a mentor teacher for student teachers and early career colleagues, which is how we met. Shelby completed her teaching internship in Lindsey's Advanced Placement (AP) classroom during the 2014-15 school year, and a mentorship developed into a friendship. The work of teaching high school English has become even more challenging since then. Legislation targeting their autonomy, strikes in response to working conditions, and the surfacing of longstanding equity concerns because of the global COVID-19 pandemic are among a myriad of current concerns for teachers. The teaching profession has entered a new era of low morale, with more teachers leaving the profession than ever before (Sainato; Streeter).
These challenges have led the two of us to wonder about practices that can restore hope and generate joy for teachers. In our own lives, we've turned to play when life becomes challenging. Shelby is a hobbyist who crafts through needlework and spends time in nature by shelling at a beach. Lindsey plays outside too, often swimming at a pool or hiking with her daughter, photographer husband, and two dogs, Tito and Luna. As educators, we see value in play. Yet we also wonder how play might coexist in high school contexts with the pressure for seriousness, rigor, and preparation for what's to come: higher education, a career, or even the next standardized assessment. Some teachers may feel it is too optimistic to encourage play, given the many critical challenges in education, but we argue that a playful approach to pedagogy helps teachers thrive.
PLAYFUL PEDAGOGY
In this article, we investigate how approaching pedagogy through a...