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All too often in our staff meetings,
we have deliberated upon our
concerns - how to help our children
understand that there is more to playing a
game than winning or losing, with the
accompanying euphoria or disappointment.
Teachers of very young children have
ample opportunities to observe the
behaviour of children while playing games,
for they offer several contexts within which
to explore what winning or losing means.
One such opportunity presented itself in our
junior school resource centre. I watched a
group of students engaged in a traditional
game called 'Pallanguzhi' (in Tamil). This is
played by young and old in many homes in
South India. I believe it is also played inAfrica.
I quote the statements made by the
children during the course of the game.
Some of the children were onlookers. I was
a silent observer. The emphasis is mine, while
the statements 'are the children's.
- "you are playing a greedy game, you will
lose",
- "if you share you will win",
- "if you purposely try to win you will lose",
- "whether you win or lose, all would
have shared (the seeds) almost equally',
- "even if I 'carefully try to cheat', the game
will not allow me to win.
So what is the use if cheating? Just play
the game"
The value of playing a fair game is
evident in every statement.
The Game:
Child A - A's row
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Child B- B's row
The game consists of a rectangular
wooden board with two rows of 7
receptacles (cups) each, (see illustration
above). Two children sit facing each other
and play the game. The row of cups in front
of the child is her own. At the start of the
game, each child fills each cup in her row
with seven tamarind seeds or cowrie shells.
Child A picks up all the seeds from anyone
of the cups in her row, starts dropping one
seed in each cup starting from the next cup
on the left hand side and moves to the
opponent's row, until all the seven seeds are
distributed. Now Child B takes her turn and
distributes the seeds in the same fashion as
Child A. They take turns alternately to
distribute seeds. At some point, during the
distribution of seeds, if just three seeds
remain in any cup, the child 'wins' these
seeds from her row and picks them up.
Ultimately, when all the seeds are distributed between the players and no more are left on
the board, the game is over. The player who
collects more seeds wins the game.
I noticed that children employ many
'strategies' to win the game. They drop seeds
within their own row, they see to it that the
opponent's cups receive less seeds and
halfway through the game, they try to hoard
seeds in their own row. Since the game
demands that at the end no seeds should be
left in any cup in either row, the one who is
playing a' smart game' is left with no option
but to redistribute what she has been
hoarding. Thus the game comes to an end
only when all the seeds are used up.
Any child who employs the above strategies
to somehow win more seeds, loses the
game. The child who plays an 'innocent'
game ultimately wins. Children have also
tested these strategies by playing many times
over and have got the same results. At such
times, children come out with profound
statements.
I evolved the above method of playing
the game to make it simple for first graders
to play, to avoid the confusion of too many
rules and to sustain their interest in order to
be able to finish the game.
There are two more traditional ways of
playing the game. These have more rules, take
longer to play and demand more alertness.
A friend of mine who played this game the
traditional way as a child, remembers the
same experiences leading her to learn that
unfair strategies do not help in winning the
game. She also remembers her mother's
interventions while she played, to "be kind
to the one who is losing - so share and do
not hoard; once a winner is not always a
winner", and so on. She says her mother's
words had an impact on her and even now
she sees the importance of fairness in a game,
as she enjoyed the leisurely game without
the pressure of having to win.
Many more children have played this
game, many times over. I have watched
keenly and have almost always seen children
going through. the same experiences and
saying: "don't be greedy, it's better to share
than to lose", "it's okay to lose but I like to
play" and so on. The form of the statements
is different, but the experiences are the same
and the values have stood the test of time.
In contrast to these traditional games
there are many modern 'board' games like
Monopoly, Trade, Battlefield etc. for children
to play. In these games the winner has to
manipulate, amass wealth, make use of the
opponent's weakness, and so on. He has few
'clever' options to help him win and very
often grows impatient to finish off the game.
An established 'winner' gathers a cheering
group around him / her. Such games are
expensive, specialised, and require complex
materials. The values of the manufacturers
are passed on to children, and these are
questionable.
The traditional games are more simple
and do not have the negative aspects of
modern ones. For instance, in the case of
'Pallansuzhi' the seeds can be replaced by
any other natural material like pebbles or
shells. They also help children to see that
fun does not need specialised toys, play is
everywhere, learning is not gathering
information, and excitement in a game is not in winning but in experiencing the leisure
that a game offers.
The children also noticed something
interesting at the end of the year.A box with
some extra tamarind seeds which were not
used was full of maggots, worms and insects,
and some had become rotten too. Whereas,
the seeds used in the game and kept in a
separate box did not rot; nor were they
attacked by insects. They were good for a
whole year and remained a bright and shiny
brown. The seeds in the other box had grown
dull and had become powdery.
A discussion ensued about this observation.
The children attributed the preservation
of the seeds used in the game to the
fact that our hands are warm and it was
like drying the seeds in the sun. The seeds
shone because our fingers polished them
whenever we played. One learned that even
a game that children play can give us much
to reflect upon.
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