Games children play: How they increase the intellect?

GAMES CHILDREN PLAY: HOW THEY INCREASE THE INTELLECT? William Maxwell ABSTRACT

This paper contends that games are powerful promoters of intellectual ability and are too little used in educational curricula. It offers nine propositions in support of this thesis. It explores the possibilities of classifying games in categories which relate to their uses and suggests a digital code for indicating both category and status within a category. Finally, the findings of some preliminary and rudimentary research are presented to suggest that the systematic use of games may be as influential as systematic instruction in altering scores on IQ tests.

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The vast inequalities in perceived human endowments, whether in talent, in wealth, or in intelligence, were for a long time taken as inherent in the natural order of things. In this century, however, a slow awakening to the possibility that all humans might be geniusses if properly t a u g h t - is occurring. Such a change in perception might be classified as a "paradigm shift" as defined by Kuhn, (1970). Other examples of paradigm shifts in man's perceptions or "world views" include seeing the earth as spherical, or seeing biological species as evolving or seeing diseases as caused by germs rather than evil spirits or unfavorable stars. Kuhn points out that it may take several centuries for a paradigm shift to be completed--indeed, sometimes twenty centuries, as in the case of the earth's sphericity. The paradigm shift where all human beings are seen as inherent geniusses is, of course, far from complete and may take several more centuries. The thesis of this paper is that such a shift in man's mode of thinking has already begun, is gaining momentum, and will be accelerated as the education professions begin to acknowledge and utilize the powerful value of the games that children play. In support of this thesis nine propositions are offered. PROPOSITION 1 • GENIUS: IN THE FEW OR IN ALL? There is much evidence that all humans are in fact geniusses. Sir Francis Galton, the famous eugenicist, (1869) argued that genius runs in families. Galton went further, of course, and argued that therefore genius is hereditary. He was genetically right. That is, those whom we designate as "genius" do inherit from their ancestors, the neurological material to think creatively, as do their uncreative siblings and cousins. And here is where logic failed Galton and other eugenicists: the fact that only a few humans manifest genius may be attributable to many factors, including family 30

reading or health habits or dinner-time habits or the accidents of an apple falling on one's head or an uncle presenting one with a stimulating puzzle at the critically sensitive moment, or any number of possible contingencies that go along with intellectual eminence. Thus an increasing number of thinkers reject the galtonian view and prefer to argue that all humans are genetically genius. The words of the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss are often cited in support of the "genius proposition": All men are gcniusscs and "have been geniusses for at least a million years." (See Boyer and Walsh, 1968; Spitz, 1978.) The fact that much of mankind does not appear to manifest that genius is, such scholars argue, a reflection more of the inhibitors of genius than of man's inherent nature; more a measure of our failure to understand how to nurture genius than of nature's abilities to create genius.

Are Children Born Equal? Boyer and Walsh of the University of Hawaii writing in the Saturday Review (October 19, 1968, pp. 61ff) observed that "In societies where power and privilege are not equally distributed, it has always been consoling to those with favored positions to assume that Nature has caused this disparity." Boyer and Walsh ask us to assume that each human has a large range of mental abilities and they then ask if "equality." would necessarily imply that each human would have each of those various abilities in equal measure. Boyer and Walsh propose that we see equality of intelligence in forms other than in identical mental strengths, in forms other than a picket fence with all the pickets of everyone being of equal height. Another anthropologist who argued that we are all potential geniusses was Bateson (1979) in his Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. "It is surely the case that the brain contains no material objects other than its own channels and switchways and its own metabolic supplies and that all this material hardware never enters the narratives of the mind . . . . and in the mind there are no neurons, only

ideas . . . There is, therefore a certain complementarity between the mind and the matters of its computation." Another argument for the universality of human genius was given by Chelton Pearce in his Magical Child, 1977. Pearce reasoned that "barriers to intelligence have long since been winnowed out by nature because nature does not program for failure. Nature programs for success and has thus built a vast, an awesome program for success into our genes. What (Nature) cannot program is parental failure to nurture the infant child." (pages 4-5 ). Since from conception to maturity there are literally thousands of contingencies where parental sensibilities or choices interact on the child's mind, it would be exceedingly naive to blame the breakdown or failure to achieve potential on the genetic material. A more reasonable explanation would be to assume that there was a breakdown in the enculturation process. Pearce, Levi-Strauss, Bateson, Boyer and Walsh, representing a large range of perspectives, essentially are argtiing that it is more instructive to begin with the assumption that all humans are potential geniusses than to begin with the contrary reactionary proposition. If a human fails to perform in optimum modes we must systematically seek causation and not superstitiously ascribe that failure to "evil spirits" residing in his genes. PROPOSITION 2. IS THE UNIVERSE ORDERLY OR DISORDERLY? Children begin inventing games from birth to generate and test their theories of how the universe operates. Recent observations of the new-born child suggest that we must revise our views of the infant's abilities to reason about his universe. Newsweek reported (January 12, 1981 ) that "The child may recognize causality not because he learns it from experience or

because he reasons it out by pure thought. Rather, he seems to use intuition: he can see only relationships that fit intuitive categories already in his mind (at birth). Causality is one of those categories." The uppermost question that appears to be in the child's mind is not "is this event caused?" but rather, "What is the nature of the thing that caused this event?" The child apparently is "wired" to learn to experiment and hypothesize immediately from birth, and thus to seek causation for everything. Is it this genetic "pre-wiring" to experiment, to find causation, that "compels" all children to play? Harvard psychologist Kagan (Newsweek, January 12, 1981) argued that "infants are born with a set of dispositions to see the world in a certain way." They are also apparently born to manipulate that world so that they can abstract theories about it. Thus the first "rule" of the universe that the child apparently learns from the game of Peek-a-boo is the rule of bonding: The universe loves him. After Peek-a-boo, we can observe the evolution of playful experimentation almost constantly manifest in children. Children will push or pull or manipulate objects in a large repertory of movements to try to discover their natures. This propensity for children to invent games to test their hypotheses about the universe can be seen whenever infants or children are placed near adults, near water, near balls, near animals, near a moving object, or near other children. Pieter Bruegel brilliantly captured this cultural universal, the children's will to play, in his painting, "Children's Games", 1559-60. (The painting hangs at the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna, and is widely reproduced. For example, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. IV, "Children's Sports and Games".) Pieter Bruegel's painting contains at least 78 children's games, 32 of which the Encyclopedia Britannica identifies and nearly all of which have survived over these 422 years.*

* Some of those identified by the Encyclopedia Britannica, will be classified in a subsequent section of this article.

