Theater of Games (Cont'd)

Near the end of my session with the Primary conference, we started a conversation about kids and theater. I had mentioned my background in theater a bit earlier and one participant was eager to talk about her experiences in getting her kids to put on plays. She described what great delight parents had in watching their kids perform, and how good the kids felt about being in the spotlight. She mentioned that she did have to work hard to keep the kids focused on learning their lines and especially how challenging it was for the kids to endure the rehearsals. But again, how it all paid off during the performance.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time before I could whip-up a semi-cogent response. A couple days later it occurred to me that we all had a similar experience, right after the end of playing Junkyard Olympics, as each team got to demonstrate their event - not only demonstrate, but actually engage the other team in a world record-setting trial - in fact and actuality experiencing the very benefits that were attributed to children's theater, without the pressure, without the supervision or directorial guidance or pained memorization, all for the fun of it all.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith