Emily Manova

ART 133
Unit Paper 4
17 March, 2016
Learning by Playing
The idea of play can be incorporated in art through choice based, and learner directed
opportunities. Freyermuth (2012) explores this concept by discussing the importance of giving
her students freedom to choose new materials to play around with and the direction they wanted
to go with each piece. Douglas and Jaquiths (2009) further this idea of how a student based
classroom allows students to express their own interests and develop at their own pace while
working toward similar goals with different media. Klien (2008) takes a slightly different
approach to play by focusing more on creating humorous art that makes the audience laugh. Pink
(2006) explores this idea further by examining why we find things funny, and the role the right
hemisphere of our brain plays in humor.
As Szekely (2011) states, Through playing, children build and maintain all the essential
ingredients for making art, especially the joy in artmaking. When teaching younger students I
would use this technique of play to allow students to experiment at their own pace and discover
new media by allowing them classes in which they are open to all material and have little to no
guidance on what they should make. However, I would use this approach sparingly as I feel it
also beneficial to have guidance and direction at times, requiring students to use medium they
might otherwise avoid when given free range.

References
Douglas, K.M., & Jaquith, D.B. (2009). Engaging learners through artmaking: Choice-based art
education in the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Freyermuth, V.K. (2012). One art teachers search for a holistic approach. In L.H. Campbell &S.
Simmons III (Eds.), The heart of education: Holistic approaches (pp. 266-269). Reston,
VA: National Art Education Association.
Klein, S. (2008). Comic liberation: The feminist face of humor in contemporary art. Art
Education, 61(2), 47-52.
Klein, S. (2014) Humor and contemporary product design. In D. Chairo &R. Baccolini (Eds.),
Gender and humor: international and interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 201-211). New
York, NY: Routledge.
Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York:
Riverhead Books.
Szekely, G (2011). Testing the world through play and art. In D. B. Jaquith & N.E. Hathaway
(Eds.), The learner directed classroom: Developing creative thinking skills through art
(pp. 64-76). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.