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Bruegel was echoed in the twentieth century by a remarkably dissimilar personality type: Physics Professor Richard Feynmann of the California Institute of Technology. Professor Feynmann reportedly attempts to disarm his 180 apprehensive first year Caltech s t u d e n t s - - a l l of whom must be very very bright to enter that elite institution--that they should not worry about learning physics since he himself learned 95% of his physics before he entered school. The students of course laugh since they assume that he is joking. Is he?

or more psycho-motor intellectual skill.

or

social

or

No ethnographic study has reported an absence of children's games in any society. However, not all ethnographic studies have reported the presence of chidren's games. But, in general, the present cross-cultural repertory of children's games is almost limitless even before the advent of electronic games and before educators will have developed a theory of games to inform ethnographers' recordings of cultures. A few cxamplcs might be instructive:

If one looks at the table of contents of Professor Feynmann's three-volume Lectures in Physics, one counts about 200 basic physics ideas. Then, if one glances at Bruegel's games and analyzes those games one notes that Feynmann was not joking at all. From the hoop, for example, (and Bruegel offers us two to look at in the foreground) children discover or "play with" or have reinforced in their minds the "laws" of inertia, momentum, centrifugal force, friction, gravity, equilibrium, etc. One may test this fact by giving a child a metal hoop one day, and let the child play with it. If one then bends the hoop while the child is not watching, the next day, before he starts to play with the hoop, the child will straighten out the hoop. In straightening the hoop before he starts to play with it the child will demonstrate that he learned in a few minutes of play a fundamental principle of physics: "The efficiency of a wheel depends upon all radii being of equal length." No one will have lectured the child on this, nor given him the relevant mathematical theorems. He will have independently arrived at this "law of the universe" by experimentation or, in children's version of experimentation, in play. Physics Professor Feynmann and Artist Pieter Bruegel articulate the same law of children's learning: they learn in play. PROPOSITION 3. LIMITED OR LIMITLESS? There are an unlimited set of children's games in human cultures which teach one 32

Hocart (1909) describes two Fijian games but makes no mention of an older. more widespread and more mathematical Polynesian game, Four Cowries. The games that Hocart described were Fitshin, similar to Spilikins (wooden needles, the 'pick-up-sticks" games) and Veinbuka, a running tag game. What Hocart did not see (because, we might assume, he had no developed theory of games to guide his observations) were pedogogically much more important: Four Cowries, or "Shells". Four Cowries ("Shells") is, as the name implies, played with four cowries. Two children alternate. The shells are tossed and if all four turn up one gains eight points, if all 4 turn down one gains 4 points. Then, using one's finger one flicks one with another and if a third is not touched or disturbed one gains 1 point. When more than one shell is disturbed the turn passes to the other player. The first player reaching a designated numerical goal wins. It is fascinating to watch 5-to 6-year old Fijian boys playing the game. They will "fully" understand the geometry of 'straight lines." Africa, India and China similarly offer a wealth of competitive games. Kalah (variously: Wari, or Ayo or Wawo in Africa; Sung-ka in the Philippines) is a very ancient game that has survived mainly in Africa and the Philippines, but which Haggerty (1979) says is 7,000 years old, and has been continuously played on three continents. Children

and adults play the game from a very early age, sometimes 3 or 4 years. The game involves moving counters, usually 48 hard seeds, around 12 holes. The play is too complex to describe here. However, Haggerty argues that the game is "the best all around teaching aid in the country" since it "develops intuitive decision making", "confirms and structures the habits of moving from left to right as in reading and writing", teaches all the basic mathematical operations, and involves 'pure reason."

grades how to translate from one number system to another. For example, from base 10 (the way most cultures normally count; that is, after reaching ten, we start over) to base 4 or base 2 or binary systems of counting. But if one were to give a test to those children who for up to two weeks will have studied the methods of translating from one system to another, fewer than 25% will remember such methods. And even fewer will know why such skills and concepts are taught at all.

My own experiences in Nigeria where I served as the principal of the Advanced Teacher Training College at Port Harcourt, support the above judgment. The student who most impressed the head of mathematics at that college came from a family that lived near Onitsha on the Niger River. No one of the older generation in his family could read or write. Yet the student made As in all his courses, including mathematics and physics. And when asked to produce a proof of an algebraic theorem, that student produced, according to the London U n i v e r s i t y - trained Ph.D., one that was superior to the proof offered by the author of the textbook and also superior to the lecturer's. The student had played Kalah (Ayo) as a child and thereby mastered, and lost any fear of, basic mathematical ideas.

An Ancient Game Solves that Problem

It should also be noted parenthetically that African middle-class children who will have played Kalah, generally, will outscore their Afro-American counterparts in mathematical abilities. Such comparisons will tend to refute some genetic arguments about AfroAmericans' mathematical abilities and suggest alternative hypotheses to explain the relatively poorer performance of American blacks on mathematical tests. PROPOSITION 4. T H R O U G H LECTURES OR T H R O U G H GAMES? An unlimited set of games have evolved in human cultures, and most teach an important intellectual skill. Children throughout the world now are being taught in the middle or upper primary

NIM is an ancient game that beautifully solves that problem. NIM is played in most parts of the world and is so old that its origins are lost. But NIM has one supreme virtue. With NIM, an eight year old child can learn how to translate painlessly, playfully, in about 5 minutes, from the decimal (base 10) system of counting to the binary system of counting. And after he will have learned how to win when the problem is easy, he will normally want to understand the "theory" behind the winning strategy so that he can always win, regardless of how large the number of objects is. Usually, that development takes place after a few minutes of play. When that natural curiosity matures, the theory can be taught in less than 10 minutes. Following that ten minutes of theory, all the "drilling" necessary to perfect the skill of translating from decimal to binary systems of counting will voluntarily take place in a "fun game", in play. N1M: The rules: The reader who is unfamiliar with NIM can easily understand the game. NIM is often played with matches or coins in parlors or bars or tearooms. Matches (or any counters) are arranged in two or more piles. The piles may contain any number of the objects. The rules are very simple:

