Exploration 5: Embodied Sculpted Analysis

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.

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.”