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PlayGrounding

Our mental health systems are broken. The work of getting well can make us feel worse than we did when we started. PlayGrounding is about finding the courage to seek the help we need and the hope to keep going when it feels like nothing is working and no one is listening.
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 1, 2017

In this episode, I (Kara Fortier, you know, the host) will talk about how I finally became an adult who plays. A playful mindset came so easily to us as children, but we adults build up lots of roadblocks keeping us from it. Incorporating play has been a process. It wasn’t as easy as just deciding to “do” play. I’ve spent some time reflecting on the stages I went through that finally got me here.

I can now say that not only do I understand how important play is, I’m experiencing the power of play firsthand. It’s already started changing the way I think and approach big life decisions. For instance, the recent career decision I’ve made about the future of PlayGrounding. These six steps are the stages I observed in myself and have helped me put context around what I’m learning from the PlayGrounding interviews so far. I hope you enjoy this episode and rest assured - we’re going back to interviews next week and most importantly… disaster has been averted. PlayGrouding is back and sticking around for a long, long time.

Aug 30, 2017

With all of this talk about kids and play, it's about time we hear from an educator here on the PlayGrounding Podcast. Doug Smith has been a physical education teacher for nineteen years. In this episode, we discuss the state of physical education in schools today such as the focus on testing and how many states are losing PE classes altogether.

But don't worry, we talk about the fun stuff too, such as the importance of playgrounds that fire kids' imaginations. He helped to build a beautiful one inspired by a book by Richard Louv called Last Child in the Woods. Doug's story is also inspiring for us adults. His love for play led him to participate in a self-imposed challenge to play 30 sports in 90 days in 2011 and wrote a blog about his play adventures to share with his students.

Doug is a National Board Certified Physical Education Teacher in Charlotte, NC.  He has been teaching elementary PE for 19 years.  He has a passion for guiding his students towards a healthier lifestyle and helping them to be physically fit.  His knowledge of whole school wellness has led him to the creation of many innovative ideas, programs, and play areas for his school, including the one of a kind North Carolina Creative Playground.  He believes in and encourages his school as a whole to embrace PLAY and FITNESS as a positive lifestyle.

Show Links:

Aug 23, 2017

This is a deeply personal episode for me, Kara, the host of PlayGrounding. This is the second part of my conversation with Sabrina Must. Last week, we explored the role of playfulness in facing and handling grief. Sabrina and I kept talking on the day of our interview and we went in a completely different direction, but with the same sense of vulnerability and depth.

In this episode, you'll hear the second part of my conversation with Sabrina Must - this time about health and fitness. After that, I'll be sharing with you some of the personal challenges I've been inspired to face based on my conversations with PlayGrounding guests like Sabrina over the past year. I'll talk about how I'm planning to incorporate play into my effort to get healthy - specifically my effort to take on a bad habit I developed to combat anxiety over the past few years: wine. I've recently started attending Moderation Management meetings to try to change that habit and find new ways to handle times of great stress - and that's where play comes in.

I hope you enjoy today's episode, and as always, please feel free to reach out to me at kara(at)playgrounding.com if this episode resonates with you. Not to be on the podcast, just because I'd love to hear from you and maybe be an ear if you don't feel comfortable talking about these kinds of things with anyone else.

Episode Links:

Aug 17, 2017

It might seem counterintuitive to have a conversation about play and grief. We often associate play with frivolity, silliness and escape. But what we learn from this conversation with Sabrina Must is that a playful approach to life can take us deeper and more in touch with who we really are, even in periods of deep grief and loss.

Sabrina’s book, Must Girls Love, is her memoir on the suicide death of her sister. This episode goes deep and for some, it might touch on aspects of life and grief you’d rather not think about. But if you’ve experienced devastating loss, as Sabrina has, you might find this a refreshingly honest conversation. If you haven’t, there’s something in it for you as well. It’s a window into the hearts and minds of our friends who we might be called upon to hold space for and comfort in times of sorrow.

