The aims of this paper are to explore the links between drawing and playing and to conceptualise drawings as spaces for intellectual play. The empirical research that supports this position (Hall, 2010a) is based on an interpretivist study involving 14 children age 4-6 in a primary school in England. Over a one year period, 882 drawings were collected from home and school contexts, with commentaries and interpretations given by the children, their parents and class teacher. Expanding on the main findings, three themes were identified that link play and drawing: playing at drawing, playing in drawings, and playing with drawings. The study builds on contemporary interpretations of socio-cultural theories in which drawings are theorised as intellectual play (Moyles, 1989) and as authoring spaces for children's identities (Edmiston, 2008). By playing at, in and with their drawings children reveal the complex imaginative and meditational processes that underpin their playful transformations of their social and cultural worlds, in which concepts of power, agency and identity are embedded (Hall, 2010b; Hall and Wood, forthcoming). The findings propose that play and drawing should be seen as mutually constitutive socio-cultural practices of young children, and as private and public spaces for imaginative and intellectual play. This theoretical position also contests narrow policy versions of play and drawing as servants to socially valued developmental and educational goals.
Literature suggests that whilst creativity is frequently seen as ubiquitous and taken for granted (Dawson, Tan & McWilliam, 2011;Livingston, 2010) there is evidence that creative approaches in higher education can be seen as unnecessary work (Chao, 2009;Clouder et al., 2008;Gibson, 2010;, and creative teaching is not always recognised or valued (Clouder et al., 2008;Dawson et al., 2011, Gibson, 2010. Forming part of a cross-cultural study of creative teaching (although reporting on only one part of it, the cross-cultural parts being presented in other articles in production), the research explored student and lecturer perspectives in four universities in England, Malaysia and Thailand, using mixed methods within an interpretive frame. This paper reports on findings from the English University site. Key elements of creative teaching in this site were having a passion for the subject and for using sensitised pedagogical strategies, driven by an awareness of student perspective and relationship. Crucial goals were fostering independent thinking; striving for equality through conversation and collaboration; and orchestrating for knowledge-building. The lecturers' passion for the subject was a powerful engine for creative teaching across all academic disciplines spanning the arts, the humanities, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.
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