Brian Sutton-Smith

Whose purpose is being served by this game?

The person and the problem

A New Zealand-born scholar of play and children’s folklore who moved across psychology, education, and folklore. He grew dissatisfied with approaches that reduce play to cognitive development.

The deeper idea

In The Ambiguity of Play he named seven rhetorics: progress, fate, power, identity, the imaginary, the self, and frivolity. A rhetoric is a way of explaining and valuing play, not a personality type. Adults may value a game for learning while children value it for belonging, silliness, uncertainty, or the chance to win.

Evidence and limits

Interdisciplinary scholarship and cultural interpretation — not a seven-part test that measures a child. His later writing also recognizes that playful experiences are not invariably positive.

Teaching application · 5–10

Ask for a Remix

After children know a simple non-elimination movement game, invite them to change one rule. They might add a funny movement, invent teams, remove a score, or add a random signal. Keep safety fixed. Trial the change. Ask whose experience improved.

What to observe

The child who adds a joke may want shared humor, not to avoid learning. The child who changes scoring may be addressing fairness, not resisting authority. Ask what the change is for. Stop changes that humiliate, exclude, or repeatedly disadvantage someone.

Also

Review a lesson from two seats: “What was I trying to teach?” and “What did the children find worth doing?” If those answers never meet, a colorful game may still be only an adult assignment.

Start with: The Ambiguity of Play, then his 2008 American Journal of Play retrospective.

Week 7 · Play More play science