Sabrina Must is an author, blogger and speaker who unapologetically shares about her life to inspire you to share your story, live more honestly, and have more fun! Joys and struggles, it's all here. And she holds true to this throughout our conversation.

We hope you enjoy it!

Show Links:

Aug 9, 2017

Puzzles are powerful. Have you ever had a hard time putting worries aside - blocking out your to-do list and experiencing a moment of real focus in a no-stakes, playful situation? Try a puzzle. I’m not just talking about sitting with a puzzle on paper or your smart phone. I’m talking about escape rooms and city-wide puzzle hunts. Solving puzzles alone or together is practice for when the stakes are high and we need to come up with new creative solutions to difficult problems. You’ll learn all about that in today’s episode of PlayGrounding with game designer and puzzle creator, Eric Berlin. 

Eric is a writer, former playwright and game designer. He’s the author of the young-adult mystery series, The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. He’s a graduate of the Juilliard School's playwriting program and also creates crossword puzzles for the New York Times, among others. In fact, he has one coming out next week on August 15, 2017. In addition, he has a website called Puzzle Your Kids, where you can download a new puzzle each week that will challenge your kids’ brains – or yours.

Enjoy!

Show Links: 

Aug 1, 2017

Dada, the Beats and the Hippies - what do they all have in common? The way they played was a problem for the authorities, for the people in power trying to instill black and white order on the world.  This week on Playgrounding we’ll be talking to Shepherd Siegel, an educator and author whose work explores disruptive play and protest. We’ll explore the role of the trickster as passed down to us through mythology from many diverse cultures, then learn about cultural movements led by pranksters who laid the groundwork for some of the methods used to protest the Vietnam war.

Shepherd is completing a book that will be launched this fall called Disruptive Play: The Trickster in Politics and Culture, about how play and the creative impulse could transform our society. In this episode, we’ll meet Shepherd and learn about the background behind his message. This fall, Shepherd will be back for a second interview where we’ll dive deeper into the book itself. I’ve had a sneak peek at the intro and first chapter. If they are any indication of what’s to come, you’re going to want to keep this book launch on your radar! 

Shepherd Siegel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the midst of the Sixties counterculture. He was a professional rock and jazz musician who switched it out for his career as an educator (in music, career & technical and special education), earning his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.  He has over thirty publications in the education field.  Career Ladders, his internship program for high school students, is represented by over twenty school districts, a corresponding book, and an award from the US Department of Labor.  From 1996-2012 he led the School to Career and Career + Technical Education (CTE) initiative for Seattle Public Schools. 

He joined Project Lead the Way in 2012 after having strong success with their STEM program in ten Seattle middle and high schools, until 2015.  He is a Past President of the Washington Association for Career and Technical Education, serving from 2012-2015.  He was the 2004 Outstanding Career and Technical Educator for the state of Washington, and a national finalist for the Association for Career and Technical Education 2005 Outstanding Career + Technical Educator.  The KAPPAN published his article about a meaningful high school diploma in 2010. 

He has returned to his countercultural roots, currently writing a book, Disruptive Play: The Trickster in Politics and Culture, about how play and the creative impulse could transform our society.

Show Links:

Jul 25, 2017

Some people train for a sport from the time they’re very young and become elite. Some people don’t even begin to get active until much later in life but become high level competitors. This week’s guest is here to remind us to never underestimate what we can accomplish regardless of age, even those of us who’ve spent most of our lives as couch potatoes.

Our guest this week is Fitness Trainer and Coach Robin Legat, host of the Seasoned Athlete podcast. It’s your home for stories, inspiration, motivation, training tips and more directly from elite athletes from a wide variety of sports who all share one common bond: they are all over 40 years old. We're here to prove one story at a time that age does NOT have to prevent you from achieving bold athletic and fitness goals, and living your best life.

