Learning through play means trying things this way and that, and then perhaps standing on your head and trying them again. It means staying loose, changing your perspective, trying the intuitive instead of the logical and thinking outside whatever box you might currently be in.
Stuart Brown, MD
Institute for Play
2002
An old joke: Q. Which side of a dog has the most fur? A. The outside. That wordplay tricks us with the obvious and tickles us with a slight change in viewpoint. The world challenges us with puzzles like this, with optical illusions, and with sleight-of-hand magic. When the image transforms, when we see the thing in a different light, when we grasp a solution, the result is satisfying, and fun.
Art is child's play
Picasso once joked that it took him many years to learn to draw like a child. What could be harder than recovering a child’s innocent perspective? Children represent relationships and ideas in their art and give space second place to symbol. An outsized mom and dad will dominate the scene. Even a little sister will tower over the family house on a sunny day.
Shuttlecraft, spaceport, then robot
When Hasbro teamed with Marvel Comics to produce plotlines for Transformers, they created a kids-only space. Children delighted in the mental gymnastics required to change these toys from human scale to giant size. Parents usually bought toys they understood, with values they endorsed. But mythmaking about titanic battles between Autobots and Decepticons bewildered adults. A spin-off movie and cartoon series further disqualified them.
Gravity and levity
It’s not the gravity that’s important here; it’s the levity. Following the stream requires the mind to grasp conflicting ideas until we see the joke is on us. Water flowing through a flat plane drives a waterwheel in an impossibly closed system. Puzzles like these intrigued M.C. Escher, the artist and mathematician. Wearing this t-shirt tells observers that you’re hip and playful.
