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Discussion:
Joo Hock started the discussion by saying that Bucky is one who advocates play and he himself plays alot by partying and also inventing the World Game.
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What is good about the talk?
I am impressed with the 15th century picture of adults playing in the village square. I didn't know that happened in the old days, and that we have departed a lot from those sort casual and simple play.
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I wonder how many in this discussion group has played in the last seven days. [Many hands were up. Brilliant!] I haven't played for the last seven days. Perhaps this is what I need now.
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J said that there is also play, like playing with words, but I think that is not enough.
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Someone intervened to say that I was being too serious in wanting to manage 'play' - that is to control what should be 'play' and what should not be. Really? Now who is the one managing? :)
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Lu commented that it was very sad that we need to have an academic research on 'play'. For him, he just go out and play and do not need an academic to tell him that play is beneficial for him.
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I think that is a very myopic view of what academic research is about. Academic (objective) research co-exists with subjective experiences of play. They feed on each other. In objective studies there are subjectivities (eg. assumptions) and in subjective experiences, there are objectivities (empirical data). This is represented by the ying-yang symbol - ie. in the cycle of black there is a dot of white, and in the cycle of white there is a dot of black.
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There are research results on 'play' that can be beneficial to our lives.
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Monica: Such as...?
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Such as the example when they found out that rats that were restrained from playing in an experiment ended up not knowing that they should come out to search for food after the cat is away and ended up dead in hiding. Those rats who played, came out to search for food and lived. This findings could be beneficial to the training of our soldiers. Since military training is very serious and can result in nerotic soldiers if they did not have play built-in, and lost their instinct to survive in the battlefield.
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Vasu: It'll be sad if one day we have people with PhD in Play. :)
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I think so too! (That could imply the danger of over-specialisation and living in a cocoon.)
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In my information security training course some years ago, I planned to facilitate a role play with an attack scenario but was advised that the senior managers may not be willing to play along. Vasu felt that this is often the case until they get immersed into the playing and enjoying the games. Perhaps 'information security' is too sensitive a topic then. The games may compel them to reveal many of their malpractices! :)
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Joo Hock related to us a story of one of his ex-schoolmate who was a brilliant student who was rarely seen playing. Then recently, he saw this schoolmate in town dressed only in his briefs. Apparently, he has gone out of his mind! Sad.
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In the talk, the speaker mentioned about experiments he did with some academically brilliant students who could not perform some of the puzzles that required practical skills. I think this is because academically inclined people tend to be auditory, rather than kinesthetic.
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Sadly our education system now is an industrial complex that educates everyone to become an academic. That means assuming that everyone is auditory.
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Joo Hwa mentioned that in the army, you get some ill-coordinated recruits marching with their right arm and right leg out together, and then their left arm and left leg out together. He said this is due to lack of play, but I disagree. That is merely because these recruits were 'f*cked up' (screamed at) by the sergeant so much that they are 'blur' (totally disorientated). I think we should also take care not to attribute everything to lack of play! :)
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What do you not like about the talk?
I find the talk is rather superficial. Basically, I didn't learn very much new from the talk apart from the 15th century painting that shows that adults play in public. This is very little to wake up early in the morning at 6.30am for a Saturday morning for. :)
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I was thinking adults today do play in public too! The play just got more serious. Less mucking around and more structured and competitive. For instance, we play football, rugby, tennis...etc. So there is more serious play and less serious play.
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There is a child who after finishing a module in his Montessori class, went on to pick another game (at random) to play. The teacher stopped him, as there is certain structure and sequence to his curriculum, but he replied that play is also learning and learning is play. This didn't go well with the teacher and he was asked to put the game he is holding back on the shelf. So, though play is learning, there is also a structure when applied in a formal curriculum.
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It is like if I have only learned of things that I am interested in, then I would probably not know what are 'complex numbers' and 'imaginary planes' in mathematics, because at that time, I didn't have the power of visualisation to have arrived at such abstract interests in mathematics. Without knowing abstract mathematics, I wouldn't have been able to study engineering and implement designs.
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Someone said to me once upon a time, that what we learn in school should be what we will unlikely learn after school. This is so that our knowledge acquired in school will support and complement our work or life experiences. This person concerned studied Latin, Greek Classics and Art. From what I know of her, those subjects must have put her mind in great stead, as she has a strong reasoning power and is also very creative.
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After the Session:
I asked someone who is a gamer and teaches game design and programming in the polytechnic about video games and what benefits they bring to players. He said that online games are virtual and we have not reached a state where we have the technology to make it very close to reality. Hence the learning from online games are less cognitive - that means what is acted on on the screen is a few 'layers' away from action in the physical world. Although, experience from the military shows that recruits who play lots of 'shooting' and 'war games' perform better.
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I wonder what benefits do other online games, especially the role play ones like Second Life has on individuals. Will it result in addiction and a warped perception of their real life and physical world?
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Post mortem:
There was no time to go into
"What are the possibilities that can come from this talk?"
Here, I think that we can start playing more. For instance, when I am stressed, I exercise to de-stress. While exercising helps, I think it would be better to play games. It is more effective and fun! Playing is more relaxing.
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Opinions (so not compulsory):
The Bucky Group sessions are for sharing and discussions. It is not an experimental ground for facilitators or facilitators who use the session as a platform to show off their skills. I am not referring to those verbal skirmishes that happen from time to time. I am referring to people who typically asks questions with ready packaged 'right answers' up their sleeves so that they can use them to teach others something. And if they don't get the answers they want, they will nitpick until they get the answers they like to hear. I don't think this is what our sessions are meant to be.
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So, please be direct. Just say what you mean, and mean what you say. Nobody gave you permission to facilitate. There is only one facilitator in Bucky Group sessions and that is Joo Hock. It is also best to reserve your NLP techniques somewhere else and keep the Bucky sessions free from manipulations.
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Don't try to explain what another person is saying when that person is around and is halfway explaining, unless asked to do so, or his explanation has gone really dire. You may end up explaining something other than what the speaker wants, thus compounding the problem.
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Similarly, don't introduce somebody else when that someone else is there next to you. It makes the session sounds like a seminar preview and sales presentation. Let the person introduce himself or herself. It is more comfortable that way.
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Don't say, "Let me finish first...", unless you really mean something else other than what was understood midway. Otherwise you are betraying the trust and patience the other person has placed on you.
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Lastly, it will help if attendees are more attentive. Usually, a lot of time is spent arguing about things that have already been clearly said.
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Some people are not even attentive to themselves and forget what they have said just seconds later. Such people then go on to 'deny' what was said, but not intentionally, because by that time, they had truly forgotten what they had just said! Moral of the story is that if you are not attentive, you don't remember and therefore you will be wasting your time and other people's time. *haiz*
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But, as I have said, these are just my opinions on how the discussions can be made more effective. They are not compulsory and you don't have to agree.
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Sorry I don't take notes in Bucky sessions and the above notes came straight out of memory. I usually can remember what is discussed because I listen. However, I can't remember a lot of details this week because I had only a few hours of sleep the night before and woke up at 6.30am to turn up on time. It is quite a sacrifice every Saturday morning and it is slowly taking a toll on me. So, I'll be taking a break from the Group meetings from next week.
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Also, my Bucky books have been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for a long time. Actually far too long and it is about time to read them. In view of that, I have planned to spend Saturday mornings by the beach, reading, taking notes and enjoying the morning bliss. I think it will be time more productively spent.
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Attending the meetings on the other hand, can be very frustrating and therefore stressful.
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