play constructionism socialization storytelling competition stories metaphor "social bonding" "adult play"

Learning Through Exploration and Storytelling At first glance, all this emphasis on play may seem incongruous.

Adult play is often undertaken with a specific goal in mind, whereas in children the purposes of their play are less conscious.

We have identified four purposes of adult play that are especially relevant to our discussion of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY: 1) social bonding, 2) emotional expression, 3) cognitive development and 4) constructive competition.

Social bonding is an important purpose because it brings a sense of partnership, cohesion, security and role attribution through cooperation and cultural expression.

In terms of cognitive development, we will see, in our discussion of constructionism, how play can contribute to learning and understanding.

Through the use of modeling and metaphor, the objects of play can take on meanings and can embody abstract concepts, thus concretizing formal relationships that can otherwise be quite difficult to comprehend.

Through myths, sagas, fairy tales and family legends, people have used stories as a means for expressing ideals and values that are important to them.

In stories, we deal with issues of culture, religion, social and personal identity, group membership, good and evil, etc.

Organizational members dramatize organizational life through stories, transforming mundane events into symbolic artifacts that contribute to the organization's history.

In organizational contexts, narratives serve a number of purposes: the socialization of new members, the legitimization of bonding and organizational identification, cultural control, and they serve as a lens through which organizational action may be understood and interpreted (Putnam, 1995).