Lessons from the Believing Game

I a game,” I tell my students. Like many runners and swimmers, we’re trying to improve our last attempt, as opposed to winning against others. See how much more deeply we can enter into an idea or point of view. By emphasizing both playfulness and the challenge of deep engagement with other viewpoints in the believing game, I try to lower the cost of relinquishing long-held (and often unexamined) assumptions and values. It’s frightening to imagine that one’s stance could be limited, vague, or wrong. From a developmental point of view, students take up positions in order to shore up a sense of identity. Assuming a new or different position casts students into identity confusion. But the threat posed by this instability vexes adults as well, I think. This fear of uncertainty, of being wrong, and of losing status could be the root of many intractable political conflicts. I’ll begin by sharing an anecdote from my early attempts at using the believing game in my teaching of college writing, a time when I think my use of it involved some missteps—causing me to reflect on the temporal dimension of the believing game and how the believing game connects, in particular, to play and learning through role. I will share some lessons I have learned, reflecting refinements in my approach to the believing game—those I have pursued and those I am eager to pursue. First, I have found that students need time to think about belief itself, and then to be offered ample time to play the believing game. If I rush the process, students don’t seem to range very widely beyond their initial perspectives. The believing game is an apt teaching strategy for those who want to teach argument in college writing but who sense that an immediate leap into argumentation itself may put pressure on students to take sides prematurely and superficially. Second, I want to emphasize the word “game” and the spirit of play that the doubting and believing games can entail; the ethos of play invites immersion in perspectives. Third, I have learned to pay initial attention to students’ stories, emotions, and sense of attachment to beliefs and to discuss beliefs and our relationship to them. Finally, it may help to distinguish different ways of believing—particularly, when believing involves exploring a perspective through role. Role experiences create playful involvement and distance, increasing the capacity to attach and detach from belief, and most importantly, to test out solidarity—one’s potential identification with others.