Abstract:

Tracing the foundations of school from the ancient era, we can notice that school was originally conceived as a place of leisure (skholé), understood as a way of life, free from the requirements of satisfying vital needs. But in the contemporary era, school aims to prepare students for the demands of the labour market. The first view belongs to the “World of play,” the second view – to the “World of work.” This terminology is introduced by us as a development of the ideas of such famous game scholars as J. Huizinga, R. Caillois, B. Suits, M. Csikszentmihalyi, J. McGonigal, B. Burke, P. McDonald, M. J. Roberts, J. T. Wright, M. V. López.
The concept of the “World of work” (as an involuntary, compulsory activity required for survival and maintaining a standard of living) and “World of play” (as a freely chosen, voluntary activity, which is self-appealing) is the theoretical and methodological basis of our article.
The goal of the paper is to analyze of introducing a game approach to education within the framework of the “World of play” and “World of work.”
To achieve this goal, we provide a brief historical overview of changes in attitudes to play/work, as well as changes in play activity itself under the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs). We have established that the binary division and contraposition of work and play can be traced back to antiquity. Although it seems less relevant in contemporary society, it still retains its significance. The point is not in the activity itself, but in our attitude to it. After all, what is conceptualized as work or play are different sides of the same activity.
We determine that it is school that uses the phenomenological (and not the actual) nature of this binary division. There are two main ways of understanding the game approach to education: 1) work-oriented, in which games are instrumentalized into an educationally useful activity that contributes to the destruction of the ‘spirit’ of a game as a self-sufficient activity; 2) game-oriented (a project by M. Prensky and his followers), in which school itself turns into a game, which is fraught with the levelling of the socializing function of school – preparing students for life that is mainly the world of work and care. In both ways, school builds up the learning process, strengthening one of the sides of this binary opposition.
There is a substitution of the essence of the game approach, which is used to ‘colorize’ the educational process that is perceived as something boring and unpleasant. Following Aristotle, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jacques Rancière, Maximiliano Valerio López we believe that school should not deepen, but eliminate this opposition, presenting education not as a forced activity and not as fun and entertainment, but as a diligent productive leisure, interesting in itself. This is the true meaning of the game approach.
We come to understand that both ways, in their extreme versions, are due to a change in the paradigm of perception of the school’s role: From a public good to a social service, which needs a process of ‘marketisation’ (like ‘banking education’ by Paulo Freire). In conclusion, we emphasize the need for school to maintain a balance between two orientations – between the “World of work” and the “World of play.”

Keywords:

Education, game, leisure, pedagogy, philosophy of education, school, work.