(1) A player may remove 1 or 2, or more, up to all, of the objects from one (and from only ONE) pile. (2) The players (traditionally, only two players) alternate in taking one or more 33

objects from any one pile. must take his turn.)

also know the theory) one must simply bc able to translate from the decimal (base 10) system of counting to the binary system of counting; and, be able to add. If one finds a "1" in the total of the binary numbers, the array is 'unsafe'. One must then change the array so that only "2's" or "0's'" appear in the total, so that the array will be "safe". Any "unsafe" array can be made "safe": anti any move of a "safe" array makes the array "unsafe".

(A player

(3) The player removing the last object wins. (Most readers will not understand the pleasure of the game from merely reading this description and these rules. Before proceeding it is suggested that the reader find a partner, anyone over age six, to. learn or to review the virtues of this game. Most people can master the basic game in less than ten minutes of play.)

Six to eight year old children, after playing the game for a few times, will easily learn how to make the necessary translations:

The theory says that in order to win all the time (providing the opponent does not Decimal 0

=

1

=

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

= = -= = = --

Binary 0 1

10 11 100 101 110 111 1000

For example, suppose the array is a pile containing 3 objects and a pile containing 2 objects. The player whose turn it is has a problem: Decimal Problem:

Solution:

3 +2

2 +2

Binary

-=

= =

This very simple game prepares children for a higher mental skill, translation from one number system to another. Such skills enjoyably prepare children for the cybernetic age, the age of the computer, since all major 34

11 10 21

(Unsafe! because a "1" appears in the total of the binary equivalent. )

10 +10

(The pile of 3 must become a pile of 2)

2O

(Safe! because no "1" appears in the total of the binary equivalent. No way to lose.)

computers use the binary system of counting and representation because of its simplicity and relative infallibility. (But for ordinary computation the binary system is much too cumbersome.) Electrically, human brain cells

also operate on the binary (on or off) principle for signalling, for receiving, or storing, or transmitting information. Consequently, children who will have mastered the game of NIM will also have a 'head-start' when concepts relating to neurophysiology or logic or advanced communications theories are raised. And by the principle of "transfer of learning" the game makes any child potentially more intelligent. Two other interesting aspects of NIM: It was invented long before its "practical uses" were discovered; and, the game is easily adapted to teaching translating from any one system of numeration to any other system.

A Literary Counterpart to N1M The Japanese have a literary game "that is played traditionally but once a year, New Year's Day. The phrases of classical and famous poems are printed on cards and randomly placed on a table. One player starts reciting a poem. The other player who knows the following phrase picks up the appropriate card. The game continues until all the phrases have been won and claimed. The player with the most cards wins. Most cultures seem to have invented an endless number of such games. When one analyzes such seemingly pleasurable games as NIM or Hoops or the Japanese New Year Poetry game one discovers a large number of intellectual skills hidden in thesc games, which skills seem to have the potential to enrich all human cultures. With an endless repertory of such games spanning every domain of human behaviour, one wonders why any classroom should be a boring place. PROPOSITION 5. IN EXPERIMENT OR IN LECTURES; VIA PLAY OR VIA BOOKS? Many scientific, mathematical or social concepts can be more effectively taught in play and games than in words. In mathematics, the creation of new knoxvlcdgc and new ideas condenses and

distills to about 1,500 abstracted pages per year, or about 7 to 8 essentially new ideas per every school day. Yet school children are fortunate if they learn one new (to them) idea per day. At the current rate, then, the child will be further from the frontiers of mathematical knowledge when he leaves school than he was when he entered. It is difficult to see how this paradox can be resolved through added class time since all other disciplines are similarly advancing. In games, however, a way out of the problem can be found. N,IM, above, serves as one example. In seminars where t present the idea of NIM for the first time, even the brightest students or adults fail to grasp the rules, much less the idea and implications, from a single verbal explanation. But when a demonstration occurs the idea is grasped easily. And never does it take more than 5 minutes for an average person to grasp the idea, if the learner actually plays the game. It takes about two to five times as long if the learner passively watches, and longer if the learner reads the rules and theory. Another example is a game I call "Einsteinian Space." Imagine a rubber or elastic sheet with parallel lines running length wise. Four children stretch the sheet by holding one corner each. The fifth "player" puts a heavy ball in the center thus warping the space. He now rolls a lighter ball down the sheet. If he can roll the ball the entire length of the playing surface of the sheet (about 6 inches from the end) without falling "out of space" and without falling into the "Black Hole" he continues to roll. The player making the most rolls wins. The game is simple, easy, and, at certain ages and conditions even fun. But the important thing is that a child who plays the game learns a considerable amount about Einstein's views of gravity. I know of no scientific concept that cannot be taught via some sort of game. However, Bright and colleagues (1977) confessed that up until five years ago the study of games as instruments of the learning process "had been neither thorough nor systematic." 35

