(Play) is behavior in which means are more valued than ends. When we are not playing, what we value most are the results of our actions. We scratch an itch to get rid of the itch, flee from a tiger to avoid getting eaten, or work at a boring job for money. If there were no itch, tiger, or paycheck, we would not scratch, flee, or work at the boring job. When we are not playing, we typically opt for the least effortful way of achieving our goal. In play, however, all this is reversed. In play, attention is focused on the means more than the ends, and players do not necessarily look for the easiest routes to achieving the ends.

Peter Gray
Play as a Foundation for Hunter-
Gatherer Social Existence

#play #results #nonplay

34:00

No goals = no positive emotion

To be maximum motivated you need to know why you're doing what you're doing all the way up the Jacobs ladder.

35:00

Any system of priorities is structure of values
(...)
And a hierarchy of comparative value is an ethic. (...) We cannot see the world except through an ethic

36:16

A story is a verbal description of a hierarchy of perceptual and action prioritization.
(...)
A model for emulation
40:56
(Perception) takes place within a surounding narrative

51:10
Focuses everybody's attention on the same spectacle. Well that's the definition of a culture.
51:18
The hierarchy of perceptual prioritization and action that unites us psychologicaly is also the same structure that unites us socially!
52:00
You and I we can not play together. We cannot focus our attention on the same point and coordinate and compete amicably, peacefully, productively and generously toward that point.
(...)
And it's the death of joy and enthusiasm

https://youtu.be/9ByjCwumwBM

The golden rule of social play is not “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Rather, it is “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” The equality of play is not the equality of sameness but the equality that comes from granting equal validity to the unique needs and wishes of every player.

Peter Gray -
Play as a Foundation for Hunter-
Gatherer Social Existence, p 10

Essentially all researchers who write about the social lives of hunter-gatherers emphasize the high value placed on individual autonomy.

The descriptions make it clear that hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is different from the individualism that characterizes modern, Western, capitalist cultures.

Western individualism tends to pit each person against others in competition
for resources and rewards. It includes the right to accumulate property and to use disparities in wealth to control the behavior of others. Thus, Western individualism tends, in principal, to set each person apart from each other person. In contrast, as Tim Ingold has most explicitly pointed out, the hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is one that connects each person to others, rather than sets them apart but does so in a way that does not create dependencies.


Peter Gray -
Play as a Foundation for Hunter-
Gatherer Social Existence, p 13

#play #huntergatherer #autonomy #egalitarian

self-initiated play nourishes the child’s curiosity, imagination, and creativity, and these abilities are like muscles— if you don’t use them, you lose them.

David Elkind
The Power of Play,
Learning what comes naturally
P. 2

“Play is the answer to the question: how does anything new come about?“

- Jean Piaget

#play #creation #creativity

We don't care for children because we love them; we love them because we care for them.

- Alison Gopnik, the gardener and the carpenter, p87

Reminder to self

"no matter how smart we are or how hard we work, no one can stop making a
mistake they don’t know they’re making."

- Jesse Elder
(Unschooled as a kid)

”I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

- John Taylor Gatto

Can it be said more simple?

"A real science of education would devote a lot more effort to understanding the ways that children naturally learn and how to provide environments supportive of that learning, and a lot less effort to the study and development of teaching practices. Education is conducted by learners, not teachers."

.. 🌱🌼 ..

That's a lot of hours. ❤️ Not to mention minutes 🙏🏻

I will venture to maintain that where the teacher is not pleasing to the pupil, there is no education.

Xenophon, 400 bc. ~

-------+---------

"Jeg vil vove den påstand, at hvor læreren ikke er til glæde for eleven, er der ingen uddannelse."
~ Xenophon, 400 f.Kr. ~

Sanddru hedning, tyrk og jøde, dem har Gud i grunden kær,
hader frem for alt de søde, som på skrømt ham træder nær!
Hvad for resten I har mærket, glemmer ej, om nok så grå,
immer lysten driver værket, elsker, hvad I vil forstå!
~ Grundtvig

Elsker hvad I vil forstå!

Knowledge isn't free
You have to pay attention

One day your child will make a mistake or a bad choice and run to you instead of away from you and in that moment you will know the immense value of peaceful, positive, respectful parenting.
- L.R.Knost