19 The Lion and the Mouse
How and Why Teachers Succeed in Becoming Participants in Children’s Ongoing Play
This chapter deals with preschool teachers’ attempts to participate when children are already engaged in playing, alone or with playmates, and we will focus on when and why teachers seem to succeed (or not) in their attempts to enter ongoing play. In order for a teacher to succeed in becoming a participant in children’s ongoing play, the moment of entrance is critical. Communication and play live in the dynamic tension between intersubjectivity and alterity with participants explicitly or implicitly negotiating how to understand what they are doing, or are going to do – for example, what and how to play. How teachers do to enter children’s play and how they, if becoming a play partner, participate throughout the activity are critical to whether the play will (or will not) continue.
Hence, critical to teachers’ participation in play is not only how they attempt to enter but also how they participate once becoming a participant in the activity. Below we will discuss two tensions found regarding why teachers succeed or fail with becoming and maintaining the role of a participant in children’s ongoing play. These two are:
- Responding to alterity
- Coordinating as if and as is
Responding to Alterity
A first matter found regarding why teachers succeed or fail in their attempts to enter and participate in children’s ongoing play is how they (and the children) deal with the potential tension between allowing the participants to go on with the negotiated play and the acceptance of expanding the play in a new direction (in theoretical terms, alterity). This tension can regard different parts of the play, for example negotiation about possible roles and the direction of the play. This tension is a natural part of expanding and developing ongoing play. However, to expand and maintain play, this tension needs to be managed and below we give examples of such negotiations with different outcomes.
Negotiating Possible Roles
Below are two examples of the same teacher trying to enter ongoing narrative play at two different times. The focus of these examples is the tension regarding possible roles within play. In the first example, the children have decided to play “The Lion and the Mouse”, a for them well-known story. Before the play starts, they negotiate if they are to ‘play or talk’ (turn 9) and then about the roles of this play (turns 13–22). The teacher takes an active part in these negotiations.
Excerpt 1
| 9 | CIA: | Mm, but how are we, what shall we do? How will we do it? Shall we see if we can play or should we talk about it, or should we tell, just tell? |
| 10 | Sara | Play, play |
| 11 | CIA: | Shall we just tell the story? |
| 12 | Ted | No, play! |
| 13 | Max | I think they should be hunters |
| 14 | Kalle | No you get to decide by yourself what to be |
| 15 | Max | I wanna be… the mouse |
| 16 | CIA: | Okay |
| 17 | Child | I wanna be the lion