Comic Visualized communication associated with children lower

Comic • Visualized communication associated with children (lower forms of expression) • Conflict underlying the mythoheroic narrative (moral panic over children’s leisure and fantasy) • Paving the way for animation (Krazy Kat) • First Cultural Product that kids bought on their own (competition for leisure time-- the hurried child)

Meaning Making • Cognitive Structures (Jean Piaget) – Enactive = Play/ Actions/ Gestures – Iconic = Pattern Recognition/ Visual Representation – Symbolic = Spoken Language (system of abstract concepts) – Games, Stories and Literacy (higher level representations) • • Play • Language Identity/ Social Skills Narrative

Why BFG? : Reading the politics of children’s literature • Competing Rationales for Books • Dahl/ Tolkeing: Archaeology of the Imagination – Lost in Translation/ Adaptation – Word Play and Conversation – Characters and Interactions – Therapeutic Ethos -- gentling the imagination

Leap. Frog Pretend and Learn Shop Kamloops vs Leapfrog Shopping Cart: We’ll have lots of fun. Lets go shopping!

In Defense of Play • Folk play is – Social and community – Natural and organic – Child-generated narrative – intrinsically rewarding ie structure of feeling associated with intensified feelings and self-challenge

Huizinga: The Play Instinct as the source of culture making

Children’s Games -control and decontrol -festival, drama and masquarade -contest, chance and mastery -

Carnival as theology and the repression of play • Play mocks seriousness and the predictable world • Play breaks work ethos - idle hands and the devils bidding • Play as celebration (bracketing of reality. . Foundation of as if) • Play as spirtual practice of culture making ritualized theology of ‘chance’ and ‘chaos’

The modernization of play Domestication, commodification, commercialization and technification of play cultures

Toys as Educational Media: origins of constructivism • inscribed with play values • combining symbols and objects • assembling components

Play as Learning- John Locke • preparation of the child for learning ie blocks, construction, letters • sports - skills, strategy, rules and team work - sports play/ phys ed • Practice, dexterity, mastery - bows, guns, Yo-Yo ie Playskools and Fisher Price Pull Toys • Games, Rules ie Dominos, cards, chess • Lego and construction sets

The concept of Kinder-garden giving kids spiel raum (liberating natural play)

moral crisis of childhood removing kids from the streets • Mean world syndrome - a cultural world contoured of fear and risk/ increasingly protection from harm – Eg the playground movement - mobilize children into safe spaces (1900) – Danish Planning – The street hockey game vs the organized hockey game (soccer leagues 1990)

productive leisure: managing energy release and transgression • Idleness is dangerous/ peer culture is dangerous - ie playgrounds to channel into healthy activity - play as control • Sports and the Playing fields of Eton • Children need to let off steam physical challenge and burning excess energy makes children more pliant - the professionalization of sport • My scouting career! Play as a form of moral oppression vs

The Play Ethos Valuing Children’s Constructive Leisure

Play as rehearsal - social skills and role taking • Teams (kick the can, capture the flag) and games (spin the bottle) • Plush- imaginary friends and bonding • Rough and tumble- WWF • Playing house/ dolls house • Baby dolls, toy soldiers • Barbie play

Play and the liberated imagination • individual expression: art, music, dance (JAZZ) • Fantasy play- narrative elaboration and creativity • Role play - doctor, d and d • Exploration and problem solving (discovering the world, attitude of wonder ie playing in nature vs playing with transformers)- computers

Modernist Play The work of childhood is learning.

The development of a toy industry: • Early Toy industry (Gary Cross- Kid’s stuff: Toys and the Changing World of the American Child)- the children’s day movement - 1928 • Toys as Marketed Commodities - ideal toys co. and the Teddy Bear • History of industry: Marketing vs the market – Pre-ww 1 - dolls and plush: – Early Industrialization- FP, Playskool, Monopoly, Lego, – Post war-1980 - Barbie/ Mattel - early ads • Commercialization of Play (global industry) – Contemporary-Hasbro, Mattel, Leapfrog

Modernist Concept of “Good Play”

Milestone Toys • Learning: cards/ dominos, Puzzles, sandbox, guessing game, Construction • Development: Ball, Blocks, Rings, Riding, • Role Play: Play house, board games, Dn. D • Fantasy: Puppet, Teddy, Barbie, GI Joe • Function: trains, trucks, cooking • Entertainment: Jack n box, pin ball, video game

Playing with Culture The Making of the Toy Industry

Games With Rules • • • sports checkers board games cards chess strategy games

Manipulating Objects with Functions • • Construction Sets Trains Cooking Utensils Domestic Technology Trucks Pull Toys Wagons

Practice and Skills • • • balls skipping playground hopscotch darts drawing

Play industries

Increasing role of marketing in toy industry • • • Early advertising to kids Mattel Tie-ins and spin offs Character marketing Synergy Marketing

Emerging Postmodern Childhood • family life • television • children’s marketing

Family Life: Postwar Trends • • • babyboom suburbs consumer lifestyle fragmentation of family growth of leisure

Is Play Culture Changing? video

Values of Postmodern Play

Revaluing Play as Leisure • • • MODERN learning action construction social • • • POSTMODERN fun entertainment consumption individual

Postmodern Play The pleasure of play is make believe.

Effects of deregulation

Identity Play: Fashion, Super Heroes, Family • dolls • costumes • masks

Fantasy Worlds: Science Fiction, War, and Fairyland • play sets • immersion • simulation games

Fictional Sociality: Identity, Peers and Fantasy Play • role play games • character toys • action figures

Style Wars

Globalized Playthings Industry (85 billion) Présentation Power. Point

Return of the Repressed

What is Play? • Modern Play Theories – Piaget - play as mental structuration and concept learning: enactive, iconic, symbolic – Erikson- play as working through in fantasy – Mc. Luhan - games and the psychic structure of culture (sports, contests, war games) – Sutton-Smith - play as paradoxical communication and the basis of peer culture

The play ethos: What makes play good for children? • • • Physical: Coordination, energy release, fitness, health Skills and role rehearsal/ behaviour practice Exploration, Discovery, Mastery, confidence, self-satisfaction Conceptual schema ( piaget enactive and symbolic stages) Language, Identity, self expression Rules structures, self discipline Creativity and imagination Learning as pleasure Peer culture, social cooperation

The Dilemmas of Modern Childrearing • Emphasis on psychological maturation over needs and growth • Emphasis on identity and personality • Emphasis on children’s autonomy • Emphasis on cognitive development intellectual stages rather than cross-age mingling • Freudian theory (trauma, sexual development, progressing through stages)

“. . . the last toy that we bought was that light thing from Disneyland. . . because he hounded us, actually we did it to keep our sanity. ”

“constantly nag nag. . . I gotta have this mom. . . especially when he is watching the afternoon TV shows. . . ”

Rough and Tumble: The Ecstasy of Agon-y

Concerned Parent “you can do a lot with Lego and you are not committed to Batman’s version of the world. . . to ugly people are bad, to big strong guys are heroes, to buy more weaponry. “

The thin Black Lion: (life within the domestic sanctuary • stress of being a good parent is great – financial – time – partnering • how to win/ ensure a childs emotional bonds to family - bonding as well as preparing for the big bad world! – well-being vs love (santa gifts)? • what is healthy development ? – how much freedom and autonomy? – how can I define limits? – How can I know what is good for kids

The Family that Plays

Debating the Hurried Child Syndrome: Mac. Leans Nov 22, 04

Leap. Frog: The Tyranny of Educational Toys • Bringing up Brainy vs • Kamloops Birthday Party