This short and sweet #Take5 is brought to you by Joanne Craven who held an engaging session provocatively entitled ‘Pointless Play’ as part of the University of Liverpool’s Islands of Innovation 2025 and please do follow the link and have a look at the glory and joy of that playful event! Joanne draws on her experience as an educational games designer to argue for the power of the playful state in learning. In this post she shares how kindness opened space for her and others to learn playfully. Please enjoy reading this post – and we would love it if you shared examples of your own compassionate, kind and joyful practice.
Excuse me, I need to adjust my moustache
I’ve been a freelance educational games developer for 10 years. Over that time, I’ve seen the wonders that being in a playful state can do for learning, including creating enthralled engagement and expanding openness to experimentation with new ideas. However (especially when you’re dealing with grown ups!) creating a space where adults feel playful is easier said than done. So – how can we hold playful spaces?
Recently I ran a session at a funfair-themed Islands of Innovation 2025 online conference, where I got everyone to create their own arcade games at home with household objects (think coconut shies from rolled up socks or a build-the-silliest-hat competition). The “point” was to show that even without a “winner”, people will challenge themselves, explore and innovate automatically, as long as they’re in a playful state.
The night before the conference, on a whim I decided my picture on my slides needed a top hat and a rather dashing moustache (see Exhibit A). I felt a bit anxious about how it would come across!
You know what? The moustache was a massive hit. I got a lot of compliments on it during the session, and one of the people who got in touch after to ask about my work said she contacted me “because, well, you had a moustache!”.
“Thanks for starting us off on such a playful journey. As others have said, I’ve never started a conference with such a smile on my face!”
If the moustache is such marketing gold, why, after 10 years in educational games and play consulting, hadn’t I gone for this level of silliness before? What was it about this conference that made me feel the moustache was “allowed” – or even welcome? How had the organisers held such a successfully playful space, even online?
I think it’s because the event just oozed psychological safety.
Playful zones of safety
There were different “zones” you could visit, with synchronous and asynchronous sessions and wellbeing activities (you can take a look at the padlet here), and you were explicitly allowed to move around and be in whichever space suited you best. My brain wiring hates having to sit and listen for long periods, and feeling that there was space for that was great!
All the pre-event communication was full of funfair-themed images and video. The organisers really modelled “if something makes people feel happy, it’s worth doing”. I think so often, “professional” spaces can become efficient but joyless. But do we really do better work without joy?
And Finally
And finally, the event really seemed designed for “real people”. I think if we’re really honest, real people can’t learn or work well without breaks, snacks, movement, encouragement, humour, downtime, autonomy,trust, appropriate hand-holding, praise, permission to fail, a warm welcome and resources and permission to meet their own individual needs. Summed up in a word – kindness. When people have these things, when they are treated with kindness, I truly believe that playfulness, cooperation and innovation happen much more easily.
All this dealt with all the voices in my head that would have discouraged the moustache. I’d like to think that the moustache went on to give some others permission to be more playful, like a playful snowball. And it all started with kindness.
BIO
Joanne Craven delivers playful sessions and develops individual games, aimed at everyone from primary school kids to government ministers. If you’d like to chat about games or play, her inbox is always open at joanne@joannecraven.co.uk, or take a look at her website.