A valuable classroom
resource
The games I remember most strongly
from my childhood were not commercial games with printed rules but rather
those that we learned from our parents and other children. I remember the
games my mother taught me, such as how to jump rope with two ropes the
way she did when she was a child. With two ropes you have to jump doubly
fast, what she called "double dutch." Many times we would ask her
to take time from her work to turn the rope for us because we knew that
when she began to reminisce about the games she knew, she would soon be
telling us wonderful stories from her childhood.
I also remember telling our
parents we were leaving for school early, but instead my brothers and sister
and I would stop at the end of the drive and play games with the neighbors
before school. During those games we enjoyed a brief magic. For the moment,
it didn't matter who lived in a big house or small one, who had many toys
at home or just a few, whose parents were on one end of the political spectrum
or the other, and who did well in school or who did not. We all ran and
laughed and called out to one another as we played such games as "tag"
or "kick the can" -- games that needed no fancy equipment, at most an old
tin can or rope, or a song.
I was delighted when I heard
about the international children's games project. Collecting games whose
rules are typically transmitted by "word of mouth" provides an excellent
vehicle for students to share cultural and linguistic knowledge:
* Games are universal.
* The families of students
are involved, encouraging oral histories.
* Comparing games provides
a vehicle for cultural sharing and encourages discussion about the cultural
knowledge embodied in games.
* Students learn investigative
skills. When a child brings in a new game, it extends the growing collection
of data. When a child brings in a game that has been described by others,
either locally or in other parts of the world, fascinating patterns can
be discovered in the data.
* Students improve their
writing skills. To explain to others the rules for a game that the reader
may never have seen before, requires very detailed and explicit writing.
* Examining the rules of
games, how they are established and what happens when they are broken,
can lead to discussions about what children know of conflict resolution.
* Collecting games is a provocative
yet a discrete task -- it's rich but has a concrete product as an outcome.
Telecommunications makes
it possible for students from diverse regions to collaborate on a wide-ranging
investigation of games.
I know that the games collection
you are creating will become a valuable classroom resource which teachers
can use to encourage cross-age cooperation on school playgrounds and to
stimulate alternatives to watching TV after-school. I can also see, in
watching the lively exchange of children's games that has begun, that this
project is going to be fun and engaging!
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