Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Games and the classroom
Probably the best reason for playing games in the classroom is that it's something the kids might actually want to do together. If they can play peacefully, for 20 minutes, without adult supervision, it's already a major accomplishment.
The fact is, almost any game that is interesting enough to kids to merit sustained play has more opportunities for cognitive and affective development than most curricula would dare to mandate. The other fact is that the skills that are developed during game play are, for the most part, far outside the scope of anything that could be direcly related to the three Rs.
Here are Jane and Johnny playing checkers together. Neither is very good at math. But both are demonstrating mastery of highly complex reasoning skills, complex and relevant - maybe not to the curriculum, but to living in the real world.
I think this tells us more about the nature of schooling in this country than maybe we want to know. As long as games like Scrabble and checkers and charades are considered extra-curricular, the relevance of the curriculum itself needs to be questioned.
There are many commercial recreational games that seem more obviously relevant. For example, one of my favorite games, "A to Z" (from Fundex). It's a knowledge or trivia game where players race to fill their boards (with spaces labeled from A to, as you might surmize, Z), with examples that fit a randomly drawn category, such as: trees, animals, States. By preselecting the categories, you can emphasize almost any area of the cirriculum, without in any way diminishing the fun or challenge of the game. But the game tests more than knowledge. It also tests social skills like fairness and turn taking; as well as personal mastery like dealing with success and failure. For the players, this part of the game is the real point of play - and in it lies the deepest challenge. For their personal devlopment, these challenges are clearly more central than mastery over the names of, for example, US presidents.
In sum, there are many, many games (many of which can be found on the Dr. Toy website and on my Major Fun award pages which I would strongly endorse for children and for classroom use. And though they might reinforce the cirriculum in some way, their real contribution is sadly far outside the scope of the S.A.T.
The fact is, almost any game that is interesting enough to kids to merit sustained play has more opportunities for cognitive and affective development than most curricula would dare to mandate. The other fact is that the skills that are developed during game play are, for the most part, far outside the scope of anything that could be direcly related to the three Rs.
Here are Jane and Johnny playing checkers together. Neither is very good at math. But both are demonstrating mastery of highly complex reasoning skills, complex and relevant - maybe not to the curriculum, but to living in the real world.
I think this tells us more about the nature of schooling in this country than maybe we want to know. As long as games like Scrabble and checkers and charades are considered extra-curricular, the relevance of the curriculum itself needs to be questioned.
There are many commercial recreational games that seem more obviously relevant. For example, one of my favorite games, "A to Z" (from Fundex). It's a knowledge or trivia game where players race to fill their boards (with spaces labeled from A to, as you might surmize, Z), with examples that fit a randomly drawn category, such as: trees, animals, States. By preselecting the categories, you can emphasize almost any area of the cirriculum, without in any way diminishing the fun or challenge of the game. But the game tests more than knowledge. It also tests social skills like fairness and turn taking; as well as personal mastery like dealing with success and failure. For the players, this part of the game is the real point of play - and in it lies the deepest challenge. For their personal devlopment, these challenges are clearly more central than mastery over the names of, for example, US presidents.
In sum, there are many, many games (many of which can be found on the Dr. Toy website and on my Major Fun award pages which I would strongly endorse for children and for classroom use. And though they might reinforce the cirriculum in some way, their real contribution is sadly far outside the scope of the S.A.T.
Labels: Major Fun
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