by Susan Hutchinson (Dalhousie University)
Essentially, leisure literacy is the knowledge and skills necessary to understand and experience leisure (Brimacombe, 2011). I am interested in the potential of leisure literacy as a tool for people to enhance the quality of their leisure and life and in extending how we (leisure educators) facilitate learning to be leisure literate. There is a reason I have put “be” in quotations in this title, which I will come back to later in this post. Beyond developing activity skills, in her recent blogpost (see: Leisure Literacy: A Call for Action), Dr. Brenda Robertson described additional content areas needed for people to become fully literate regarding leisure, including “developing an age appropriate awareness of, and appreciation for, the role that leisure plays in the quality of life of an individual. It is through such an understanding that individuals learn to value their free time and become motivated to take responsibility for how they spend it” (emphasis added). It is this last sentence that I take as my jumping off point.
There are two conversations I’ve been part of recently that are the catalysts for this focus. First, I was struck by a point made by Dr. Jackie Oncescu (University of Manitoba) at a recent meeting of leisure practitioners/researchers. She reminded us that we are “human beings” not “human doings.” That was such a simple but important insight for me. This point was reinforced for me in a second conversation, this time with Nova Scotia ‘municipal physical activity leader’ Gord Tate. We were discussing how to help people with chronic conditions be more fully engaged in self-managing their health outside the health system. As an example of how Gord approached this challenge, he described a recent workshop with a group of adults attending a chronic condition self-management program. He didn’t begin the session with “what do you like to do?” (a typical starting place for leisure education interventions) or “what are your health goals?” (a typical starting place for chronic condition self-management interventions). Instead he began by asking participants to think of a special place in their neighbourhood or community. He then asked them to reflect on what made it special for them, and to remember (in fact, re-imagine) what it smelled, looked and felt like to be in this special place. By helping people to connect to the meanings of a place or activity—in other words to experiencing being in leisure–Gord’s idea is that this may help people have the motivation to overcome barriers to participation.
If we are to fully embrace the being versus the doing side of our humanity, what are the implications of this for what it means to be leisure literate… and for leisure education? Although learning a range of activity skills and knowledge (e.g., about leisure resources) is important, they are not sufficient to be leisure literate; instead being leisure literate requires the capacities to connect with or value what a leisure pursuit or place means in our lives. As Iwasaki and colleagues (2010) suggested, “the forms that leisure expressions take (e.g. sport, exercise, art, crafts, visits with friends) are secondary to the meanings derived from and associated with the leisure experiences” (p. 485). These meanings may be related to, for example, people’s beliefs about their culture, their values about being connected to others, their passions reflected through music or sport. Each of these are reflections of how people see themselves; in other words, their identity. Being fully who we are in our leisure implies living (and leisure-ing) in accordance with our deeply held values, beliefs and passions.
“… being leisure literate requires the capacities to connect with or value what a leisure pursuit or place means in our lives.”
As a leisure educator, then, to help people be leisure literate is to help them (re)connect to the meanings of leisure for them. Sometimes this may mean helping people learn how to be fully ‘present’ in their leisure (e.g., learning to minimize external distractions). Other times it may mean helping people to recognize what ‘really matters,’ and then take action on this. People can experience being in an activity when they have opportunity to experience and express who they are (or want to be). From my own research on leisure-based stress coping, people feel more able to deal with changes in their health when they have a chance to affirm and express core aspects of who they are in their leisure. This ‘identity affirmation’ enables people to still feel they can be themselves even though much in their lives may be changing. This identity affirmation, as a type of leisure literacy, can be facilitated by reflection or remembering and (re)experiencing. It is in and through experiential forms of leisure education—the learning that comes not just from doing an activity but from experiencing (feeling, thinking) being in leisure—that learning about leisure’s potential (or value) in life can be cultivated.
As Brimacombe (2011) noted, to experience the benefits of leisure people must be engaged, and engagement (which is both doing and being) occurs when individuals are leisure literate, motivated and confident. Confidence comes from having necessary skills and knowledge but motivation comes from being aware of the value or meanings of leisure that have the potential to be accessed through engagement. Helping people identify leisure pursuits that will be personally meaningful and then to learn ways to be intentional about engagement so that its meanings and benefits can be amplified seems to be important foci of leisure education that will enable people to more fully be leisure literate.
Additional References:
Brimacombe, D. (2011). Fulfilling the promise: Canada’s municipal recreation and parks sector. Prepared for the National Recreation Summit, Lake Louise, AB.
Iwasaki, Y., Coyle, C., & Shank, J. (2010). Leisure as a context for active living, recovery, health and life quality for persons with mental illness in a global context. Health Promotion International, 25(4), 483-493.
See also:
Hutchinson, S. & Kleiber, D. (2005). Gifts of the “ordinary”: Considering the contribution of casual leisure to health and well-being. World Leisure Journal, 47(3), 2-16.
Iwasaki, Y. (2008). Pathways to meaning-making through leisure in global contexts. Journal of Leisure Research, 40, 231–249.
Leisure Education 