In the classroom - what are we all doing here? Being seriously playful?

We now have different lifestyles that are part of our higher education.  Busier, mobile, remote, what sometimes is called hybrid. 

Students seem to be pensive in the picture, busy, and so am I as an educator. 

No doubt, social media (ever present, even in students' laptops!) has invaded our lifestryles and classrooms.  For the last few years, I get increasingly worried when I notice students checking their mobile phones, or typing fast in their laptops or tablets/  Something is going on!

What are we all doing here?

As an educator, I try to relate the exercise to concepts already explained in lectures. Some questions come and go when I check on students. It seems we all learn, or try to, whilst paying attention to our lives outside the classroom.

The technologies are supposed to help us remember, practice, get feedback, personalise. They are supposed to be the true complement of hybrid learning. Online access to material, simulations, presentations, exercises, case studies, discussions. All of these learning resources are there.

In many cases, instead, these technologies are allowing us to escape the interaction, the conversation, the reflection. They are allowing us to escape the classroom.

Like Edgar Morin (2016) says, part of the problem is that we have fragmented knowledge into disciplines. We have severed connections between knowledge, experience and learning. We need to rediscover such connections.

In one of my books (2020), I made an attempt to do so by bringing the idea that it is possible, within and outside the classroom, to play and be serious, to let our best selves come to the fore and help us be creative.  In the class, there are opportunities to be seriously playful.  

The results were unexpected. In one session, some students took videos of me playing the flute to create an association between music and numeracy. In another (an examination), others complained when the more 'serious' display (a graphic of a linear equation) did not show. I remember panicking at the time and solving the problem as fast as I could.  Some serious students said that this should not have happened.  And they were right.  Only that I felt as if I was in the wrong place trying to nurture my creativity and theirs.  

This las experience also taught me that there is still a long way to become seriously playful in management education.  Many university administrators operate too inflexibly and pass the blame to others, without considering that perhaps they are also part of the problems that emerge.   Luckily, the classroom still is a space to create, but we need to be there in body and soul to fully do so.  


After this and other experiences, I have changed focus (I also stopeed teaching and leading on big courses - 400 students and over!). I have designed exercises and assessments that aim to be more interactive, and I try my best to check the display of information.   

I have also ventured outside the classroom.  I also ask students to go around campus and observe situations, talk to venue managers or other 'customers', so that they also ask questions.

So, going back to the question

So, to the question of: "What are we all doing here?", I can only answer that we are simply here and there. We should try to be here, not try to achieve too much when we play with creativity, and be aware that social media (the gateway to the 'there' ) is also a member of our classes. 

We need to manage our technologies carefully, so that not all the attention to the here goes away.  And we need to find the appropriate spaces to be seriously playful with creativity  

References

Córdoba-Pachón, J.R. (2020). Creativity in Management Education: A Systemic Rediscovery. London: Palgrave McMillan. Have a look at the spirit of play and seriousness, and the experiences chapters.

Morin, E. (2016). Enseñar a vivir. Manifiesto para cambiar la educación. Barcelona: Paidos. A well explained vision for systemic education.