But if we understand Bruner (1964) and accept his idea "that any subject can be taught to anybody at any age in some form that is honest" (p. 108) then we must rule out the typical university or university preparatory type lecture as the preferred mode of teaching. For demonstrably, in most disciplines verbal instructions is the least efficient of all the forty or so methods of instruction identified by Henry (1960) from his analyses of crosscultural ethnographic studies. Bruner can be understood and implemented, then, in the Bateson sense that each mind is "wired" to comprehend what any other mind can comprehend, but not necessarily via the same method or in the same time periods. Each individual will have his own unique style of comprehending the universe. And of all the methods of comprehending, play is the most universal. Einstein used to invent playful analogies to teach himself about space. For example, to comprehend the speed limit(s) of light Einstein used to "race" trucks, in his imagination, across empty space, at the 'speed limit". Not one of Einstein's "gedunken plays", as he called them, is beyond the comprehension of any child. Perhaps, however, if this proposition, that many scientific concepts can be taught in play, is accepted it will be necessary for educators and others to invent many new games. PROPOSITION 6. "NOW OR NEVER?" The Readiness Factor or the Sensitive Moment Factor is operating to determine when a game should be introduced to a child. Toy manufacturers discovered long ago that children are always "ready" for moving toys. But that fact often obscures a much more sensitive fact: children are ready for different toys or games at different developmental stages. I once introduced Kalah to a six year old boy who thereafter refused to be separated from the game. But on another occasion we invitcd some parents to lunch and asked them to bring their five and one-half year old along to learn Kalah. Even though the child was 36

bright, he was not interested in the game. I introduced it to him before he was ready. (If his older sibblings had played the game, the story might have been different.) It is nearly always difficult to predict exactly when a child will be 'ready" for a particular intellectual experience. However. the difficulty of making that assessment must not obscure the critical need for the child to experience certain basic problems--social. psycho-motor, intellectual-- at the appropriate sensitive period. If, for example, a child does not play with blocks (artificial bricks in Bruegel) at some age before 8, that child is very unlikely to develop the three-dimensional, spatial relations comprehending skills necessary to become a competent architect or engineer or builder or surgeon, or another sort of profession where abilities to "see" in three dimensions are important. The factor of "readiness" has long been recognized by educators. However, the term 'readiness", has implied an irreversible stage from whence learning can take place at any time. But the reasoning by Bateson (1969) and Thorpe (1961) appear to suggest that "readiness" is an imprecise term for certain abilities or experiences. Both suggested a more accurate term, "sensitive p e r i o d " - - a term earlier used in the same restricting manner by Montessori (Standing, 1962, p . l l 8 ) and invented by the Dutch biologist, DeVries. Bateson, for example, writes, "One of the most striking features of imprinting is its apparent restriction to a sensitive period early in the life cycle . . . . What is more, the effects of most reinforcing stimuli are confined to limited periods which occur as a result of short-term fluctuations in the physiological state of the (being)." (p. 113). And Bateson goes on, "It is reasonable to distinguish, as Thorpe has done, between periods of sensitivity occurring at many stages throughout the life cycle and periods that occur only once." And Standing w r o t e " . . .

But the distinguishing feature of growth during a sensitive period is that an irresistible impulse urges the organism to select only certain elements in its environment, and for a definite and limited time." (Standing, p. 119.) Dr Montessori (1966, p. 38) states, "A sensitive period refers to a special sensibility which a creature acquires in its infantile state, while it is still in a process of evolution. It is a transient disposition . . . . "

be that it is "now or never." And "now" may be a very brief period in the child's mental evolution.

The implication that some sensitive periods occur many times or may be of great length may explain why almost everyone "masters" his language; and the fact some sensitive periods occur only once and briefly might explain, the seemingly "accidential" advent of a Mozart or Einstein. Was one of Einstein's brief sensitive periods luckily synchronized with a gift of a compass? Was Newton's story about the fortuitous fall of an apple a signal from his unconscious mind that certain problems are, in fact, triggered by seemingly trivial events, but events occurring at critically sensitive moments?

Children are not passive before the universe. If they were merely mental sponges designed to absorb the culture, there would be no need for the complex mental circuitry evident in every child. Children appear to be "wired", neurologically designed, to learn independently, to form hypotheses independently and to test those hypotheses by active manipulation. The human brain seems "wired" to go through a large number of future paradigm shifts. We are not as we shall be.*

One might generalize and say that before age six no child is "ready" for a lecture, but every child is always "ready" to experiment, to play. Montessori intuitively seemed to have understood the necessity to take some precautions so that fewer "Einsteins" or "Mozarts" are lost: Have all possible experiences available within the child's environment so that when that brief but crucial sensitive period occurs, the child itself will take the initiative to synchronize that sensitivity with an appropriate learning experience. For such learning or reinforcement there are no better known devices than games. Moreover, the assessment of "sensitive period" or "readiness" is intensely non-threatening. In Bruegel's 'playground" there are no borders. Even the walls and fences are clearly open and encouraging to children's flow from one experience to another. For certain types of geniusses it may well

PROPOSITION 7. TO KNOW OR TO BELIEVE? Children are constantly creating testing theories n in play.

and

Interestingly, the mind equally seems wired to believe only partially (half believe, believe on faith of authority, or doubt) those current theories which it has not consciously and personally experienced. Bateson ( 1979, p. 48) worded this apparent fact in this way, "Learning leads to the overpacked mind. By return to the unlearned and mass-produced egg, the ongoing species again and again clears its memory banks to be ready for the new.' The new egg, the new embryo, new fetus, the new infant, must not exactly duplicate the learning of its parents, else evolution would be impossible. The mind teaches itself, as both Montessori and Bruner insisted, by constantly constructing theories, testing those theories and revising them. The child sees his behaviour as experimentation. The adult sees his behaviour as play. By this logic, Professor Feynmann, then, might have learned much more than 95% of his physics in the nursery, he might have learned the essence of physics there: "The test of all knowledge is experimentation."

~:' Chelton Pearce's opening sentence states this fact well: "The human mind-brain system is designed for functions radically different from and broader than its current uses." (p. 3).

