Adulteration

In my experience I have noticed that adults have the desire for structure in any form or construct, and that play is no exception to this desire. Since the dawn of playwork there has been literature dedicated to the classification and explanation of nearly everything. From The Colorado Paper (Sturrock and Else) to the play types (Hughes) to the playwork principles, to the theory of Loose Parts (Nicholson). And while there are a sea of more examples I could use to illustrate this point those are the most well-known; I assume.

And what all this classification has done is made things clearer and easier for playworkers to understand what it is they are doing, why they’re doing and how to do it. Or does it?
As if it doesn’t then I have to wonder what the point of it all is.
In my experience, whilst helpful, all the literature surrounding play and playwork that I have encountered has often become fuel for argument. Each individual may interpret the work differently, implement it differently or have their own beliefs, approaches and ideas that haven’t been published.
And I think this is because play is a subject of philosophy.

 

The topic I am trying to get around to is adulteration, and that I now realise how different my view of adulteration is to those around me and elsewhere in the play sector. And that only now do I see that adulteration is subject to the same ambiguity that so many other terms are.

The dictionary definition of adulteration is “the addition of impure or inferior materials” which strikes the extrapolation of the term into playwork for me as genius. Re-reading The Colorado Paper (Sturrock and Else 1998) I came across this sentence “There is a danger that the play aims and objects of the children become contaminated by, either the wishes of the adult in an urge to ‘teach’ or ‘educate’, simply to dominate, or by the worker’s own unplayed out material”. And when first on P3 training I was introduced to the concept of adulteration as “controlled or spoiled by adults”.
From what I have been taught there is no doubt that it is adults that adulterate. Yet at what point does an adult begin to adulterate and at which point are they not adulterating?

 

I have seen adults try to “teach” and “educate” children on a play setting, I have seen them control play or push it in the direction they want it to follow but is that all adulteration is? The example that comes to mind most often is of an occasion when I saw a playworker standing, watching children play on a rope swing. And when those three children spotted the playworker they instantly became ridged, they let go of the rope swing and that play in that space at that time ceased. They went elsewhere to do something where that playworker wasn’t.
Surely was adulteration.
Did that playworkers presence not inhibit that play? Did it not have a negative effect on that play frame?
So it is not only our actions that can adulterate but also our presence.

 

From that logic I realised that even when I was trying not to adulterate to the best of my abilities, I was still adulterating with my presence; even when I didn’t realise it. That simply by existing I was adulterating and that as an adult there is nothing I can do about that.
Which unfortunately resulted in me being paralysed for the next three to fourth months of my playwork practice. I struggled being involved in any sort of play with any children, convinced that my presence and actions were adulterating. That the play would be “better” therefore is I wasn’t a part of it. That I was “the addition of impure or inferior materials”.
But over those months I came to realise that, through the minimal interaction I had with children, I was making no detrimental impact on their play. That whilst, by existing, I was adulterating, I was doing no harm. That although it is inevitable that I will adulterate, that there is a distinction between adulterating as an adult (which is inevitable) and adulterating as a playworker (which is not).

 

I think adulterating as a playworker comes from being more or less than a player. More than a player being leading and taking over the play or expecting outcomes. Less than a player being putting a stop to play (which I admit has to be done in some situations however rare they may be), reducing the possibility of more possibilities (Stuart Lester) or simply refusing to interact all together. As are we, as playworkers, not the most diverse loose part of all? With the most diverse uses and the most infinite of interactions?
And being a player (neither more or less than one) comes from Depth. But that is a concept to write about another time.