Robin herself is a "late in life athlete". After spending most of her life as a self-proclaimed music and theater nerd, Robin discovered the full-contact sport of roller derby at age 28. She played for eleven years before retiring in 2014. She has now found a new sport to channel her athletic energy - obstacle course racing. She has run nine Spartan Races since her first race in December 2015, earned her first Trifecta in 2016 and has recently begun competing at the elite level. Robin's goal is to podium in the Masters Division in the coming years - sooner if she has any say in the situation.

As a trainer, Robin unlocks the full athletic potential for busy professionals in Los Angeles and beyond who want to push their physical and mental limits and live their healthiest and most awesome life. And she has a lot to say on the subject of play.

The links I promised you:

Jul 14, 2017

Free play, also known as child-directed play, is becoming more and more restricted for American kids. We’ve talked on PlayGrounding many times about the importance of free play, how it’s where many children first encounter risk and freedom. It’s where they first begin to encounter “otherness,” where they find ways to work together with kids of various ages and backgrounds in an undefined arena. Play helps us cope in the realm of personal relationships, helps us develop innovative minds and healthy bodies.

But today we’re taking a step back from the benefits of play to us as individuals and diving into what it could mean for our society, for the health of our democracy, when we restrict free play in the lives of our children.

Pratik Chougule, an executive editor at The American Conservative, wrote an article entitled Is American Childhood Creating an Authoritarian Society? I was immediately fascinated by the idea that there could be political implications to a lack of free play.

In this episode, we’ll discuss studies showing possible connections between child rearing practices and the likelihood that those children will tolerate authoritarian forms of government. We’ll also talk about how free play helps us learn to handle opposing ideas and work toward consensus.

I hope you enjoy the episode and as always, please feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments or by contacting me to keep the conversation going.

Pratik Chougule is an executive editor at The American Conservative. He was previously the managing editor at The National Interest and served as the policy coordinator on the 2016 presidential campaign of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Chougule has contributed to projects for the Trilateral Commission, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and Baron Public Affairs. He has assisted a number of senior officials with their memoirs, including former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. From 2008-2009, Chougule was a Bush appointee at the State Department in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. Chougule graduated from Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Jul 7, 2017

Do you remember what it was like to be a child at the playground? When you first arrive and see the equipment, the sand, the grass? I remember that feeling well – the desire to jump, crawl, run, do summer saults and cartwheels. But somewhere along the line, that feeling began to fade. For many of us, our enthusiasm for physical play went out with our teddy bears and blankies.

I think many adults have these memories and, dare I say, even the desire to be able to play that way again, but our bodies are very different than they were when we were children. If we tried to crawl, jump, do somersaults and cartwheels, we’re afraid we’d end up in the ER. But JJ and Brian would like to challenge us all to give our bodies another chance to embrace physical play again.

In this second episode of the “Can Fitness Really Be Fun?” series, I’ve invited personal trainer JJ Kovacevich to join me and Brian Bristol to explore how adults can re-learn the basic movements children take for granted. We also discuss the role of shame and how it can keep us from even trying in the first place.  

JJ Kovacevich is a movement junkie with a fierce commitment to body positivity, and she wants to help you find ways to celebrate what your moving body is capable of!  She has a diverse movement background as a professional dancer, vinyasa yoga instructor, and circus artist and is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Functional Strength Coach (with additional certifications in modalities such as TRX and kettlebells).  Sessions with JJ are tailored to fit each unique person’s needs and abilities, and her passions include working with folks new to movement practices and those working with challenging relationships to body image, food, and exercise.

Show Links:

 

Jun 10, 2017

Fitness fun? For most of my life, I would have answered NO WAY to that question. It’s the one challenge I’ve had to my belief that whatever is true about play for children is also true for adults. Children play very differently from adults. They play with their whole selves, their imaginations, their creativity and especially their bodies.

