GPB Ambassador, Susan Hillyard, Shares her Vision for the Future of Education

Hear ye, hear ye! GPB has its very first GPB Correspondent. That’s right (snap!). She is Godsdelight Agu, a writer, storyteller, and mental health advocate from Lagos, Nigeria. She has been on a quest to get to know more about our Global Play Brigadiers. Her discoveries? The genius, heartfelt, and artful stories of Brigadier Susan Hillyard (Argentina). The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Traditional teaching methods are why schools are full of “dullards.” This was a term I couldn’t wave off after my hour-long conversation with educator, author, teacher trainer, facilitator, and play activist, Susan Hillyard. 

For almost four decades, Susan has taken on the challenging yet rewarding task of educating students of all ages. She has worked in over 17 countries, including Argentina, China, Singapore, Spain, and Saudi Arabia, and early on, she experienced the limitations of traditional (i.e., dullard) teaching methods, especially after seeing how learners struggled with English as a Second Language. This inspired Susan to create her signature teaching method (SHELTA), which adds drama training to the Second Language Acquisition theory. Whether teaching English to special needs children in Argentina, at the Ministry of Education in Buenos Aires, to professors in China, or educators across the world, she is a staunch believer in making education more inclusive.

Susan has long felt that drama was key to that, but since joining the GPB, she now feels that play across ages and stages creates the necessary environment for that. When I asked Susan why play is so important in education, she took a long pause and spoke from her heart:

“Because play reduces stress. Play improves mood and cognitive development. Play helps in building community and fostering better communication among students.”

Susan believes that learners shouldn’t just have a high Intelligence Quotient (IQ), but a high Play Quotient (PQ) too. Her dream, along with GPB, is to make play mainstream in education. 

Susan told me about a recent presentation she gave at the SHARE Convention in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The convention was titled, Transforming English Teaching for Global Impact. Susan’s session, "Play at Any Age, at Every Stage", was about the need for playful learning to enhance student engagement, to reduce stress, and the importance of play throughout different stages of life. Her session was attended by young learners, older students, and managers of English Language Teaching schools. Like all of Susan’s presentations, it was infused with playful activities, giving participants a felt experience of the transformative power of play. I was so inspired hearing this and other stories she shared about how non-English speakers rapidly become able to converse in English through play, youthful offenders becoming performers, and special needs children learning faster and more easily.

I can’t help but imagine how much fun learning would be and how different our world would be if more educators were like Susan. This is why we’re dedicated to upping the PQ (Play Quotient), as Susan says. Let’s make Play Mainstream!