Introduction

Students have a need to think about philosophical life issues such as friendship, loneliness, justice, life, and death and they also have a need to talk about these life issues (Lilja, Buchardt, Kärnebro, Osbeck & Sporre,2020). Students also have a natural inclination to play and take part in playful activities. We suggest that the school age educare centre is a suitable arena where both needs can be accommodated. In this paper, we discuss the intimate relationship between the playfulness that appears inherent in the students' way of solving a particular task and how they simultaneously make use of their ‘practical intellect’. We intend to contribute to an expanded understanding of what constitutes intellectual activity and suggest that teachers and researchers can make use of this expanded understanding at the school age education centre.

Aim

The aim of this article is to develop an exploratory theoretical reasoning regarding the connection between (internal) intellectual processes and (external) practical observable actions of students participating in an activity. The question that is more specifically investigated is: How can students' play, in solving a task given within the framework of an adult-led activity, be seen as an expression of intellectual processes?

Methodology and theoretical framework

Theoretically a departure is taken in Gilbert Ryle's (1949/2000) discussion of how theory and practice are closely interwoven, and in Tomas Tempte's (1997) theory of the practical intellect. Our argumentation is supported by analyzing some empirical examples from an activity lead by one of the researchers, and in the analysis using concepts from Ryle and Tempte to make our point about the practical intellect to come alive.

Result

We put this reasoning as the basis for a normative argumentation that deals with the fact that the School age Educare could be a place that meets students' needs to investigate questions of a philosophical nature without, for the sake of it, renouncing the equally central needs of playful antics and movement. We then propose a pedagogical position where teachers let the students themselves design and explore activities that, according to them, can lead to philosophical conversations without either placing demands on the students' achievements or seeking to steer the activity towards specific educational outcomes.