Post #2 - Let’s talk about PLAY, not Bruno.
Disney’s newest movie, Encanto, is taking the world by storm, or at least its soundtrack is. With the King Midas of Composition at the helm, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Encanto takes its viewers on a musical, magical ride through Columbia while exploring the themes of family pressure and crushing expectations. It’s delightful, and I have already seen the film several times.
At the crux of the conflict for the Madrigal family lies a fractured relationship with Tio Bruno (who we don’t talk about). As one of three triplets of the middle generation, Bruno’s exit from the family leaves a gaping hole that everyone ends up filling with gossip and mythic secrets. The film’s protagonist, Mirabel, eventually comes to see how the key to solving her family’s magical issues lies in repairing this severed tie. An incredibly catchy pop-song and a crazy 3D puzzle later, Mirabel finds her long lost uncle, and I’ll let you watch the movie to find out what happens next.
What I wanted to write about today is another fractured family relationship that I see at work in the world of education. It is the schism that has built up over time between Hard Work and Play. I believe these are long lost twins that we, in our 21st century hustle and bustle, separated at birth. They have grown up in separate households and in different cultures to the point where, when we see them in the same room at the same time, we don’t even consider them as being related.
I think this is a tragic loss. And here I quote from one of my favorite books on creativity, Walking on Water by Madeline L”Engle:
““If we watch a child at play for a few minutes, seriously at play, we shall see that all his energies are concentrated on it. He is working very hard at it. And that is how the artist works, although the artist may be conscious of discipline while the child simply experiences it.”
Hard work and play can coexist, and I truly believe students will reach their greatest potential when they are firing on all cylinders with both of these engines. Too often, I feel that “play” gets dismissed as being “lackadaisical” or something to be done in your free time, whereas “hard work” is what we do when we want to see results.
What if we didn’t have to choose? What if we modeled to students that working hard at having fun is actually a productive, efficient way to accomplish a task?
Maybe we shouldn’t be like the Madrigal family and not talk about Bruno. Maybe we should talk about what creative, playful methods cause us to work really hard at a task. If students see daily examples of adults enjoying their work by being creative problem-solvers, even if it doesn’t show up on a report card, I think that’s a good lesson to learn.
This blog post took a lot of work to write, but I had fun. What can you do today in the same vein?
