Re: play and school testing
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Fri, 23 Feb 96 14:55:18 EST
Hoping to find time for more thoughtful responses to some points
made in the play discussion soon. But in quick response to Eugene,
I suppose some people play chess 'playfully' but to most it is a
very serious, not to say 'pious' matter, in stance, I think. It seems
to me to be a normal activity genre, not at all different from
'work' genres, and taken just as seriously. If it is also a 'leisure'
activity, or refreshes some people as diversion from other genres,
it is a 'game', but it is not, I think, 'play' in our sense here.
As to the math test, I doubt very much that a playful stance is
very often taken here, though it might help in some exceptional
cases. It is not the fact that the problem is _hypothetical_ which
matters to its being play or not, but the stance which the solver
takes toward the activity of solving the problem: serious vs, playful.
JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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