Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

First published in 1985, Playing and Exploring draws on many disciplines in order to formulate a new way of thinking about the nature and power of education. As so often with creative thinkers, Robin Hodgkin’s work is at once subversive and conservative. He is radical in insisting on the overriding need to question and subvert the external examination systems that now cripple education (and to raise standards by other means), conservative in asserting with Polanyi that an individual’s or a group’s enterprise draws on a living tradition. The book’s most important contribution is to our understanding of the educational needs of young adults, of the need for adventure and commitment.

The author develops a theoretical model that begins with the infant exploring its play space. He argues that the learner is an active, frontier-exploring agent; so too must be any effective teacher. Robin Hodgkin brings forward important new evidence from neuropsychology to show why doing is so important in teaching and learning. His argument that both visual and linguistic competence must cooperate actively in the learning process raises a fundamental question about the part television plays in our culture. In this as in his earlier books, his work is concerned with the real priorities in education, with demonstrating that first-hand feelings of friendship, of wonder, and of danger should be part of the education of all people, especially adolescents, and that our greatest and certainly most expensive failure is to deny the experience of educational success to so many children.

1114291225
Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

First published in 1985, Playing and Exploring draws on many disciplines in order to formulate a new way of thinking about the nature and power of education. As so often with creative thinkers, Robin Hodgkin’s work is at once subversive and conservative. He is radical in insisting on the overriding need to question and subvert the external examination systems that now cripple education (and to raise standards by other means), conservative in asserting with Polanyi that an individual’s or a group’s enterprise draws on a living tradition. The book’s most important contribution is to our understanding of the educational needs of young adults, of the need for adventure and commitment.

The author develops a theoretical model that begins with the infant exploring its play space. He argues that the learner is an active, frontier-exploring agent; so too must be any effective teacher. Robin Hodgkin brings forward important new evidence from neuropsychology to show why doing is so important in teaching and learning. His argument that both visual and linguistic competence must cooperate actively in the learning process raises a fundamental question about the part television plays in our culture. In this as in his earlier books, his work is concerned with the real priorities in education, with demonstrating that first-hand feelings of friendship, of wonder, and of danger should be part of the education of all people, especially adolescents, and that our greatest and certainly most expensive failure is to deny the experience of educational success to so many children.

69.99 Pre Order
Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

by R.A. Hodgkin
Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

Playing and Exploring: Education Through the Discovery of Order

by R.A. Hodgkin

eBook

$69.99 
Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on October 1, 2025

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

First published in 1985, Playing and Exploring draws on many disciplines in order to formulate a new way of thinking about the nature and power of education. As so often with creative thinkers, Robin Hodgkin’s work is at once subversive and conservative. He is radical in insisting on the overriding need to question and subvert the external examination systems that now cripple education (and to raise standards by other means), conservative in asserting with Polanyi that an individual’s or a group’s enterprise draws on a living tradition. The book’s most important contribution is to our understanding of the educational needs of young adults, of the need for adventure and commitment.

The author develops a theoretical model that begins with the infant exploring its play space. He argues that the learner is an active, frontier-exploring agent; so too must be any effective teacher. Robin Hodgkin brings forward important new evidence from neuropsychology to show why doing is so important in teaching and learning. His argument that both visual and linguistic competence must cooperate actively in the learning process raises a fundamental question about the part television plays in our culture. In this as in his earlier books, his work is concerned with the real priorities in education, with demonstrating that first-hand feelings of friendship, of wonder, and of danger should be part of the education of all people, especially adolescents, and that our greatest and certainly most expensive failure is to deny the experience of educational success to so many children.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781040434086
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 10/01/2025
Series: Routledge Revivals
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 240

About the Author

R.A. Hodgkin (1916–2013) was educationalist, Quaker and great mountaineer. He was principal of the Sudan Institute of Education from 1949–55; headmaster of Abbotsholme School, Derbyshire from 1955–67, and a Lecturer in the Oxford University Department of Education from 1969–77. From 1977–80, he was Chairman of the Mount Everest Foundation. He read widely in psychology, biology, anthropology and theology, and brought their lessons to bear on the curriculum.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. New ground 2. Education – making space for instruction 3. Things for use and things for meaning: tools and symbols 4. Competence 5. The four roles of a teacher 6. Embodied form 7. Many-levelled theory 8. Divided brain, uniting mind 9. Words and images 10. Success for all children Postscript: On human talents

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews