Remember text books?
Remember all those math problems & reading comprehension questions? I know all that took place, but I don’t remember actually doing it. Now, try to remember the last board game you played. To make it easier, try to remember 1 that you won. I hope you can at least remember the winning move. Maybe you can remember what led up to it, like a turning point in the game. Now, tell me if you were learning during the playing experience.
“Learning is not necessarily in the outcomes, as much as it is part of the process of playing” (Bayeck). Whether you win or lose a game, you are still learning. Conventional academic learning relies on test performance to determine if & how much a student learned during the course of class. “Is this going to be on the test?,” I’ve heard asked from elementary school to college. The question seems to imply if it isn’t being tested, then it isn’t worth learning. We are constantly learning. Schools, in all their benefit to society, have nearly monopolized the commodity of education. The most powerful & necessary gift we can give to our children is an education. This good intention may lead many to believe the only path to that is through the institution of college. Is it too naive to consider that an alternative route to getting our young ones intellectually & socially developed could be allowing more time to play games?
This could be 1 of Robert Frost’s ‘roads less traveled.’ I read that in the 4th grade, so not dismissing what I’ve learned at school.
Every turn is a chance to learn. You can test a new strategy or refine an old 1. You can gauge the range of anticipated opponents’ responses. You can stumble upon hidden treasure if you aren’t too afraid to explore. The elements of suspense & emotional investment attached to the outcome are fertile ground for planting seeds of knowledge. A healthy playing environment with friends & family is the sunshine that leads to growth.
The standard conditions of academic learning may be less optimal. The pressure of the inevitable final exam stresses every lesson. Learning optimizes when attached to a core memory. The core memories of school are often disassociated from. When I was asked growing up by my parents “What did you learn at school today?,” I would honestly go blank. The core memories of games are often hardwired into us from the abundance of high-interest critical moments. Every moment can swing a game, so every moment is a chance to learn something new.
Music is composed of the notes played just as much as the time between them. A good game has this in common with good songs. The time between your turns can have as much or more importance as the time playing them. It takes patience to understand this resource.