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PROPOSITION 8. NOT ALL GAMES ARE EQUAL. Nor do all games require equal time to master, nor do different games unduly compete for the learner's attention. q

Before we follow this proposition to its logical conclusion we need to define games. Perhaps a helpful guide in this regard is Jean Piaget (1962, p. 142ff) who stated that "games with rules rarely occur before stage II (age 4-7) and belong mainly to the third period (age 7-11 years) of development .... play is an end in itself" (p. 147-149), "A second criterion (of games) is that of spontaneity as opposed to compulsion, i.e., voluntary", "a third criterion is that of pleasure". Most writers (Bright, 1979; Huizinga, 1950, etc.) agree with these criteria and aften add others. E.g., "outside the sphere of necessity or material utility . . . . The play mood is of rapture . . . " (Huizinga, p. 132). If the foregoing propositions are "believed" then it follows that children's games perhaps ought to be sequenced for the child's curriculum, especially in the period identified by Piaget, age 7-11 years, as that period when children seem to want to experience rules and the implications of rules. The criteria for the sequencing would follow well established curriculum principles: (a) sequenced so as to coincide with the individual's "sensitive period", (b) sequenced and allocated sufficient time so as to introduce a subject, topic or develop the skills in the subject or topic or to reinforce the knowledge required. Bright, (1977) classed these uses of games as "pre-instructional", "coinstructional" and "post-instructional (designed to disguise practice)". (c) sequenced to reflect external referents as to priority, generalizability, etc. (for example, an exercise that trained all the leg muscles might be given priority over an exercise that trained only the ankle muscles.) 38

With these criteria and with the assumption that Bruegel's "list" of 78 games was only a beginning list, I sought to find some classification system that would help teachers, parents, curriculum supervisors to ensure that each child has a "balanced diet" of games. Harris (1971) had proposed a system of classifying certain kinds of games. But his system related to only one genre of games and therefore had to be discarded for any general utility. The "father" of the systematic study of children's games, Karl Groos (1898), had urged that the issue of classifying children's games merited serious attention. Yet I could find nowhere a system of classification that would help teachers and parents to make a kind of checklist of games that every child ought to know. Groos, for example said, "While many have undertaken, by various methods, to classify human play satisfactorily, in no single case has the result been fortunate." Groos wrote that in 1898. The other major writers who appear to have seriously contemplated the same need as Groos were Huizinga (1950) and Piaget (1962). Piaget discussed the history of the classification of games at length (p. 105ff). However, he virtually dismissed those who earlier had attempted to classify games, Stern, Buhler, etc., since their categories were clearly too arbitrary or vague: "passive", "constructional", "collective", "functional", etc. But Piaget himself, while obviously aware of the value of children's games and consequently aware of the need to classify useful games, let the ball drop and apparently never picked it up again. The logic of the above propositions passes to educators the task of expanding our study of children's games so that educators and other researchers, especially psychologists and anthropologists, might continually improve our understanding of children's needs and developments by watching - them play, and by classifying that basic activity, then developing theories from those systematic observations and classifications. To initiate such a classificatory enterprise, and while keeping in mind the need for

parsimony, I think only six questions need be asked initially: (1) At what age may play of the game begin? Or, by what age is the "sensitive period" for the particular intellectual skills taught by that game likely to occur?

(2) About how many minutes are necessary to learn and play the game to a reasonable consummation?

(3) Considering priority (or the fact that there are a vast number of potential games) what would be the recommended frequency in, say, a year? (4) When should mastery be completed? Or, by what age may a child reasonably be expected to "graduate" from that particular game? (5) What is the priority of the particular game? How would a given game or play activity rate on a scale from highest (9) to lowest (0)? (6) And, mainly in what domain is the game? Psycho-motor/perceptual? Social? Verbal? Mathematical? etc. From the answers (tentative probably for a very long time) to those questions, it would then be easy to devise a classification system or curriculum code into which any children's game may fit. (See Annex 1 and 2 at the end of this paper for an illustrative example). PROPOSITION 9. IS IQ F R O M GENES OR GAMES? A child's IQ, relative intelligence, problem solving abilities, will relate directly to the number of games that that child will have mastered at the critical or sensitive periods of his life. This statement must be treated as an hypothesis rather than as a proposition since there is as yet no compelling proof. But there is some guiding evidence that should enable cducational researchers to establish or to reject this statement. A sampling of that evidence is offered. But it should be noted beforehand that there

has never been one piece of acccpted research that shows that the IQ of any individual is a fixed and unchanging entity. Indeed, the longest running study of IQ scores for a group, the so-called "Berkeley Growth Study" that followed every available white child from a stable family who was born in Berkeley, California, in the years 1928-29, showed that between the ages of six and twelve years the individual's IQ changes ranged up to 40 points. (Pinneau, 1961, p. 83). Even at age 17, the mean changes ranged up to 20 points (ibid, p. 209). Are the individual's play activities related to such variability? The man who poineercd in the study of children's games, Karl Groos, observed (1898): "Observation of men and animals forces us to recognize its (play's) great importance in the physical and mental development of the individual, that it is, in short, preparatory to the tasks of life." Groos obviously noticed that whatever behavior children perceive as being important in adult life they will translate into some form of play; or they will invent games to rehearse their life tasks. Little girls are quite articulate, even at age three, as to why they are playing with dolls, or boys in playing with fire engines. Groos' judgment as to games' importance was sanctioned by no less a person than Adler (1927) who wrote almost thirty years later: "One of the fundamental tenets of individual psychology is that all psychic phenomena can be considered as preparation for a definite goal. There is in the child's life an important phenomenon which shows very clearly the process of preparation for the future. It is play. Games are not to be considered as haphazard ideas of parents or educators, but they are to be considered as educational aids and as stimuli for the spirit, for the fantasy, and for the life-technique of the child. T h e preparation for the future can be seen in every g a m e . . . .

The discovery of these facts which teach us that the play of children is to be considered as preparation for the future is due to Groos, a professor of pedagogy. (My italics.) 39

"Above all else games are communal exercises; they enable the child to satisfy and fulfill his social feeling. " . . . Play is indivisibly connected with the soul. It is, so to speak, a kind of profession. Therefore, it is not an insignificant matter to disturb a child in his p l a y . . . Every child has in him something of the adult he will be at some time." The only remaining question in this logical problem of tying IQ to games is "Do IQ tests reflect the real tasks of life?, Reality?" Almy ( 1 9 6 6 ) , in summarising an essential part of Piaget's findings wrote, "Piaget's work would suggest that children who have had many opportunities to classify objects on the basis of similar properties or to order along dimensions of difference, or better, opportunities of both kinds, might arrive at the level of operational thought sooner than children who have not had such opportunities." This cognitive skill, the classifying of objects, will appear on virtually every IQ test. And obviously children who will have practiced that skill, whether with colored blocks or coins or symbols or photographs or with actual animals and plants, will score higher than children who will not have had as extensive experiences with such mental sports or games. Are such skills that IQ tests measure of "practical use"? A cross-cultural study of societies reveals that it is of survival importance that humans learn to classify plants --many are p o i s o n o u s - - o r animals or medicines, etc. In looking at games, Bruner (1966) took us conceptually one step beyond Groos to the level of theory, to abstraction, where a specific solution to a specific problem is generalized to the level of predictive understanding, that ability we call the "rational faculty," the preeminently human faculty:

