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"Let my playing be my learning, and my learning be my playing."
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga was one of the first historians to explore the importance of play within culture and society. He was a Dutch historian, professor, and theorist that inspired the ‘Magic Circle Theory’ in his book Homo Ludens. The title, Homo Ludens, roughly translates to “Man the Player,” or a reference to those that play games (Huizinga, 1970). While his book was published in the 1930s, well before the technological age or even before the conception of a video game, it still holds many relevant ideals and elements of game play, involving play as a cultural phenomenon, as well as the context it has within language, law, and philosophy to name a few (Huizinga, 1970).
Theory
The magic circle theory derived from Huizinga’s claim regarding the movement of play within a confined setting:
All play moves and has its being within a playground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately... The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart (Huizinga., 1970, pg. 10)
Within the magic circle, Huizinga calls for the seriousness of play (Lundin, 2012). The magic circle is the setting where the reality of the real world disappears and replaced with specific rules and mechanics that govern the game world (Huizinga, 1970). Stepping out of the circle suspends the game, and rules of the real world return.
Huizinga's main focus was creating the environment to establish the rules and norms of player action. In a "magic circle", actions would be taken within a different context.
For example, stealing the pepper shaker from someone's hand is considered rude. However, in the "magic circle", if the rule of the game is to obtain the pepper shaker, then it's not stealing; it's playing the game...
Homo Ludens
Huizinga inspired the ‘Magic Circle Theory’ in his book Homo Ludens. The title roughly translates to “Man the Player,” or a reference to those that play games (Huizinga, 1970).
Significance to Education
While Huizinga established the magic circle as a zone for the seriousness of play, play is not intended to be serious; in contrast, play should mirror the opposite of the seriousness of life in order to be fully immersed (McAllister et al., 2018). In terms of academia, students view the real world as separate from the classroom, where learning happens by being in the real world (Lundin, 2012). Establishing a magic circle within the classroom and in the curriculum, where students can be fully immersed in play, can take away the seriousness that certain subjects, like mathematics, bring and can allow students to learn in a way that is less serious and more familiar to them.
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