Characteristics of games with rules as a joint activity of children.

Psychological features of gaming activity

The importance of the child’s motivational sphere, a conscious desire to learn. Drawing attention to this feature of the game, D. B. Elkonin writes: “The significance of the game is not limited to the fact that the child has new motives for activity and tasks associated with them. Fundamentally important is the fact that a new psychological form of motives appears in the game... There is a transition from motives that take the form of preconscious, affectively colored immediate desires, to motives that take the form of generalized intentions that are on the edge of consciousness.

Of course, other types of activities provide grist to the mill of developing needs, but in no other type of activity is there such an emotionally rich entry into adulthood, such an effective appropriation of social functions and the meaning of human activity, as in the game. This is the first and main significance of role-playing play in a child’s development.”

The role of activity in the development of a child’s personality

All qualities and characteristics of a person are not only manifested, but also formed in active activity, in its various forms that make up a person’s life, his social existence. Depending on what a person does (i.e., what is the content of his activity), how he does it (the method of activity), how he organizes this activity and what conditions it generates in him, he realizes certain tendencies, inclinations and character traits and thereby firmly shapes knowledge. Personality is formed in activity.

In his various activities, a person enters into numerous and varied relationships with other people. The more diverse his activities, the more diverse his relationships with other people, the more diverse his interests, motives, feelings, and abilities become.

A person learns about himself through his activities with other people. In the process of development, the child’s consciousness is formed in joint activities with peers, he learns to understand others and himself, control himself and evaluate his own actions.

Activity is expressed in human actions. These are actions with objects, with tools and materials, actions that include, to varying degrees of complexity and structure, motor actions - movements - which are the external expression or external (visible) side of human activity.

To achieve the desired result, a person controls physical actions performed in a certain way with the help of various mental operations. At the same time, the timing and forms of involvement of mental activity in practical activities and the restructuring of the latter are of particular importance for the development of the child.

Any human activity requires the use of certain movements and methods of action, that is, skills and abilities.

Skills are usually simple movements or actions with an object or tool, automated as a result of repeated repetition.

Any significant human activity cannot be reduced to skills. A person must be able to independently use systems or sets of mastered skills, he must critically evaluate the results, check the success of his actions, that is, perform a whole system of intellectual operations, in addition to physical ones. The repetition of these complex, numerous mental operations leads to the development of a skill, i.e. to mastering methods of action.

ON THE. Korotkova Forms of play in the educational process of kindergarten

[1]

The inability to comprehend the divine scheme of the world cannot, however, discourage us from creating our own human schemes, although we understand that they are temporary.

X. L. Borges. "The Analytic Language of John Wilkins"

Reading numerous scientific or practice-oriented articles, one can easily notice that their authors call a variety of phenomena children's play. Some classify everything that preschoolers do and everything that kindergarten teachers do with them as play. Others call play only a very narrow range of phenomena. Some people prefer the general term “game,” while others will certainly specify its name. Among the many “names” of the game there are the following: plot, role-playing, director’s, creative, mobile, environmental, construction, didactic, theatrical, game with rules, dramatization game, musical, mathematical, and also developmental, educational, etc. Examples can be multiplied ad infinitum. It is completely unclear what relationship these terms have with each other, what reality is behind them, and how justified their introduction is.

Behind the same “name” of a game, used by different authors, a completely different reality is often hidden, just as different names often seem to mean the same thing.

If you collect all the “names” of the game, the resulting picture will be very similar to the Chinese encyclopedia invented and ridiculed by the Argentine writer J. L. Borges, where the “animals” heading includes creatures classified in the most ridiculous and inconsistent way: “On its (encyclopedia. - N .K.) ancient pages it is written that animals are divided into a) those belonging to the Emperor, b) embalmed, c) tamed, d) sucklings, e) sirens, f) fairy tales, g) individual dogs, h) included in this classification, and ) running like crazy, j) countless, k) painted with the finest brush made of camel hair, m) others, n) breaking a flower vase, o) looking like flies from a distance”[2].

The psychology and pedagogy of play have now found themselves in a situation as confusing as the notorious “Chinese encyclopedia.”

The practical teacher, apparently, experiences clouding of reason from the terminological and conceptual confusion that reigns in the field of children's play. Battles between researchers on the theoretical field lead to confusion in the minds of educators. At the same time, at present, practicing teachers are also making their contribution to the invention of new “names” of the game.

Let's try to bring at least some clarity, to streamline the picture of play in kindergarten, realizing that any of our schematizations are conditional.

Such ordering is necessary to make play not only a subject of theoretical and experimental research, but also a subject of, so to speak, “engineering knowledge”, to enable educators and practical psychologists to competently “work” with children’s play.

Terminological clarity depends on understanding the essence of the matter: what is play as opposed to non-game, in what forms does play exist in kindergarten?

