Not Only Play: Experiences of Playing a Professor Character at College of Wizardry with a Professional Background in Teaching

Abstract

This article investigates how participants that have played professor characters in the sandbox-style Nordic Larp College of Wizardry reflected on planning and conducting play-pretend lessons compared to their experiences of teaching in professional environments. Using the concepts of spillover, bleed, compensation, role conflict, and contrast, this article focuses on how such experiences can contain reversals of playful and serious motivational states. Data was obtained by interviewing nine participants from various countries: areas of subject expertise; amounts of teaching and larping experience; and levels of education (primary, secondary, tertiary, and vocational). Qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2002) was used to evaluate the guideline-structured interviews via a category system developed from a theoretical framework, combining the research findings of Fenstermacher et al. (2009), Apter (2008), Banner (1985), Biddle (1983 and 1979), Staines (1980) and Kando and Summers (1971). The results of this investigation show that all interviewees drew on their professional teaching experiences for planning and conducting play-pretend lessons at College of Wizardry. Despite the fictionality of the setting, interviewees identified several parallels, such as approaches to teaching and an awareness for student/player needs. Playing a professor at College of Wizardry with a professional background in teaching provided an opportunity to explore and experiment, due to the absence of expectations present in professional settings. Educators larping their role enjoyed more liberty, yet also encountered familiar real-world stress factors.