Teaching Games

It was the late 50s. And I was in high school. In Omaha. Central High. In a physics class. Taught by Mr. Bush. It was an experimental course, developed by the Physical Science Study Committee. I loved this course, because basically everything about it was like a game. It was play. Very focused play. We made all our own instruments: we made micrometers out of tooth picks, rubber bands and mirrors; ripple tanks out of an overhead projector, a glass tray, a couple of radio speakers and yard sticks; cool little skate wheel cars to race down inclined ramps, cloud chambers out of two bowls and some alcohol...

I remember how Mr. Bush added to the fun, weaving an aura of mystery around every experiment, challenging us, sensitizing us to the game of science, imbuing us with his sense of awe.

I still haven't forgotten the day we were about to start playing with our cloud chambers. Mr. Bush had already made one, and we were looking into it, watching these strange contrails zipping across the inside of the bowls, appearing like messages from the unknown.

Mr. Bush stopped us, then turned off the lights, opened the shades and closed the binds so that only a little daylight came into the room. We could see beams of light cross the ceiling, reflected from the windows of passing cars. We spent a couple minutes watching those familiar, yet suddenly strange patterns of light race across the ceiling. Mr. Bush, in a quiet voice, asked us if we could figure out what kinds of cars made those reflections. We laughed in shared puzzlement. And then we watched some more. I thought I recognized the shape of a Kaiser - because of its weird front window. But, of course, I couldn't really tell.

Then he added: "trying to figure out what car made that light is exactly like what scientists do when they try to understand what kind of particle made that trail in the cloud chamber." And then he was silent, letting us look at the light from the passing cars some more, wondering, experience the wonder that drives the science.

Now that was more than 50 years ago. And the experience has never left me. It gave me a model for everything the term "teaching game" could imply. The whole course, under the playful guidance of Mr. Bush, was a teaching game. We played. We learned. We played some more.

Actually, I didn't do very well in it. At least according to the tests. Yes, there were tests. This was, after all, high school. And because it was a new course, not taught before in Omaha, the tests were especially important to the curriculum developers, the PSSC. Most of us failed those tests. I was among the many. So my learning never really got measured by anything other than the love of science that was kindled in me, and the lifelong memory of those science toys we had made, and the lights from passing cars, and my understanding of what teaching could be, if we were only allowed.

But that's not precisely the meaning of Teaching Games that I want to explore here. I mean a different meaning.I mean teaching games. I mean games like checkers and ping pong and tag, and the kind of learning that happens when you teach those games. I don't even mean the kind of learning that happens when you teach people how to win a game, or master a game. I mean when you teach people how to play this game and that game and yet another game. For the fun of it. Because that's what games are: invitations to fun.

Something gets engaged in people when you teach them new games, and the dialogue is about fun. There are rules to be learned, and rules to be changed. And if the game is really new to them, they have to challenge some pretty basic assumptions about what winning means and what strategies to use. They have to think about what's fun for them. Become sensitive to their own sense of play. They have to discover the unique proposition of the game, and the fun inherent in that uniqueness. And if the game is similar to one they already know, they have to make even subtler distinctions.

See, this game is just like tag, except there's no base, and the only way you can be safe is when you're hugging someone.

And, most important, the teacher, and the player, both have to think about the fun of it all. About what's fun for them, together. And how to make the game moreso.

Here are some suggestions:

• Find a game you think you'll have fun playing together.
• Look for a game that's like a game you've already had fun playing together.
• It's especially easy to teach a game that's like a game you all already know. "This game is just like Tic Tac Toe, only you have to get 4 in a row, and you can use an X or an O."
• Start out with the shortest version of the game - the one that will take you the fewest rules to explain.
• Teach the game as though having fun together was more important than how the game is supposed to be played.
• If winning becomes too important, change sides from time to time, or make it the rule that you both can play either side, or give each side a name, and decide ahead of time which side is going to win, or play a different game - especially a game that doesn't require a lot of skill, or try a game that involves a very different skill.
• Don't stay with any one game longer than it's fun for everybody to play. Start out "tasting" the game. You don't have to play it to the end. Just play it long enough to decide whether you want to play it some more.
• If it stops being fun, stop the game and play something else. Something different. Something involving a different skill. Or no skill at all.
• Take turns teaching each other games.

Something else happens to both games teacher and games learners as they explore more new games. They start thinking not only about the fun of it, but also the shared fun that grows wider and deeper between players and teacher.

And what gets learned, just like what we learned at that physics class, is too deep to be measured. But it enriches us. Enlivens us. Engages hearts and minds and bodies.

We learn how to approach the learning of new systems, of relationships, to our minds, bodies, to each other. We learn how to create and sustain fun. How to pursue happiness together. We learn how to teach games. We learn each other.

Which is why I'm suggesting that this idea of Teaching Games is something that we might take very seriously, in deed. Something we might even take professionally.

When we teach people how to teach games, the focus is on fun. And that's what they teach when they teach games to other people: different games, but always with the focus on fun. Every meeting another game. Helping them find the games that help them find fun, together.

It's something game teachers can do this at senior centers and kindergartens, coffee shops and recreation centers, playgrounds and hospitals - engaging minds, muscles, hearts, teaching each other the arts of fun.

I'm not sure what to call this profession. Not Game Teachers, because what's really being taught is not so much games. But something deeper even than fun.

Play pals? Fun buddies? Game gurus? Magisters Ludi?