In an attempt to understand the issue and looking ahead somewhat, I will distinguish between a game as a universal human cultural form of activity - as a cultural practice - and a game as a pedagogical form. Each of these aspects of the game is dealt with by the corresponding scientific disciplines: the first is cultural studies and sociology, the second is child psychology and pedagogy.

To clarify the criteria for distinguishing between play and non-game, we will have to make a brief excursion into the cultural studies of play. Let us note that cultural studies is interested in the essence of play as a universal human activity, because not only children, but also adults play.

In the cultural aspect, play is traditionally viewed in comparison with work activity. Game is a zone of recreation, leisure, liberation of a person from compulsory labor, providing for his vital needs. And in this opposition “game - work” the specific characteristics of the game are felt.

Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga's classic study Homo ludens, first published in 1938, proposed a number of criteria for distinguishing play from non-play. Briefly they can be described as follows:

• play is a free activity;
• the game differs from everyday life, but is also connected with it, it is “as if” life, it lies beyond the immediate satisfaction of needs and requirements, outside the sphere of material interest;
• the game is isolated from everyday life by its place of action and duration, it is played out within a certain framework of conventional space and time, its flow and meaning are contained within itself;
• the game has its own rules, an immutable order;
• The gaming community tends to self-preserve and isolate itself.

Summarizing these criteria, J. Huizinga gives the following definition of play: “... We can now call play a free activity, which is perceived as an “untrue” activity performed outside of everyday life, but it can completely take over the player and does not pursue any direct material interest. , does not seek benefit, is a free activity that takes place within a deliberately limited space and time, proceeds in an orderly manner, according to certain rules, and brings to life social groups that prefer to surround themselves with mystery or emphasize their difference from the rest of the world with all kinds of disguises”[3].

Giving the game such a general characteristic, J. Huizinga noted that the game is something heterogeneous, but at the same time he tried to bring this heterogeneity to unity: “The function of the game in its highly developed forms, which are discussed here, in the overwhelming majority of cases can be easily deduced from two essential aspects in which it manifests itself. Play is a struggle for something or a representation of something. Both of these functions are easily combined in such a way that the game “represents” a struggle for something or is a competition in who can present something better than others”[4].

Despite the desire to reduce the game to unity, in fact, J. Huizinga has already outlined two large classes within the game: (1) competitive game and (2) performance game.

It can be said that all further cultural research on the game was in one way or another based on the concept of J. Huizinga.

We find critical comments on the concept of the game by J. Huizinga in the no less significant work of the French culturologist Roger Caillois, “Games and People,” published in 1958.

Agreeing largely with J. Huizinga, R. Caillois notes the contradiction in his definition of the game, namely: the mutually exclusive nature of the criterion of order, regularity - the presence of clear rules - and the criterion of fictitiousness - “untruthfulness” - of the game.

R. Caillois writes: “There are many games where there are no rules. Thus, there are no stable and strict rules for playing with dolls, soldier, “Cossack robbers”, horse, steam locomotive, airplane - in general, for such games that involve free improvisation and attract primarily with pleasure play some role, behave as if you were someone or even something else, for example a machine. Although such a statement may seem paradoxical, I would argue that in such cases fictitious behavior (“make-believe”) replaces the rules and performs exactly the same function. After all, the rules themselves create a certain imaginary situation. A person playing chess, tag, polo... by the very fact of following the rules of the corresponding game, is separated from ordinary life, where there is no activity that these games try to accurately reproduce. Therefore, chess, tag, polo... are played seriously, and not “for fun.” On the contrary, whenever the game consists of imitating life, then, on the one hand, the players cannot invent and follow rules that do not exist in reality, and on the other hand, such a game is accompanied by the awareness that this behavior is just a mimic resemblance . Such awareness of the deep unreality of accepted behavior separates the game from ordinary life, replacing the arbitrary rules characteristic of other games... So, games are not regular and fictitious. Rather, we can say that they are either regular or fictitious”[5].

R. Caillois identifies six main qualities that characterize the phenomenon of play. A game is an activity:

1. free (it cannot be made mandatory for the player so that it does not lose its nature of a joyful and attractive mood);
2. isolated (limited in space and time by precise and predetermined limits);
3. with an uncertain outcome (it is impossible to predetermine its development or predict its outcome);
4. unproductive (not creating any benefits or wealth);
5. regular (subject to a number of conventions and agreements);
6. fictitious (accompanied by a specific consciousness of some kind of secondary reality or simply unreality compared to ordinary life).

R. Caillois o.

Within the framework of the general concept of play as a developed cultural practice, we will use the dichotomy outlined by J. Huizinga and, in fact, supported by R. Caillois: play-performance (with an emphasis on fictitiousness, convention) - game-competition (with an emphasis on regularity, on formalized rigid rules).

In more familiar terms, it is a story game and a game with rules.

Let's try to move forward and fix the specifics of these types of games, based on the essential structural characteristics of each of them.

The developmental significance of play as a cultural practice in its basic forms—story play and rule play—follows from these essential structural characteristics.