"A game is like a mathematical model. an artificial but powerful representation of reality. Games go a long way to getting children involved in understanding language, social organization, and the rest; they also introduce the idea of a theory to these phenomena." This remarkable statement, so far largely unresearched or untested insofar as I know, served as a guiding hypothesis for seventeen of my students at the University of the South Pacific who wanted to find out how much they could improve the thinking abilities of young children (age 51/2 to 6J/2 years) in Suva, Fiji, via games and other devices. The students accepted IQ scores as the most accurate current measure of thinking abilities. In effect, the students asked, "How much can we boost IQ scores through games or oth'cr measures?" Each student, actually an in-service teacher with an average of 14 years experience in the public schools systems of Fiji or Tonga or The Solomon Islands, devised a single strategy to improve a child's IQ. Two traditional types of IQ tests (Maxwell's Child's Intellectual Progess Scale ( C H I P S ) ; and Richmond's and Kicklighter's Children's Adaptive Behavior Scale ( C A B S ) * were administered to 425 children in 17 classrooms in the Suva, Fiji, area. Four of the children in each classrom were then randomly selected to undergo the previously decided treatment. The treatment took place over a 6-week to 8-week period. Another researcher posttested the classroom without knowing which of the pupils had been in the "experimental group" of 4 and which were in the "control group", the balance. The results are presented in Table 3.

* MAXWELL'SCHIPS IQ test is similar to the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test but with some added sections: pattern analysis, verbal analogies, mathematical computations, etc. This test has ten(10) timed sections. Richmond and Kicklighter who are at the University of Georgia designed their test (CABS) to measure essentially social adaptable behaviour among children requiring special education. Some examples: "Name something that (a) you can eat; (b) you can drink; (c) you can ride in or on; (d) is round . . . What is your address? . . . Where could you find a doctor?" etc. This test has five sections: Language Development, Independent Functioning, Family Role Performance, Economic Vocational Activity, and Socialization. 40

Table 3

1Q change in randondy selected first grade pupils (Age 5V2 to 61/2 years) who underwent special Treatment over a six to eight week period in Suva, Fiji (July-Ocober, 1980)

Nr. in. Exper. Group

Nr. in. Connrol Group

Improved diet

4

26

--4.15"*

Physician Visits

4

16

--1.6"*

Phys. Ed. Regimen

4

18

5.55

2.7

P

.001

P

.01

Excursions

4

21

5.25

27.3

P

0.001

P

.001

Excursions

4

16

7.26

m20.12

P

0.001

N.S.

Music Lessons & Educ.

4

16

6.35

14.15

P

.001

Reading Enrichment

4

16

ml.2**

--1.3"*

Reading Enrichment

4

24

9.0

8.6

P

.001

P

.001

Rcading Enrichment

4

16

9.25

14.44

P

.004

P

.001

L E G O games

4

16

Building Blocks

4

16

5.81

D5.45"*

P

.001

N.S.

General Tutoring

4

16

13.06

9.74

P

.001

P

.001

Mathematics Tutoring

4

16

11.75

11.62

P

.001

P

.001

Kalah

4

16

4.0

38.35

P

.001

P

.005

Kalah

4

16

12.70

8.3

P

.001

P

.001

Inventive Quotient

4

16

5.0

4.2

P

.00f

P

.001

Inventive Quotient

4

16

19.78

12.48

P

.001

P

.001

Treatment Method

CHANGES IN 1Q SCORES CHIPS CABS

I2.33"*

SIGNIFICANCE CHIP

CABS

--8.13"*

Not

Significant

--11.10"*

Not

Significant

m14.10**

Not

Not

P

.001

Significant

Significant

::: The standard deviation for CHIPS in this sample averaged 11.4; the standard deviation for CABS was 13.9. Both tests were previously normed so that 100 reflects average ability. '::* Significance data are not offered for negative changes. The apparent "decline" in average IQ score is attributed to errors of measurement. The post-test examiners were different from the pre-test examiners and had become more secure in testing techniques. In a seminar after the experiment some admitted to being more "strict" in the post-test situation than in the pre-test situation. These examiner variables should balance out, however, and can be statistically controlled for.

41

A brief explanation for each "Treatment Method":

(I) Improved Diet.

The experimenter consulted a nutritionist to prepare a suggested "ideal" weekly diet for school child. The family was advised, generally, how to follow the diet via weekly visits. E.g., reduce the carbohydrate intake.

(2) Physician

Visits. The children were taken to a physician who agreed to take part in the experiment. All children were thoroughly examined. But only one of the four required a prescription.

(3) Physical Education Regime. This involved calisthenics and various breathing and physical exercises. (4) Excursions included visits to a botanical garden, an aquarium, the local airport, a local cultural centre, the university Industrial Arts workshop, etc., with preview and review discussion of each visit. Each visit amounted to nearly hall a day, one day per week

(5) Music

Lessons. Lessons in singing, instrumental music with record listening and visits to various musical events.

(6) Reading Enrichment. In one instance, five separate exercises comprised each lesson, "picture excursion, nursery rhymes, fables, story, and games and puzzles" from the reading. For example, "A fable (was) read each day and a few questions followed."

(7) Lego Games.

This commercial "building block" set of games was introduced and played with the children on a daily basis for about 20 to 30 minutes.

(8) Building Blocks. The play was both structured and unstructured. (9) General tutoring exercises covered all subjects being studied in the regular classroom.

(1 O) Mathematics Tutoring exercises involved the lessons recently covered or being 42

covered in the regular classroom. tutor was a mathematics major.

The

(11) The

Commercial version of Kalah, SPACE WAWO, Copyright: The I.Q. Company, Suva, Fiji, was used. This version uses counters of six different colors to teach other concepts in addition to mathematical ones. For example, the concept of life where each colored counter represents a component of "life'" blue equals water, red equals a metal. e t c . - - or astronomical conceots where the different colors represent bodies in a solar system.

