Classroom Teachers, Why Do InterPlay?

K-12 Educators from Panama. In the first week of March 2018, I facilitated an InterPlay workshop for 23 Panamanian educators at the Georgia Tech Language Institute, who had come to study educational methodologies and techniques for 8 weeks. I was invited to introduce them to “Applied InterPlay for Educators,” in a short two hours. In this photo, we had fun posing to demonstrate the “seriousness” of being teachers.

I can tell you why I use InterPlay in my classroom as an instructor of English as a Second Language at the Georgia Tech Language Institute and a Certified InterPlay Leader!

First of all, InterPlay is an active, creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body. It is a thirty-year-old improvisational system that uses movement, storytelling, voice and shape and stillness, to support authenticity and foster ease and joy. Among the many reasons that InterPlay co-founders Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter, developed it was to be a tool for building communities and social change.

Why not begin social change in the classroom by building community? Change begins with the individual. What if individual students were enlivened and supported to be more themselves in a classroom of fully awakened and engaged citizen classmates?

InterPlay can facilitate this transformation! To name a few things InterPlay does when used in the classroom:

InterPlay...

-taps students’ creativity.

-implements students’ personal material.

-requires a different level of student investment which can be powerful and playful.

-involves students in the creative process which is stimulating and health promoting.

-allows students to respond to information immediately (current issues, interests, and concerns) and relay it in a personal way to listeners.

-impacts students’ lives beyond the classroom (builds confidence and personal sense of power, provides skills to deal with the unexpected, assists in the discovery of personal strengths, relieves stress and promotes laughter, and teaches them to work with others).

It would take a book to address this question of why do InterPlay in the classroom. For now, I will stop with an explanation of this improvisational system has been foundational in what are now my four key concepts of instructional methodology:

Concept #1 EXPERIENTIAL. I know that students learn from doing, so I transform my classroom into a community of people connecting and making meaningful friendships, using improvisational forms and principles. While students are engaging in activities of “doing and being,” they expand their abilities to communicate effectively while deepening their connection to themselves and to others.

Concept #2 KINESTHETIC. Movement engages students in experiencing a fuller sense of themselves. After more than two decades of teaching students ensconced in their desks, I had an epiphany!  I needed to involve the “whole” person – not just the mind – but the body and heart as well. Freeing them from their seated positions, encumbered by books, pens, papers, jackets, backpacks, I invited my students to experiment with expanding their range of movement beyond their desks. I encourage them to find ways to use their physicality to express themselves in ways they find satisfying and successfully communicates their intentions.

Finding the “Wheee” in Our Classrooms. Applied InterPlay for educators begin with everyone “releasing judgment,” “experiencing,” “moving,” and “reflecting.” In other words, to implement InterPlay, educators need to “do” InterPlay in all aspects. “Wheee” is the expression we use in InterPlay along with a physical gesture to release judgement, soften our gaze, and move into easeful exploration of play. Yes “play” in the classroom!

Concept #3 NONJUDGMENTAL. Yes! I encourage students to take risks and make mistakes during our improvisational activities because doing so involves them in a process that leads to discovery, self-knowledge, and success. Critiques of “good and bad” are banished in order to achieve an environment for exploration and risk taking. Instead, we are searching for choices through a range of experiences and unknowing.

Sharing our Noticings. In InterPlay, we do stuff and then notice. Here we are in the lobby of the Biltmore Language Institute after completing a series of “Walk, Stop, Run,” and the educators are sharing their noticings (observations and reflections) on two levels: 1) How they feel and what they are experiencing, 2) What ways they might be able to apply this InterPlay form in their classrooms.

Concept #4 REFLECTIVE. Quiet moments of reflection are important after kinesthetic activities, engagement with others, and jumping into the unknown. When students stop and “notice” how feel physically and emotionally and what they are thinking, something powerful takes place – self-discovery, connection to others and development of “new” knowledge. When these reflections are shared with classmates, it allows students to connect in a different and perhaps deeper way than discussing just the content provided by the activities.

Summing it Up with a Handout. Following two hours of releasing judgment, kinesthetic movement, storytelling and reflection, I handed out a document containing the InterPlay activities we had done, some of the InterPlay principles, and how InterPlay has formed my instructional methodology. (photo by participant educator Vaneshka Isidore)

Why do InterPlay in the classroom? I hope you have a better understanding of how this improvisational system might work in the classroom. Stay tuned for future blogposts about how I use Applied InterPlay and facilitate other educators in doing just that! As always thanks to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry. And many thanks to the educators from Panama.

Post Class Photos with Participants. InterPlay has the power to create connections rapidly. Invariably after the workshop, the participant educators wanted a photo with me individually. I am thankful to Vaneshka Isidore, who not only wanted multiple photographs with me clowning around but also wanted to share them with me. So here we are (Vaneshka is left). This Applied InterPlay for Educators workshop was a success! One participant told me to come to Panama and to teach it to her colleagues.