{"id":3081,"date":"2026-08-10T13:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/?p=3081"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:54:24","slug":"playfulness-as-a-competence-for-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/?p=3081","title":{"rendered":"Playfulness as a competence for teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Playfulness is not only important for children. It can also be an important professional resource for teachers. In our recently published study in the Journal of Teachers and Teaching, we explored how Finnish teachers and pre-service teachers perceive their own playfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The results show that educators generally evaluate themselves as highly playful. In particular, the social and interactional dimension of playfulness emerged as a strength. Interestingly, playfulness was also relatively consistent across different age groups, suggesting that playfulness can remain a meaningful personal and professional resource throughout adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why does this matter for education? <\/strong>Teachers need creativity, flexibility, openness, humour, and the ability to engage with others when designing teaching and responding to changing learning situations. Recognizing one\u2019s own playfulness can therefore be seen as part of teachers\u2019 pedagogical competence, and something worth acknowledging and fostering in teacher education and professional life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study included 123 pre-service, in-service, and former teachers from different educational fields in Finland. Their playfulness was examined through five dimensions: physical animation, social engagement, mental spontaneity, emotional fluidity, and humorous perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More broadly, the study contributes to a growing understanding of playfulness as a resource that extends beyond childhood and play itself. In educational contexts, playfulness can be viewed as part of teachers\u2019 professional competence and as a potential resource for creativity, social interaction, wellbeing, and responding flexibly to changing situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read the article:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/13540602.2026.2711059\">Full article: Adult playfulness: Finnish teachers evaluating their own playfulness<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Siklander, S., Kangas, M., &amp; Randolph, J. (2026). Adult playfulness: Finnish teachers evaluating their own playfulness.\u00a0<em>Teachers and Teaching<\/em>, 1\u201322. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/13540602.2026.2711059<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"285\" src=\"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3082\"\/><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Playfulness is not only important for children. It can also be an important professional resource for teachers. In our recently published study in the Journal of Teachers and Teaching, we explored how Finnish teachers and pre-service teachers perceive their own &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/?p=3081\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3083,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions\/3083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marjaanakangas.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}