Creating Creative Technologists: Playing With(in) Education - Creativity in the Digital Age - page 35

individual into four phases, pre-conventional (prepersonal), conventional (per-
sonal), post-conventional (postpersonal) and post-post conventional/transcendent
(transpersonal). Cook-Greuter ( 2000 ) suggests that approximately 90 % of the adult
population function within the fi rst two tiers of development and that current con-
ventional adult development is a linear, rational model of reality through which
individuals can achieve abstract or formal operations. Cook-Greuter goes on to sug-
gest that post-conventional 'goes beyond the modern, linear-scientifi c Western
mindset and beyond the conventions of society by starting to question the uncon-
sciously held beliefs, norms and assumptions about reality acquired during social-
ization and schooling'.
Gordon and Esbjörn-Hargens ( 2007 ) provide an insight to the nature of play in
terms of such a developmental framework. They describe eight 'play selves' in rela-
tion to both a four-tier model of development and the rhetorics of play discussed by
Brian Sutton-Smith ( 1997 ). This comparison is reproduced in Table 3.1 .
For Creative Technologists to be able to create new technological paradigms,
they need to be able to function at the postpersonal or transpersonal level.
Transpersonal theory argues that these higher levels, which involve experiences of
connectedness with phenomena considered outside the boundaries of self, can
engender the highest human qualities, including altruism, creativity and intuitive
wisdom (Kasprow and Scotton 1999 ).
Whilst a number of mature students are accepted into the programme each year,
the majority of applicants are recent school leavers - many of whom have pro-
gressed through high school to obtain the New Zealand National Certifi cate of
Educational Achievement (NCEA) at a suffi cient level to gain entrance to univer-
sity. NCEA is a standards-based system where students accumulate credits on the
basis of demonstrating that they have met predefi ned standards of achievement (Lee
and Lee 2001 ). Critics of the NCEA approach have argued that the standards-based
approach has both pedagogical and educational concerns because there is no dis-
tinction between academic and vocational subjects in assessment methods, and unit
standards do not motivate students to excel and extend themselves (Hall 1997 ).
Proponents of the NCEA approach suggest that NCEA allows students and educa-
tors to focus on interpersonal relations, critical thinking skills, self-evaluation, risk-

Table 3.1 Play rhetorics in the developmental model (Gordon and Esbjörn-Hargens 2007 )
Developmental stage Play rhetoric Play self

Transpersonal Play as frivolity Unitive player

Dynamic player

Postpersonal Play as self Complex player

Play as imagination Sensitive player

Personal Play as self Status player

Play as progress Ordered player

Play as identity

Prepersonal Play as power Aggressive player

Play as fate Magical player