A Relay Race for Everyone
Angela is a second-grade teacher who long ago learned that each year would require careful observation of the children’s development into the concrete operational stage. This not only applied to the cognitive aspects of learning, but to playing games as well. Relay races seemed the best way to introduce children to games with rules because there was enough noisy activity involved that those who cared about rules could obey them and those who didn’t could avoid them.
Here is how it was usually set up: Having announced what the relays would include—usually hopping, skipping, backwards running, and forward running—Angela laid out just a few clear rules to remember. There was a clearly marked starting line and a traffic cone at the far end for turning around. Teams were evenly divided, both in numbers and by gender.
And here is how it usually worked out: Children newly interested in rules monitored their line to be sure no one got in the wrong place. They visually checked the far end to be sure that people went all the way around the traffic cones. The children who were not ready for games with rules had more trouble remembering if they were supposed to hop, skip, or run, but the “monitors” always knew and would yell corrections. At the end of the relays, those interested in rules were also interested in which team had won. The other children expressed little interest.
Angela found that every year the entire experience was the same. The only difference was in when she sensed the children were ready to move into games with rules. The earliest was the second month of school; the latest—a particularly difficult year for children socially—the end of the eighth month.