A couple of weeks ago Siobhan Sheridan shared this photo on Twitter.
I don’t know if it’s real or a spoof, but this homework grid caught my attention and I’ve decided to adopt it as my own summer homework too. You may think that homework for Year 7 is a little advanced for me, but a lot of this stuff looks like fun, I’m up for the challenge. Some of you may think that homework of any nature, is not fun – that’s fine, I’m not setting this for you – simply sharing it. I’ve completed nine tasks so far (with a little help from Keira) and I’m hoping Siobhan will mark my homework at the end of the holidays.
Since sharing this picture with others myself, one of the pieces of feedback I’m regularly getting is ‘it’s just a bit of fun’. It strikes me that we often use that term in a throw away context, and whilst I’m no fan of trying to force fun on anyone, I think there’s real power in something fun, something playful. I’m grateful to the late Brian Sutton-Smith, a well known play theorist, for coining the term:
“The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.”
Forgive the oxymoron, but I think we need to take play more seriously.