Evolution of Playground Games - page 7
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: 7 of 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
is likely to be a result of traditional playground games dying out. Thus, a website, playgroundfun.org.uk, launched by Culture Online, has been set up to promote the re-popularisation of traditional playground games. Schools that have incorporated the suggestions on the website into playtimes, such as Throngsley Fields Primary and Nursery School, Cambridgeshire have found pleasing results with improvements in playground behaviour and levels of communication.
From the games studied so far, it is evident that many playground games do not simply die out; they continue to be played amongst children for many generations. The main attraction of these games to children is that they allow them to take a break from the restraints of a constantly adult-dictated world. With games, children can use their imagination to invent their own rules and be in charge of what goes on, helping them learn independence. This is supported by the Opies (1984: 3), who state that ‘…when a child plays a game, he creates a situation which is under his control, and yet it is one of which he does not know the outcome.’ Therefore, due to this element of mystery involved, games provide children with a sense of adventure, which, combined with the skills of independence and leadership they learn, could be explain the preservation of traditional playground games.
Games sometimes allow children to even reverse the notion of an adult-dictated world. This is because games are unique to children as, unlike most situations, children have more experience with them than adults and the simplistic nature of many games means that they can usually identify which action is the right one to make. Hence, teaching these games to adults, as many children like to do, heightens their feeling of control and in some way, makes them feel superior to adults.
Furthermore, unlike many situations in real life, children feel that with games, their decisions can actually make a difference and usually have a direct and noticeable effect on other players. This drives them to continue playing and even to create new games, in order to sustain this influential power, which will be a crucial attribute to possess when they are older.
However, Stokes (2005) reports that many traditional playground games are being banned in the schools due to games like British Bulldog and It being considered ‘too rough’. Although some schools believe that banning playground games will combat playground injuries and bullying, this
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