[Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play?

[greg.a.thompson@gmail.com]

David,
I think this notion of play also works for the most important of skills that the child will learn: the ability to treat the world as other than it simply is. 

Whether you prefer to speak of this as mediation or in the more heideggerian language of disclosure (or unconcealment), the ability to see a group of people together and recognize that group as a "protest" or a Republican convention or whatever and, more importantly, to understand all of the meaningfulness that might be attached to that grouping and/or to that event (not to mention how one properly behaves at such an event and what kinds of roles are available and how one effectively carries out any of those roles)... all of this is the kind of irrealis for which the child must develop a capacity if they hope to get along in the adult world.

What better way to accomplish that then through play (and here I particularly have in mind that peculiar form of play known as "make-believe" - in all its many variations!).

Fine preparation for the make-believe of the adult world...

Cheers,
Greg

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 9, 2017, at 8:55 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> animal