Physical play comes naturally to children. They run and jump, swing, slide, do cartwheels. We talk a big game here on PlayGrounding about adults and play, but what about play through movement? Is “exercise” an unpleasant necessity after you reach a certain age? Or can grownups experience the same kind of joy a child does when they run out onto a playground?

This episode is the first in a series seeking to answer the question, can fitness really be fun? I mean really? Fitness for adults seems to be a series of measured movements meant to affect the body in specific ways – to help with strength, stamina and to help us lose weight. To me, that’s always seemed more like work than play. We do specific activities to achieve specific results. But not everyone gets results, even when we try to follow the rules.

And this is only one piece of a larger problem: our culture’s epidemic of mental illnesses like body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

Brian Bristol, a small business owner whose worked in outdoor sports for over a decade, wants to tackle this problem head-on, but he needs your help. It’s not as easy as it might seem to bring fitness and play together in one place – especially for adults. He wants to open an alternative indoor playground filled with movement-based activities and programs so youth and adults can experience play together in a way that is healthy, productive AND fun. He’s on the PlayGrounding Podcast seeking YOUR insights and ideas to re-think play and fitness so that his dream can come to life. 

You’ll be hearing more from Brian in future episodes. He’ll be joining me to interview some other fitness and play experts as we go through the series to find out what’s already being done to make movement fun instead of painful for those of us who don’t already gravitate toward the fitness world.

Links:

Jun 1, 2017

Did you ever stop to think that you have what it takes to be an inventor? If you’re a human being, you are by your very nature an innate problem solver and creative thinker. The question is, are you tapping into that potential?

Tricia Edwards wants to change the stereotype of WHO invents and invite us all to BE inventive. Her work not only demystifies invention, she reminds us that the next great invention can come from any one of us, from a single mom in the midwest, to a third-grader living in the developing world.

On this episode of PlayGrounding, you’ll learn how developing a playful mindset can help you become a more creative problem solver, whether you’re inventing the next version of the lightbulb or creating more efficient ways to do your job.

Tricia Edwards is the Head of Education for the Lemelson Center. She develops the conceptual framework for the Center’s educational programs and activities, including Spark!Lab, a hands-on invention lab, and develops related instructional materials and evaluation instruments. She is currently working to broaden Spark!Lab’s impact beyond the National Mall, working with partner institutions across the country to integrate Spark!Lab activities into their programs, and has overseen installations of Spark!Labs in Anchorage, Detroit, Kansas City, Reno, and Greenville, SC, with additional sites scheduled to open. She has led Spark!Lab projects in India and Ukraine, and will oversee the installation of a “pop up” Spark!Lab in London in July 2017. In collaboration with Smithsonian Enterprises and Faber-Castell, she launched the Spark!Lab Inventive Creativity™ consumer product line to extend Spark!Lab’s unique approach to hands on learning to homes everywhere.

Links:

 

Apr 19, 2017

For some of us adults, the kind of play we remember as kids doesn’t exist anymore in many communities across America. It’s a specific kind of play called “free play.” When I was a kid, I remember running out into the neighborhood after school. I organically discovered and teamed up with the kids that lived nearby even if they were older or younger than me, girls or boys. We came together to play, to find things and make stuff. We had fights and made up. We made up games, put on performances, played pretend and dress-up.

So what’s so important about this kind of play? And what does it mean for kids who don’t get to experience it? What about us adults? Is something really missing from our lives? That’s what we’re going to dig into today with my new friend and our guest, Pat Rumbaugh, a.k.a. “The Play Lady.”

Pat Rumbaugh is co-founder of Let’s Play America and is affectionately known by many as The Play Lady. She founded the organization TakomaPlays! in Takoma Park, Maryland, in March 2009. TakomaPlays! is now part of Let's Play America.

“When I play, I am happy, energized and enthusiastic, and I feel like I can take on the world,” says Pat, who is a passionate play advocate and encourages people of all ages to experience the benefits of playing.

