Games educate

Being a student is to take part in teaching during lessons when a teacher teaches and conveys the knowledge she or he possesses to the student.

A good lesson is a lesson that contains a good proportion of knowledge conveyed in a playful manner. The playful manner is anything but recless drivel, it has a purpose, a goal and that is to raise students to become future teachers - that is how knowledge is passed on.

During my training as an Alexander teacher we had a session each afternoon called games. During the game session we played with the body, we experimented with movements, explored the muscle spirals found in the body through well-designed games for example. These games might just as well have be called exercises, I know. But the interesting thing is that the words game and exercise provokes totally different associations within us.

Play is free, unrestrained, and curious - exercise often causes us to search for right and wrong. When I have students, I encourage them to play. Since it may be long time between lessons it is important that those who come to me dares to play on their own, to explore and experiment with what we have done during the lesson together.

It is their own play that really educates them, it provides them with opportunities to analyse if one attempt went better or worse than the other. And since the games in AT often are things we do several times each day; sitting, standing, walking among other things, it can be used to educate us as often as we want.

Playing games is liberating and brings us closer to a laughter than exercises, play is refreshing - exercises can get a taste of must/should/would or bad conscience. When we play, we can allow ourselves to be focused on perception rather than perfection. We become confident in what we really can and what we have left to play with. Play is fundamental for life-long learning.