Cheering Together

A few days ago, I was over in our block area, goofing around with some kids, when a cheer went up from across the room. Cheers are often going up around our place. Our "engineering team" tends to send up regular collective shouts when they've achieved one of their goals, like getting the water to flood the playhouse, and we hear them upon the completion of a large floor puzzle, which we almost always assemble in groups. In this case, the kids were cheering about a board game.

I don't often connect these sort of team cheers to board games. More often it's about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, with one child emerging the winner while the others are cajoled with bromides like "It's just a game" and "Better luck next time." We play all sorts of board games, including classics like Candyland, Hi-Ho Cherrio, and Chutes & Ladders, but easily the most popular board games at Woodland Park are a pair of games by a Canadian company, Family Pastimes, called Max and Round-Up. 

Upon opening the boxes, they're both unimpressive: a small board game, a few cardboard pieces. I think one of them may have a die, but the game play is outstanding. Of course, I've never played the games myself. I purchased Round-Up as a new teacher upon the recommendation of a parent whose daughter brought hers to school, engaging a large group of kids, without tears, for over an hour. I was skeptical at first, largely because these games promote themselves as "cooperative" games, which, as a man who is an avid board game player, I suspected was merely a gimmick to move merchandise to "losers." I fully anticipated that once in the classroom mix, the traditionally competitive games would win out against these "feel good" games.

I was wrong. The reason I've never learned to play the games is that there is usually such a crush of kids around the game table that there isn't room for me. These are games designed around children working together to accomplish common goals, which is why they cheer together at the end of the game. And after cheering, someone always says, "Let's play again!" In the case of Max, they are working together to help "little creatures," like birds and mice, make their way home before they are eaten by the cat. In Round-Up, they are working together to round up the horses running wild on the range, not competing, but cooperating.

Included in our version of Max, along with the instructions, is this:

In case you can't read it:

SOME THOUGHTS TO PONDER . . .

Alfie Kohn, NO CONTEST:

The Case Against Competition

MYTH 1: Competition is Inevitable

Competition is more a matter of social training and culture and not "human nature."

MYTH 2: Competition Keeps Productivity High & is Necessary for Excellence

Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Success is being confused with competition.

MYTH 3: Recreation Requires Competition

All games require overcoming some obstacle, but nowhere is it written that the obstacle must be other people.

MYTH 4: Competition Builds Character

Studies of 15,000 athletes found no support for the belief that sport builds character, but instead that cooperativeness is linked to emotional maturity and strong personal identity.

J. Krishnamarti, Think on These Things

What matters is to awaken in ourselves this spirit of co-operation, this feeling of joy in being and doing together, without any thought of reward or punishment. Most young people have it spontaneously, freely, if it is not corrupted by their elders

I grew up believing these myths of competition, carrying them well into my adulthood, but my years working with young children has lead me to see that what biologists are increasingly coming to understand about the nature human beings: it is not about "survival of the fittest," but rather "survival of the most cooperative." 

When we compete, we cheer alone: when we cooperate we cheer together.

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