Pat was a physical education teacher and coach at the Washington International School for more than 25 years. In 2009, she was named “All-Met Girls Tennis Coach of the Year” by the Washington Post.

In today’s show, Pat will explain how free play allows kids to figure things out for themselves - to engage their peers without the obvious presence of an authority figure. She’ll talk about how kids learn resilience through free play and are given the opportunity to make their own decisions and explore their creativity without pre-specified outcomes or boundaries.

You’ll also learn about initiatives she’s involved with that intentionally give children access to free play, even in today’s world of increased concerns around child safety.

If you’re thinking this show isn’t for you because it’s about kids, not adults, just remember: whatever is true about play for children is true for adults. Most of us don’t experience free play in our grownup lives either. What is the lack of this magical, free time doing to us? Something to reflect on as you listen, and we’ll keep looking for answers here on PlayGrouding.

Show Links:

Apr 5, 2017

Lack of play is a serious problem for us humans. Play geeks like me call it “play suppression.” In the worst cases, studies have shown that children who are kept from playing by their parents tend to have a hard time learning to relate to others and deal with their violent tendencies, leading to some of history’s saddest violent acts.

Even those of us who did play as children but gave it up in adulthood suffer the effects of play suppression. One study that has sparked my interest in relation to this topic is called the Rat Park study. That’s why I’ve been looking forward to this conversation with Stuart McMillen for so long.

Stuart McMillen is a cartoonist based in Canberra, Australia. Stuart draws long-form comics inspired by social issues involving science, ecology, sustainability, psychology and economics. His comics are currently translated into 9 languages, with the help of an enthusiastic international team of volunteers. In the podcast, Stuart refers to his work as science communication comics. He takes complex studies and subjects, spends vast amounts of time researching them then breaks them down for us laypeople in the form of a comic.

In this episode, we’ll talk about two studies that relate to addiction and isolation, Rat Park and Deviance in the Dark. They shine a light on the importance of community, intimacy and of course, play. After we discuss the basics of these studies, we launch into a conversation that, if you like this podcast at all, will be one you won’t want to miss. It’s at the very heart of why I’m so passionate about helping adults realize the vital importance of play.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

Mar 30, 2017

Have you ever started a passion project only to find it suddenly feels like work? And not the fulfilling kind of work either – just plain, to-do list work. It’s not easy to rediscover the spark that led you to start your project, but one way to achieve that is to revisit the reasons we got started in the first place. Maybe you’ve changed and grown? If the project hasn’t grown with you, maybe it’s not the right project for you anymore? Or maybe our discomfort with it is a growing pain – maybe it’s time to start thinking about how your project can change and grow as you do.

In this episode you’ll meet Chris Kim, the podcaster responsible for the awesome storytelling show about the great city of Las Vegas called Faces and Aces. Their show is “our love letter to the city and the people who work in it.” I was just recently interviewed for his show which sparked a larger conversation offline about this very topic - so I asked him if we could share that conversation on here on the PlayGrounding Podcast. 

Chris and I are both coming back from a bit of a hiatus from our shows – for me it’s been a month and for him, he’s been away from podcasting for about six months. We’ve both come back to our podcasts after some deep soul searching and decided to move forward – we’ve found motivation to keep our projects fresh and fun. And while this particular conversation is about podcasting, it can apply to any project you started out of pure passion, curiosity and fun that has begun to feel like a little too much. Don’t give up quite yet. Start asking yourself the right questions so that whether you decide to lay it down or not, you know you're doing it because it’s what you really, really want.

Show Links:

Feb 22, 2017

He hasn’t been on vacation in years, but if he did, he’d miss what he does every day too much. There’s still so much to create.

Bruce Gray is a prolific artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide, has appeared in over 45 books and countless times on television, in movies, and in the press. And yes, that was his magnetic sculpture you saw in Doctor Evil’s lair from the movie, Austin Powers (One of my personal favorites). Being in his shop is like a trip down the rabbit hole with giant robots, metal paper planes, alligator tables and giant pieces of cheese. And that’s just the start.

