Understanding the meaning of “to-and-fro play” within the context of teaching and learning

Reflection on Monica Vilhauer’s – Understanding Art: The Play of Work and Spectator

Monica Vilhauer unpacks the meaning of Gadamer’s Ethics of Play, where the concept of ‘play’ is proposed as a key mechanism in ‘understanding’. Whilst reading this text I tried to reflect on what this means within the educational setting, selecting two areas from the chapter to explore further.  

“Artwork and spectator to be participants in a continuous to-and-fro play of presentation and recognition in which meaning is communicated, and a shared understanding of some subject matter takes place… the spectator plays a crucial interpretive role in what the meaning of the artwork is.”

Considering this passage within the context of teaching and learning, the ‘artwork’ becomes the teaching and content, and the ‘spectator’ becomes the student. The notion of ‘continuous to-and-fro play’ suggests a two-way dialogue between the tutor delivering lecture content and the student receiving the content. Rather than the tutor merely broadcasting out information and knowledge, the structure of the lecture (workshop or mode of delivery), should be designed in such a way as to allow and encourage the student to engage in a dialogue surrounding the content: Question, Interpret, Reflect.

This two-way dialogue implies that the spectator (the student) can achieve a better level of understanding of what is being communication (or taught). And in fact, engaging the student in this dialogue at key moments, is crucial in establishing their understanding of the content.

Questions this raises when reflecting on my own teaching methods:

• In what ways can we better engage students in content during the lecture? (Rather than passively taking in information)
• How may this differ between in-person teaching versus online-teaching? (Feel less connected to the students during online teaching)
• Do we allow enough time within a lecture for students to pause – question, interpret and reflect on what they have just heard?     
• How can we establish if students truly understand content that is being delivered at key moments? (During the lecture, after the lecture, 2-months on, etc.)

“Play has a life, essence, or spirit of its own that emerges from the players’ engagement in their to-and-fro rhythm… in the activity of playing, the players become absorbed in a dance of mutual responsiveness that takes on a unique pattern, and that it is that pattern of movement that becomes the meaning of the subject matter”

This section of the text refers to “Gadamer’s notion of play as an “event” [and] that it is a process whose character is fundamentally dynamic.” The words rhythm and dynamic resonated with me when considering ways of engaging students within this dialogue around content delivered – and in fact, questions the very term ‘content delivery’, which by very nature suggest a one-way motion (tutor delivering to student).

Maybe a more fitting term should be ‘exchange’, the act of giving and receiving (the to-and-fro of play). So, if the key to students’ understanding is engaging in a dialogue around knowledge – knowledge exchange – further reading of Vilhauer’s chapter suggests that it is crucial that this engagement is dynamic and possess a rhythm.

It certainly seems that there are some key components that are starting to be revealed for creating engagement within the knowledge exchange setting to achieve this to-and-fro play, raising again more questions to reflect upon:

• How can we create a rhythm with a lectures & workshops?
• How could we utilise the idea of a ‘repeated pattern’ to allow students to pause for thought, question, interpret and reflect what they are seeing and hearing?
• How can we create a dynamism within lectures & workshops?
• How can we introduce a change in pace through interactive components to incorporate ‘learn through doing’ and real-time engagement with content?

Despite this text initially being difficult to get into (a reread was necessary!) the clarity it has brought regarding the importance of to-and-fro play in understanding meaning has been extremely valuable, and has certainly created plenty of food-for-thought when designing lectures and workshops moving forwards.