(12) The game "Inventive Quotient" uses cards with regular playing cards symbols (Spades, Hearts, etc.) plus seven additional independent variables (alphabet; degree symbols; integers; exponential numbers, base 2 and base 10; arithmetic signs; symbols for the two sexes and for 13 of the major constellations; and four colors) to play up to 40 kinds of IQ improving games, sorting games, mathmatical games, inductive reasoning games, etc. Inventive Quotient was developed by the author. The various games are not considered as "practice" for any particular IQ test. Each treatment method was by a different researcher. The evidence from those 17 experiments will not be compelling for some of the usual experimental reasons: The data were gathered by inexperienced researchers; the experiments did not rigorously control for the Hawthorne experimenter effect nor for the usual fluctuations in children's IQ scores; the experiments have yet to be replicated by a disinterested set of researchers; and the sample was restricted in size by time constraints, i.e., the testing and the "treatment" took considerable time for each pupil. Nevertheless, the evidence is somewhat persuasive. The post-testing by a "blind" examiner, i.e., one who did not know which child had undergone treatment, was conducted immediately after the treatment. The data were checked by three psychologists, a statistician and this author, statistical significance tests were conducted, and the Pygmalion Effect was controlled for.

The short-term nature of the experiments should not generate unwarranted comparisons. For example, IQ can not be measured accurately in a child with nutritional or systemic health problems; different "reading enrichment" activities plus different personalities offering that "reading enrichment" had different results. The sample sizes were not large enough to conduct analyses ot co-variance or to conduct a thorough factor analysis of the different results. However tentative these data are, they do suggest that for children age 51//2 to 6½ years of age, IQ increases of at least one half of a deviation, 8 points or more, can be expected from expert tutoring or expertly guided reading enrichment. And it may be true that at these ages (51/2 to 61/2 years) the greatest IQ gains may come from several types of educational games, if the treatment averages about 30 minutes a day for four to six days per week, for at least six weeks. These findings would not warrant the conclusion that play and play alone is superior to traditional "cognitive type" lessons in language and mathematics for improving a child's mental functioning. The findings do, however, support the proposition that the play of some intellectually stimulating games as a part of the curriculum may have salient cognitive effects. Indeed the Philippines seem to have anticipated such findings by encouraging all their primary school pupils to learn and play Chess so as to develop their abilities to concentrate and to solve logical problems. And the November 10, 1980, issue of the Jerusalem Post carried a news story of even more far reaching import. The story stated that the Minister for the Development of Intelligence of the Government of Venezuela promised the beginning of the "biggest transformation of humanity in all of history" because he said,

"every mother in Venezuela will soon consciously aim to increase the level of her child's intelligence." And, according to the reporter, "starting ncxt school year, ( 1981 ) all Venezuelan kindergartens and schools will devote onc hour a day from 10 a.m. to I 1 a.m., five days a week, to teaching children 'how to t h i n k - - i n creative, critical and dialectical ways,' said Machado". It is understood that part of this "Thinking hour" will involve games. And finally, "Machado said that he believed the human I Q - - ' a very crude measure of intelligence'--could bc raised by up to 30 points." (A similar story on Venezuela's Dr Machado appeared on the editorial page of the New York Times, February 22, 1981.) The observations of educators such as Groos, of psychologists such as Bruner, and the preliminary researches of the University of the South Pacific students support Minister Dr Machado's ambitions and predict that the probabilities are very high that Venezuela will succeed. The speed of the shift toward intellectually refining the mind of every human being is visibly accelerating. Games in the curriculum will be important tools in that conscious endeavor to find and to develop the "talents and faculties" of every human. I believe that we educators need a larger, on-going experiment: make play central in the curriculum for children age 7-11 years, for at least one hour every school day. The inescapable hypothesis would be that where that play is somewhat structured and wellplanned the childen's IQ will measurably be increased.

43

L'ENFANCE.ET LES JEUX: COMMENT CEUX-CI PEUVENT D E V E L O P P E R L'INTELLIGENCE

Aper~u D'apr~s cette communication, les jeux tiennent une place consid6rable dans le d6veloppement des capacit~s intellectuelles, et ne se voient accorder qu'une importance insuffisante dans les programmes scolaires. Neuf possibilit6s sont propos~es h l'appui de cette assertion. Une des id6es makresses serait de classer !es jeux par cat6gories, suivant leur utilit6; ce classement s'accompagnerait d'un code num6rique indiquant, pour chaque jeu, sa cat6gorie et le 'rang' qu'il y occupe. Ajoutons que cet expose, rapporte les constatations qu'ont permises jusqu'ici des recherches pr61iminaires et rudimentaires; il en ressort que l'usage systdmatique des jeux peut avoir une influence comparable 5 celle de l'instruction elle-m~me, et modifier le total des points lors des tests d'intelligence.

Jugos de nifios: ~C6mo pueden ayudar al desarrollo del intelecto? Este articulo mantiene que los juegos son poderosos motivadores de la habilidad intelectual y que se hace poco uso de ellos en los programas escolares. E1 articulista ofrece nueve proposiciones en apoyo de su tesis. Explora las posibilidades de clasificaci6n de los juegos en categorlas basadas en su utilidad y sugiere un c6digo num6rico para indicar, a la vez, categoria y rango dentro de una categoria dada. Finalmente, se presentan los resultados de algunas investigaciones, todavia en estado preliminary rudimentario, para indicar que el uso sistem~itico de la actividad lfidica puede influir tanto comola instrucci6n sistemfitica en la mejora de los resultados de los tests de inteligencia.

44

REFERENCES: Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature.

Greenwich, Conn.:

Millie Almy, et al, Young People's Thinking.

New York: Teachers College Press, 1966.

Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature:

A Necessary Unity.

Fawcett, 1927.

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.

P.P.G. Bateson, "Imprinting and the Development of Preferences" in Anthony Ambrose (Ed.), Stimulation in Early Infancy. London: Academic Press, 1969. William A. Boyer & Paul Walsh, "Are Children Born Equal?" 19, 1968.

