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| Moving in SLOOOOOOOOOOW MOOOOOOOTION. |
ME: “Who likes to play games?” Children: “Me!” “Me!” “Me!”
This
exercise was a bit challenging in both its inception as well as its
application. As my students never meet in a physical classroom, I was forced to
look into my personal daily life for ways to execute this exploration. Fortunately, I have two tiny little
subjects with a few fun-spirited friends: my children. For this exploration, I
arranged for four playdates: one at a park, two at my house, and one at a
friend’s house. Subjects varied in gender, age, and ethnicity from playdate to
playdate. Four children were present at all four playdates. Four others were
able to attend only one of the playdates. Each playdate consisted of 4 to 5
children ranging in age from two years to seven years. Subjects were
predominantly female (5 females and 3 males). Ethnicities represented include Caucasian (5), African
American (1), and Spanish (European) (2).
Observing the children on our
local playground, I noticed many tended to move in circles throughout the
playground, gravitating to other children of the same age, gender and
ethnicity. Sometimes another, more extroverted, child, would break into one of
these circles for a time, sometimes to stay and sometimes for only a short period
of time. These trends seem to be more prevalent in older children (which may be
because they come to the park with or to meet a specific friend or friends). Younger
children tended to move a bit more singularly throughout their play infusing
themselves into others play and incorporating new friends into their circles
depending upon the activity and excitement level.
From these observations, I
started to wonder: Are young children more interested in the process or the
people with whom they are interacting? How can a challenging situation
introduce problem solving and encourage collaborative play? How can the teacher
(or facilitator, in this case) encourage or discourage group cooperation and
collaboration? And how can I use Boal’s games to gather such information?
First, how can I use Boal’s games to gather such information?
Taking Vygotsky’s Zone of
Proximal Development into consideration, I looked for exercises in which the
children would physically interact with each other in a series of “scaffolded”
activities. From Boal’s games, I selected the
Cross and the Circle, Equilibrium of
the body within an object, and Slow
Motion from the category Feeling What We Touch. The age of the children
participating in this activity determined the activities selected and focused
on during the playdates. Not all children had the same verbal, mental, social,
or even physical skills. However, I felt confident that (with the exception of
the two year old) all participants could be successful and engage in each of
these “games” with a little modification. Each “game” (as we called them) was
broken down into a series of smaller steps that were repeated until the child
became confident to move forward to the more challenging activity. For example, we repeated making a circle and
cross separately several times before attempting to put them together. During
each playdate, we moved through the three activities (some more successfully
than others, some more quickly than others) and concluded with a “drawing” of
how the “games” made them feel.
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| Equilibrium of the Body with an Object: The Hula-Hoop |
Are young children more
interested in the process or the people with whom they are interacting? The
first attempt felt like a flop. Quickly one child (age 3) was frustrated with
the challenge of putting the cross and circle together. Once she noticed that
she was making the same motion with each hand, she suggested “we do the Hokey
Pokey” instead. Of course, all agreed and a delightful song and dance to the
Hokey Pokey ensued. Next, using a ball, sidewalk chalk, and hula-hoops children
explored the relationships of their bodies to the objects and to others moving
around them. The idea of “game
play” was so exciting this turned into a “hula hoop contest” initiated by the
six year old (the most efficient “hooper” in the group). The “slow motion” game was arguably the
most popular with all of the groups. While challenging, it was attainable with
the proper self-restraint.
How can a challenging situation
introduce problem solving and encourage collaborative play? As the play
dates progressed and the “core group” became more familiar with the exercises,
something interesting happened. In some of the activities, they would help each
other. The older child offered to move one child’s hand in a circle while the
child moved her own hand in a “T” (the group collectively renamed the cross).
The “slow motion” exercise became a competitive game in which the children
would experiment with various ways of moving slowly (i.e. backwards, side ways,
etc). Children watched one another more as they became more familiar with the
activities. They began to transform the activities into something more
“exciting.” While I am not sure if it was the age or enthusiasm of the
individuals or the mere labeling of the activities as “games” but the children
seemed to always shift the activities into competitions of some sort. It was my
observation that this was their way of making sense of the activity. One child
(6) even asked “why are we doing this?” As their levels of thinking are more
concrete and less conceptual (to some degree), each child sought to understand
the purpose of the game by how it related to him/her and/or to those around him/her.
While the play groups where small to begin with, children would break into
further groups of two or three based upon 1) age, 2) energy level, 3) interest
in the activity, and 4) gender. Females did not prefer females over males in
the smaller groups. However, males did seem to gravitate toward one another
more frequently than their female counterparts. Ethnicity did not seem to
matter. However, this may be in part to the low number of participants. Energy
and interest level seemed to be the major factor in determining with whom and
how the children interacted. The older child did seem to be more frustrated
with the younger children as her efforts to control the group were thwarted or
met with disinterest.
How can the teacher
(or facilitator, in this case) encourage or discourage group cooperation and
collaboration? As the facilitator of these
activities, I attempted to remain neutral after introducing the “game” and let the
children take it from there. This posed a significant challenge after the first
introduction when one child shifted the entire activity into the “hokey pokey.”
I quickly realized that I could subtly be in-control leading and directing the
activities while the children still felt safe and in-control of their own
decisions and choices within the activity. As a teacher, facilitator, etc., it
is imperative that you are able to “read” your students, intuitive about the
situation and provide an atmosphere that fosters and encourages diversity of
opinion and thought. Each of these children was exploring his or her ability,
space, and relationship within the activity and to one another. The activities
were challenging and avenues for further exploration. Their energy and
creativity pushed them to investigate the core components of the “games” and
move beyond them. While many of their diversions seemed to be "chasing rabbits" they were still tangential to the core activity.
When analyzing discussing the
post-activity drawings with each child, I noticed the responses fell into a few
specific categories: place, people and feelings. The reflections also tended to
be less emotional and more recollection and documentation. Some of the
reflections included:
Image 1: “This is me with a hula-hoop
around
my head and
those are birds flying into a nest. The
hoop was my
favorite. It made me
excited.” (We were in a heavily
wooded area with engaging wild life).
Image 2: “That’s the
house.
We were at a
house, not a
park. I like the park
better.”
Image 4: “This is
Sam. He was
beside me in
the slow motion game. He was
slower than me."
Image 1: “[All of these games] made me
want to play hopscotch. Here is my hopscotch.”
Image 2: “I drew on the trampoline…Windows
on the trampoline…next time I want
to jump on the trampoline.”
Image 3: “This is my name. See I can write
my whole name. This is me. [Tell me how
you are feeling as you draw this?] Frustrated that they didn’t want to play
my game.”
Image 1: “This is the circle. The hula
hoop. The green is the spinning. [The circles] are
Asher,
Liza,
Imani, and
Sam.”
Image 2: “This is me. [That hand] is the T
and that [hand] is the circle. [What are the lines over the top?] Sweat.”
Image 3: “I wrote letters because I am
tired.”
Image 4: “This is my
happy dance.”
