Play, Play, and More Play

My word for the year is PLAY.  The opposite of toil.  And why not? 

17 years ago, at my current school, I wrote my Teaching Philosophy to articulate the direction that I was headed as a kindergarten teacher.

“I believe in the power of play (think of anyone you know who has lost their passion for life and they’ve probably forgotten how to play.)

I believe in learning through wonder, exploration, and discovery (think of anyone you know who is a lifelong learner and they’re probably driven by wonder, exploration, and discovery rather than thinking of learning as a task that must be completed.)”

My commitment to play has become even more entrenched.  I’m not sure what my life would have been like had I not found my way to a career surrounded by 5-year-olds and a life of visual art and writing for children.  Play is powerful. My own daughter went to a school until she was 12 in LA committed to play, Play Mountain Place.  I carry the lessons of our experience there as a parent into my classroom every day.

https://www.playmountain.org/

I design writing, reading, math, science, and social studies invitations to deepen the play and find relationships between scholastic skills.  

Writing is a tool to express oneself.  This is the reason to learn to write.  Our week is designed with many different projects anchored in play, all leading to the goal of writing.  Story crafting in the Wildlands (an acre of outdoor learning on campus), the classroom, or the play yard is designed to end in writing.  Making inventions at the Maker Table is designed to lead to writing about the invention. Consistent writing leads to more writing.  Writing makes stronger readers. All of this steeped in play.

In my own writing, play drives my work.  It is the joyful adventure of following an idea without fully knowing where I’ll land.  It is playfully following the twists and turns. It is the journey of delight that brings me back to the computer (or notebook) again and again.  Creativity anchored in play is like a drug. If it were toil, I doubt I would be compelled to return over and over.  It is play that drives me. Play that beckons me back. Play that keeps it fresh, alive, and youthful. 

Here’s to Corita Kent and PLORKING!

My website's beginning words declare,

“Lucky me! I spend my days doing what I love and loving what I do.”

Little did I know, until I read Matthew Burgess’ and Kara Kramer’s Make Meatballs Sing (Enchanted Lion Books, 2021), the picture book biography of Corita Kent, I was plorking!

For those unfamiliar with this artist, educator, nun and activist, as I was until I read this gorgeous and spirited biography, Sister Maria Kent of the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was born Frances Elizabeth Kent. She served the church for 30 years, especially as an art teacher, and took the name Corita Kent at age 50 in 1967 when the Catholic church released her from her vows.

A new adventure beckoned.  New work awaited.

"Corita,” Burgess writes, “was serious about PLAY. She believed the best work is done when play and work are one. She even created a new word: PLORK.”

As in PLAY + WORK.

Corita believed makers – i.e. plorkers - are a sign of hope.

Indeed.

What could be more hopeful than the rainbow LOVE USA stamp the United States Postal Service commissioned her to make in 1986?

                       (UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum)                                

I quickly learned, from visiting the website of the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles and reading the book Corita Kent co-authored with Jan Steward, Learningby Heart – Teachings to Free the Creative Kent (Bantam Press, 1992/Allsworth Press, 2008): Plorking and making are all about becoming and the Joy - with a deserved capital “J” – that process brings.

As Matthew Burgess shared in his Author’s Note, “Corita invites us to discover the spark of spirit within the most ordinary things.”

To do so while working can only bring play.

See and listen for yourself.

Lucky me to be a plorker!

Happy Plorking to YOU!

Esther Hershenhorn

PS.

I’d been reflecting on “play” in various and sundry ways, thinking on this post, when I fortuitously came upon Make Meatballs Sing and Corita Kent’s newly-invented word plork.

No wonder I find joy in what I do, I realized!

For most of my Little Girl Years, I played school and library.  I imagined my way into becoming a teacher, a librarian, a children’s book author. 😊

P.P.S.

Thanks to Tabitha Yaetts at The Opposite of Indifference for hosting today’s Poetry Friday.