The term problem solving is used in many disciplines, sometimes with different perspectives, and often with different terminologies. For instance, it is a mental process in psychology and a computerized process in computer science. Problems can also be classified into two different types (ill-defined and well-defined) from which appropriate solutions are to be made. Ill-defined problems are those that do not have clear goals, solution paths, or expected solution. Well-defined problems have specific goals, clearly defined solution paths, and clear expected solutions. These problems also allow for more initial planning than ill-defined problems.[1] Being able to solve problems sometimes involves dealing with pragmatics (logic) and semantics (interpretation of the problem). The ability to understand what the goal of the problem is and what rules could be applied represent the key to solving the problem. Sometimes the problem requires some abstract thinking and coming up with a creative solution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_solving)

Playproblems as an English term refers to constructive “problems” that are meant to induce creative solutions via play, most commonly used in pedagogic set ups. Recently my friend and artist Hayley Silverman sent me a book called Manual Training – Play Problems for Boys and Girls by W.S. Martens. In the introduction the author – the book is from 1917 and was published first in the US – speaks about the necessary guidelines to make a manual for children functional and above all useable. She talks about the requirements of pictograms and drawings to each textual description. The steps within the play problems have to be simple and clear. The child needs to be thought to hold in both hands before them the object or material it attempts on using or manipulating. Manual Training and Play Problems tries to establish an economy of self made objects from little to nothing. In line with the poor rural and metropolitan area’s restricted access to tools and material, the book proposes strategies of reuse and recycling – enabling even the poorest children to make things from and with the very basic things at hand.

Play problems as an English title to me – the non native – furnishes my fascinations with play and toys but also figuratively the “problems” that arise at a certain stage in life, when “play” is suspended in an attempt on “growing up”.

Throughout the lecture I want to look into historic philosophic models of constructive play such as the “play drive” or ludic drive as applied in Schiller’s concepts of aesthetic education but also into contemporary examples of Manuals as descriptions for certain cosmologies of objects and or the world. But most importantly I want to arrive at a practical application of play within the framework of the lecture, once again locating the concept between the poles of “useful and educational” that is: to teach one to become a better citizen, and in its pejorative connotation as “just fooling around”, not being serious, not being productive and albeit lazy within a societal framework of productivity.

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A list of usable things was brought to the attention of the children so that they knew what to collect. The following is a list of things from which an intelligent selection will be found useful for this work:

aluminum carbons feathers plaster-of-Paris

axles cardboard flowers potatoes

bark cardboard boxes fruit baskets prunes

barrel staves cattails glass raffia

berry boxes cement grasses rags

bicycle parts clay hogsheads raisins

bicycle spoke clock works leather reeds

bolts cloth leaves rivets

boxes clothespins newspapers sand

box edgings copper nuts screws

brass cord old envelopes seeds

broomsticks corncobs packing boxes sheet iron

buttons corset steels paper shells

button molds cotton passe-partout shoe boxes

candles cotton spools peanuts skewers

candy boxes drug boxes peas soap

canes egg shells pebbles splints

canvas envelopes pins spools

steel thin, wood twigs wheels

straws tin vegetables wire

string tin cans Venetian iron yarns

strip iron tin foil walnuts zinc

tarboard tooth picks wood

(MANUAL TRAINING — PLAY PROBLEMS,CONSTRUCTIVE WORK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS BASED ON THE PLAY INTEREST BY WILLIAM S. MARTEN, DEPARTMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1917)

 

 

DROPBOX: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hscfqmyt4qhxj6p/AAD6Mcqdbu41FoeKR1j3oEsQa?dl=0