Before he took the plunge and became the artist he is today, Bruce had some fascinating adventures such as a stint in the military serving in the isolated, hauntingly beautiful Aleutian Islands. Each step he took brought him closer to realizing that his true calling was to become that kid in shop class who gets to dream big, take chances and build amazing things with his hands. 

Bruce works in a wide range of styles and mediums which include abstract painting, functional art, giant objects, abstract and figurative sculptures, found object assemblages, and various forms of kinetic art including mobiles, rolling ball machines, suspended magnet sculptures, and more. Hear his story and how he’s managed to create a life of play - every day.

Show Links:

Feb 15, 2017

Kids love to play make-believe. When we talk about bringing back play as adults, this one seems like a stretch. Adults don’t play make believe, do we? Grownups don’t get together and announce that today we’re going to play Star Wars and you get to be Luke. Or do they? This week’s guest reminds us that the imaginative play that we engaged in as children gave us access to tools we can use throughout our entire lives. Imaginative play provides us with the opportunity to be agile and creative in our thinking – to see new paths, new scripts to follow when we start to feel stuck.

If you’re tired of carrying around that weight - of trying to meet everyone’s expectations and following the very serious grownup path we’re all supposed to, I invite you to meet Tony Perone, Ph.D., a lecturer at University of Washington, Tacoma. His incredibly lucky students have the opportunity to see what it’s like to peel back that layer of expectation and write new “scripts” for our usual mundane daily interactions. Even our conversation is playful and fun

Here’s an excerpt from Tony's profile on the University of Washington website:

“I examine the self-reported meanings, presence and developmental and educational benefits of life-span imaginative play in the lives of adults. I interview adults about their imaginative play: their meanings of the words “imagination” and “play,” their self-reported engagement in imaginative play in their early childhood, elementary school years, adolescence and adulthood, its relationship with community practices and beliefs and their stance on how their imaginative play has helped them learn and develop. In addition, their experiences with imaginative play in their formal learning environments are discussed as well as their suggestions for the inclusion of imaginative play in formal schooling.

“I am a part of a larger international performance movement that draws upon and creates scholarship in psychology and the arts to support the presence and importance of play and performance across the lifespan. Members of this movement include urban, suburban, and rural youth, academics and practitioners such as teaching artists, therapists and community organizers. We believe in the presence and potential of play and performance, broadly construed and create practical performance opportunities for development across the lifespan to effect more humane, just and inclusive environments.”

So get ready to start thinking in some new ways – throw out your expectations and get ready for some serious fun.

Links:

Feb 1, 2017

We know that a playful approach to life can lead to better innovations, cooperation and even transform lives. But what about when disaster strikes? Does play still have a role? Desiree Matel-Anderson has proof that play is vitally important even when facing harrowing situations like floods, tornadoes and other types of crises.

In this interview, she shares how a Robot Petting Zoo helped the unaccompanied minors stranded in Texas border towns during the youth border crisis in 2013 – 2015. She talks about her team’s fascinating uses for drones and how they’re working with a town in Canada to gamify emergency prep – and it really IS a game. It sounds like these people are having an awful lot of fun. (Has anyone seen that mayor?) 

Desiree (Desi) Matel-Anderson is the “Chief Wrangler” of the not-for-profit organization Field Innovation Team (FIT) and CEO of the Global Disaster Innovation Group, LLC.  Ms. Matel-Anderson is the first and former Chief Innovation Advisor at FEMA and Think Tank Strategic Vision Coordinator.  During her tenure at FEMA, she led the first innovation team down to Hurricane Sandy to provide real-time problem solving in disaster response and recovery.  She also ran think tanks nation-wide to cultivate innovation in communities, which have historically trended globally on social media during the broadcasts. The Field Innovation Team has deployed to several disasters including, the Boston Marathon Bombings assisting at the scene with social media analysis, Moore, Oklahoma tornadoes for continued mobile registration and coding solutions, Philippines Typhoon Haiyan for cellular connectivity heat maps and the Oso, Washington Mudslides with unmanned aerial system flights and a 3d print of the topography for incident command. During the Nepal earthquakes, she led the team to work with Nepali women leaders in the earthquake relief efforts, which included rebuild, mobilizing survivors to assist in recovery efforts and empowerment trainings. Currently, her efforts are focused on the Syrian Refugee Crisis with  team deployed to Beirut, Lebanon and virtual support in Turkey and Syria. 