Saturday Review.

October

George W. Bright, et al, "Cognitive Effects of Games on Mathematics Learning" (Eric File Nr. 166-007, 1979.) A Revision of a paper presented at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Cincinnati, 1977. Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 4, "Children's Sports and Games." Jerome S. Bruner, On Knowing: Essays ]or the Left Hand. Press, 1964. Karl Groos, The Play of Man.

Cambridge: Harvard University

New York: Appleton, 1901.

James B. Haggerty, " K a l a h - An Ancient Game of Mathematical Skill" in Seaton E. Smith, Jr. and Carl A. Beckman (Eds.), Readings from the Arithmetic Teacher. Washington: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1979. Richard J. Harris, "An Interval Scale Classification System for all 2 )< 2 Games," Paper presented at the annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, 1971. (Eric File Ed 055 114). Jules Henry, "A Cross-Cultural Outline of Education", Current Anthropology, Volume 1, No. 4, 1960. Darwin A. Hindman, Complete Book of Games and Stunts, Englewood: Prentice Hall, 1956. A.M. Hocart, "Two Fijian Games," Man Vol. 9, 1909. pp. 184-5. J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. 1950.

Boston: Beacon Press.

Kaoru Iwamoto, Go for Beginners. New York: Pantheon, 1972. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure o] Scientific Revolutions. Press, 1970.

Chicago: University of Chicago

F. Lowenthal, "Play, Graphic Analysis of Games, and Logic of Learning" Revue Beige de psychologie et de pedagogie. Vol. 39, 1977. Marie Montessori, The Secret oJ Childhood. (M.J. Costelloe, S.J., Tr.) New York: Ballantine, 1972. 45

Chelton Pearce, Magical Child.

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977.

Jean Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitations in Childhood. Trs.) New York: Norton Library, 1962. Samuel R. Pinneau, Changes in Intelligence Quotient. John Scarne, Encyclopedia oJ Games. Brian Sutton-Smith, Child's Play.

New York:

(C. Gattegno & F.M. Hodgson,

Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

1961.

Harper and Row, 1973.

New York: John Wiley, 1971.

Herman Spitz, "The Universal Nature of Human Intelligence: Evidence from Games." INTELLIGENCE. Vol. 2, Nr. 4, (Oct.), 1978. E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work. New York: New American Library., 1957. W.H. Thorpe, "Sensitive Periods in the Behavior of Animals and Men: A study of imprinting with special reference to the induction of cyclic behavior." In W.H. Thorpe and D.L. Zangwell (Eds.), Current Problems in Animal Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge Universtiy Press, 1961.

46

Annex 1

A Proposed Curriculum Code for Children's Games and Sports.

First two digits:

Age in months when play of game may or should begin. ( 0 0 - 84)

Second two digits:

Recommended minutes per session. (01 - - 30)

Third two digits:

Frequency 11 -12-16-17 -19---

Fourth two digits:

Age in years when basic mastery should have been completed. ( 0 0 - - 1 5 ) (Thereafter, play is for pure amusement, or for social purposes, i.e., not in the curriculum.)

Ninth dight:

P R I O R I T Y in the curriculum:

(approximately): 1 time per year 1 time per season 1 time per month 1 time per week 1 time per day until mastery. 26 = twice per month, etc.

0 - - n o t recommended, but may be useful. 1 -- low priority. 9 --- highest priority. Tenth dight:

Developmental domain: 0 - - m a i n l y perceptual or psycho-motor 1 -----mainly social 2 = mainly mental agility 3 -- mainly verbal 4 = mainly arithmetical or mathematical 5 = mainly spatial or 3-dimensional 6 = mainly clerical or commercial 7 = mainly scientific or technical 8 - - mainly abstract reasoning or problem solving 9 = combination of two or more of above.

EXAMPLE: NIM:

66-06-17-08-94. 6 6 - - P l a y should begin at about 66 months ( 5 ½ years). 06 ---- 6 minutes per day should be sufficient. 17 -- About once per week until mastery is recommended 08 = Age in years when mastery should have been attained. 9 = Highest priority in curriculum. 4 - - I n d i c a t e s that the game is mainly mathematical.

47

A few more examples of classifying classical children's games identified by Bruegel and others are shown in Annex 2: Annex 2 Classifying some Classical ChiMren's Games According to the Proposed Curriculum Code.

More Information

1. Backgammon

Scarne

high

reed.

84-20-17-11-78

2. Base

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

low

high

48-10-17-07-60

3. Blind Man's Buff

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

reed.

high

45-10-16-07-60

4. Bowling hoops

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high

high

48-10-16-07-97

5. Building with Bricks

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high

high

18-10-19-12-97

6. Charades

Hindman

high

high

66-20-12-15-83

7. Checkers

Scame

reed.

med.

60-15-17-09-82

8. Chess

Scarne

high

low

60-15-17-15-98

9. Crack-the-whip

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

med.

high

54-10-16-09-70

10. Dominoes

Scarne

high

high

84-15-17-13-84

11. Four Cowries

This article

high

high

60-10-17-07-64

12. Go (Wei-chi)

Iwamoto

high

med.

72-15-17-15-88

13. Hide and Seek

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

med.

high

42-10-16-07-90

14. King of the Mountain

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

med.

med.

54-10-12-08-00

15. Kites

Hindman

high

med.

60-20-32-12-97

16. Leapfrog

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

med.

med.

64-10-22-09-70

17. Marbles

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high

high

45-15-27-09-97

18. Nim

This article

high

high

66-06-17-08-94

19. Peek-a-boo

(Universal) Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high high

high high

00-01-17-08-94 54-15-27-15-96

21. Playing with Dolls

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high

high

30-15-27-09-91

22. Kalah

Haggerty

high

high

54-15-19-15-94

23. Tick-tack-to

Hindman

med.

med.

60-10-16-07-88

24. Whipping Tops

Bruegel, Ency. Brit.

high

med.

40-15-32-09-97

Name of Game

48

Proposed Curriculum Code Classi[~cation

Author's Estimate of 1Q Social Value Value