What is a seminar? PLAYGROUND session the First

The very first PLAYGROUND was a playful thing with a wide-ranging discussion about the nature of teaching, the amount of freedom we can give students to perform, and what students in Higher Education expect of their seminars. The theme for the workshop was: ‘What is a seminar?’, but without too much introduction we launched right into group building. What this workshop is about is also what we do in it, and so getting to know each other, performing to and against each other, is not only the practice but also the theory. We started with some warm-up – a name game and a walk-around (with added gibberish). Then we did some group-building activities where we had the chance to make mistakes, and to make the group look good. In the ‘Mirrors’-exercise, we had everyone in pairs of two, alternating between being ‘actor’ and ‘mirror’. When we finally told the pairs to move ‘without knowing who is leading’, one pair said that that’s what they had been doing all along!

The major performance element of this session was a rousing performance of ‘The Emotional Car’, where 4 participants perform different emotions together. Who knew that ‘just been hit by a car’ could be acted out by four people at once, and so funnily? Afterwards, I (Maria) was told that if I had retained one of the actors from this performance to start off another group, I would probably have had no trouble recruiting 3 new volunteers! That made a lot of sense, and I realised that I had performed ‘group leader who doesn’t expect anyone to volunteer’, and hence no one did! I could also have volunteered myself, but didn’t. Was I afraid of performing?

This has made me think that many of the things we observe when we teach students (unwillingness to speak, for instance) also apply to ourselves, and that improvisation shows us those very reactions we expect from students; in ourselves. In that precise situation, I need to think about how I can perform my role as game leader to overcome the fear that I feel myself.

The discussion was very fruitful, and some questions emerged that later PLAYGROUND sessions will hopefully help us address: Namely, is this for us or for them? It seemed that the group found the activities incredibly useful, but would they be comfortable introducing them in their classrooms, even after more workshops? Or will they simply make us feel safer, while having no immediate impact on the way we teach, and what we teach? Several people mentioned a fear they felt at letting go of control, a fear that students would ‘eat them alive’ if the class had too much freedom. Do we recognise this fear? What do we do with it?

At one end of the scale, one person saw improvisation as a personal tool for the teacher. At the other end of the scale, a few people had personal experience that it works with students, and that students don’t feel that their time is wasted if they can see that group building impacts their learning environments.

We (Philippe and Maria) feel that learning is about doing something you do not yet know how to do – if new improvisers feel that they still have some way to go before they start playing ‘Zip Zap Zop’ in a seminar, we are not here to tell them that they have to. We do believe, however, that engaging with improvisation makes teachers better, no matter how much or little they feel that they implement it directly.

Please comment or make suggestions about PLAYGROUND – let us know what you think!

Philippe and Maria