Desi began her emergency management experience by volunteering in Northern Illinois University’s Office of Emergency Planning followed by working with the Southeast Wisconsin Urban Area Security Initiative, and the City of Milwaukee Homeland Security and Emergency Management Office. In addition to her regional emergency management duties, she worked as an assessor of the Emergency Management Accreditation Program Assessor nation-wide, which included assessing the City of Boston’s emergency management services prior to the tragic Boston Marathon bombings. She has also worked on numerous innovative projects with agencies, communities, organizations and companies throughout her career.  Desi also lectures on innovation at Harvard and various universities across the country and serves as consultant for agencies and governments, nationally and internationally, on innovative practices and infrastructure.

Desi attended the National Preparedness Leadership Institute at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and School of Public Health in 2011, advised on Harvard’s Executive Education on National Preparedness Leadership Institute Advisory Board in 2013 and obtained a Juris Doctorate from Northern Illinois University in 2009.

Show Links:

Jan 26, 2017

The US Play Coalition believes that everyone in the world should have equal access to all forms of play. Play is a basic need that provides the foundation for all areas of development. It’s an essential part of being human that helps us reach our full potential. But that’s still not a very mainstream view. Play is just beginning to move beyond the perception that it’s a fluffy “nice to have.” That’s why play needs a voice. One of them is the US Play Coalition. 

The US Play Coalition is a collection of many voices - it's a deep well of knowledge around the subject of play. On their website, you can find research, publications, events and educational resources. They hold an annual conference in April. This year the theme is “The Value of Play: Where Design Meets Play.”

I’m honored to have recently become a Play Ambassador for them and that happened when I met Ryan Fahey. Ryan’s role at the US Play Coalition includes connecting with play ambassadors (which now includes me!), engaging them within the play ambassador network and promoting the US Play Coalition annual conference through social media. He also co-created #WePlayChat with the US Play Coalition, a professional learning opportunity which connects play advocates from across the globe to share a voice for the value of play on twitter. 

Ryan is a firm believer in wellness and play being key aspects of a happy, healthy life. His passions include running, weight lifting and playing badminton. He believes that wellness is not a destination, rather it is a journey navigated daily through intentional actions which take you from a good life, to your best life! 

Show Links:

 

Jan 18, 2017

The fun of a Rube Goldberg machine is watching a task, one that should be simple, being performed through a drawn-out series of seemingly meaningless detours. But we hate detours, right? Not always. This interview with Brett Doar, I hope, will challenge how you look at finding your “path” to success, to contentment, to your goals, whatever they are. (Hint: Play plays a pretty big role).

Brett Doar is a multi-disciplinary artist known for his work building Rube Goldberg machines and other types of interactive and kinetic devices. You might have seen his work in the OK Go This Too Shall Pass video from a few years back. He and his team have also brought these, what he likes to call “Chain reaction machines” to live stages at places like such as The Colbert Report, Google IO and SO many more. He holds an MFA from the Arts, Computation and Engineering program at UC Irvine. But really, what’s most important to us, he’s capable of building ANYTHING out of paperclips.

His background includes working as a commercial fisherman, a bus driver, a film and video editor, and teacher (preschool, middle school, and university level). His work has received press in NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, PC Magazine, CNN, Rolling Stone, and the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and Comedy Central.

Show Links:

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