Sunday 11 May 2014

Depth

This, whilst a topic of its own, follows on from my Adulteration post published in April last month.

Depth is a word I often use to illustrate or explain a thought or feeling I'm having about a child or my own playwork practice. It helps me, within my team, reflect on where I am as a playworker and on my playwork practice that day. And it helps me know when I am adulterating as a playworker, and reassures me when I'm not.

It is a gauge, measured by intuition, concerning both relationships and immersion.

It based on the metaphor of a swimming pool stating that, each an every child exists at their own unique depth inside that pool. Some children's depths may be closer to another's, or perhaps they are metres apart. But the point is that everyone exists at their own depth.
Through knowledge of the children we work with, observation and reflection we can begin to speculate which children exist at a similar depth to other children. Perhaps they are friends, perhaps not. And by that same logic we can speculate on which children exist at opposite ends of this imaginary swimming pool.

Considering depth allows us to identify relationships, or the lack of relationships that exist between children. Of course we don't need to create an imaginary swimming pool to know which children are friends and which aren't. But it is the rest of the concept that I find helpful; I've split it into 4 parts.

  1.  Each and every child exists at their own unique depth. However these depths are not set in stone. They are as fluid and ever-changing as the children who they represent. Children will grow, they will change, their opinions will alter and their views will shift. Thus their depth will shift accordingly.
  2. Some children exist at depths that are far more specific, narrow or ambiguous than others. That whilst no two depths will be identical, nor will the nature of those depths.
  3. As playworkers and playful people we too exist at our own unique depth. However it is the ability of a playworker to dive into the swimming pool and swim at a variety of different depths. Yet even still there is a limit to each individual playworker, there will be some depths that each of us can't reach. However it is important to recognise those depths that we can't reach, even if only to acknowledge that they're there.
  4. When two individuals (child/child or child/playworker) arrive at near the exact same depth, they become immersed in the action at hand and become immersed in each others company.

As always I'm not saying that this is right, but it helps me often in understand what I did, why I did it, and why things happened the way they did.
And that's my pondering for today.

(P.s Referring back to my post on adulteration. Being more than a player refers to leading the play, to engaging the child at a depth too deep for them. Being less than a play refers to inhibiting the play, existing at a depth too shallow for that child. But existing as a player, neither more or less than one, comes from existing the right depth at the right time; leading to immersion).