This is an itch that must be scratched, though merely writing the research proposal is feeling like such a mountain I'm wondering how I'll cope with the work itself...
So what's it all about?
'Play as a mode of learning in secondary education'
'Various developmental psychologists have showed the importance of play throughout our development, this has been taken up very positively in the early years' national curriculum, yet it begins to fall very steeply out of focus from KS2 and by secondary school is almost totally ignored. There is no reason for this to be the case and I want to show that. (and if possible start to change it!)'
Some people have laughed in my face when I've told them I'm applying for PhD funding in the current climate. Especially one in Education. Especially especially one in Arts Education. But I say now more than ever - with the knife poised to rip up an appreciation of the role of creativity and arts in education that has been slowly gaining in momentum - is the time to be ensuring there is advocacy for quality creative arts education work.
It strikes me secondary schools are particularly vunerable when it comes to promoting creativity - a variety of sources vaguely proclaim to them it is either beneficial or necessary they do so, but there is startlingly little hard research to quantify what qualifies as quality creative provision. And so schools are at the mercy of education businesses who make money from schools 'buying in' creativity provision to the tune of costly workshops and resource packs. Leaving teachers feeling disempowered and students, in my preliminary observations, confused.
So that's more or less the why. The what is to explore exactly what learning through play in secondary students looks like, what we can do to facilitate it, and along the way hopefully address some sticky issues such as can those on the Autistic spectrum learn through play (for the record, I say yes, and have seen the evidence at SEN schools to prove it - but how do you recreate that alongside non-autistic students in a mainstream school?...) and get on some of my related hobby-horses such as how learning through play is ideal at empowering social imaginations (that's society with the little and big S)
And so by the end of the three years I'll have dragged play kicking and screaming into secondary schools, spat in the face of those cheeky beggars trying to do horrible things to our schools in the name of political party posturing or profit, and have re-empowered teachers to use all their beautiful skills and develop some new ones. Simples....
