Evolution of Playground Games - page 1
Keywords: Playground, Games, Playground Games, Folklore, Childhood, Play, School, Child's Play
By elliot5200 on 18/02/2007
Level: Bachelor Honours Degree (BA, BEng, BSc etc)
Page Number: 1 of 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Playground games are an integral part of childhood and enable children to learn important life skills through the medium of play. Many playground games are of some antiquity and were passed down through the oral tradition. Thus, many similarities can be drawn between games across regions and also across time. This essay will discuss the evolution of various playground games and similarities will be drawn between modern games and their archaic counterparts. In particular, attention will be paid to how and why playground games have changed and also, the state of these games today. To identify the evolution of playground games, I interviewed Melvyn Sinclair, who was in primary school during the 1960s, and compared his accounts with those of Daniel Sinclair, who is currently in primary school. The hypothesis for the essay is that the vast majority of playground games are now becoming darker and more violent and their traditional and innocent counterparts are dying out.
During the 1990s, when I grew up, traditional playground games tended to be more popular amongst girls, whilst the majority of boys would opt for football. This clique of football players tended to comprise mainly of the popular children, who were not really known by any particular epithet, probably because they were usually the ones who branded certain groups of people with names. However, the most popular of playground games was probably It, where a catcher would have to ‘tag’ as many players as possible, calling out ‘It’. The caught players would then also have to try and catch the remaining players.
However, the name ‘It’ appears to be a rather modern name for a game of some antiquity. The Opies (1984: 66) found that the game seems to be more traditionally known as such names as Touch or Tag. It was referred to in Brooke’s The Fool of Quality (1766): ‘they played Tagg till they were well warmed’. The game was also known as Tick in areas such as Warwickshire. There was a reference to it in Drayton’s Poly-Albion (1622): ‘The Mountaine Nymphs…doe giue each other chase, At hoode-winke, Barley-breake, at Tick, or Prison-base…’
Daniel claims that although It is played occasionally in the playground, the game, Stuck in the Mud is more popular. In this game, a volunteer has to try and catch other players and call ‘Stuck in the Mud’. The caught players have to freeze and open their legs for other
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