It is clear that if a child practices in a story-based game, he develops in one direction; if in a game with rules, he develops in another.

Of course, gaming practice within these types is heterogeneous and can be subject to more specific division. We wrote in detail about the types of games with rules in our work[6]. Varieties of story games are a debatable issue that requires special discussion.

Here it is important for us to set the most general - “upper” - level of the classification scheme of play as a cultural practice:

These general types of play as a cultural practice should become part of children's lives. Since each type of game has its own specific developmental potential, it is very important to provide conditions for both in kindergarten.

Since the very essence of these types of playful cultural practices contains their developmental meaning, it is completely unnecessary to supplement the terms denoting them with the definition of “developmental.” In the phrases often used by teachers, “developing story game, “developing game with rules,” there is unnecessary redundancy (something like “butter butter”).

Children master the game, like any other form of universal cultural practice, encountering its living carriers (carriers of gaming culture) and immersing themselves in the material - “substantial” - gaming environment.

We must part with the myth of play as a spontaneous “natural” activity of a child, a myth that sharply separates “game as a type of children’s activity” from play as a universal cultural practice. After all, for “children’s play” to exist in this separate way, the child must be Robinson on a desert island.

Indeed, it seems that we can talk about children’s “natural” activity (and then very conditionally) only in the very early stages of life.

And by the age of two or three, when the child enters kindergarten, this is out of the question. By this age, he is already, to one degree or another, “burdened” with play as a cultural practice. After all, from birth, a baby finds himself in a world of various spontaneous socializing influences, starting with toys in the cradle and ending with the unconscious influences of loved ones (parents, older children, nannies), who, keeping the child occupied, willy-nilly “slip” into him various models of play behavior.

The illusion of the “naturalness” of children’s play arises due to the fact that the culture of play is, as it were, “diffused” in society, and the child grasps it in the process of spontaneous socialization. In kindergarten, these diffuse socializing influences are supported both by a specially created play material environment and by the inclusion of a teacher in the activities of children as a partner - a bearer of play culture.

In general, the use of the term “children’s activities,” in our opinion, is not entirely correct, because neither drawing, nor design, nor modeling, covered by this term, like play, are any special manifestations of childhood, neither in the sense of their spontaneity in child, nor in the sense that they are given over by culture exclusively to children.

That is why, in order to avoid the false opposition between “play as a type of children’s activity” and play as a sphere of universal human culture, I prefer to talk about play as a cultural practice.

Of course, a child does not immediately arrive at a developed, orderly form of play: he only gradually masters the structural components of a story-based game and a game with rules to the best of his age-related mental capabilities. This gradualness is a matter of age stages or age levels of play (which is the subject of psychological research itself). Mastering throughout preschool age, types of universal cultural play practice become the play practice of the child himself.

The second question that we must answer to clarify the state of affairs is whether a game in the above sense is what actually exists in kindergarten under the guise of a game, and what teachers call a game?

Play as a cultural practice develops the child and introduces him to the spirit of play culture with its specific features: free choice and optionality, an internal goal contained in the process of activity itself, and a space-time isolated from other forms of life.

However, in the life of human society there are many mixed forms that carry the features of play and non-game. In modern cultural studies, there is a distinction between “autonomous” play with an internal goal within itself and a separate space-time, and “combined” play, intertwined with everyday life[7].

The idea of ​​combining play with other forms of a child’s life has long been used by preschool pedagogy, introducing educational goals into the game and introducing it into the space-time of a regulated lesson, that is, combining it with learning.

In these special teaching situations, we are dealing with a pedagogical form that only superficially resembles a game. The game loses its fundamental specific features - freedom and optionality, submitting to educational goals brought from outside and becoming saturated with specific educational content. Such an artificial pedagogical form (as opposed to play as a cultural practice) does not transform into independent children's activity. The combined form of play and learning is tightly connected with the regulatory position of the adult, who holds the external—educational—goals and content.

Several decades ago, for the combined form of play and learning in Russian pedagogy, there was a generally accepted designation - “didactic game”. In our opinion, in order to streamline the picture of play in the educational process, it would be worth returning to this term.

It is clear that when organizing a didactic game, the teacher always, so to speak, “parasitizes” on one or another type of game as a cultural practice. Thus, if educational tasks and content are introduced into the structure of a story game, we should talk about a “didactic story game,” if the structure of a game with rules is used, we should talk about a “didactic game with rules.”

Now we can define in general terms a scheme of game forms in relation to the educational process in kindergarten.

In this context, it becomes clear that there are no such special types of game as “ecological game”, “mathematical game”, “ethical game”, etc.; it's just an indication of specific learning content... what? - a didactic story game or a didactic game with rules.

To understand what actually lies behind such “names” in reality, we must identify all levels of game specification (from general to specific), for example: “didactic game with rules with mathematical content”, “didactic story game with environmental content” and so on.

Teachers often not only do not distinguish between different forms of play in the educational process (play as a cultural practice - free and play as a pedagogical form - didactic), but also use different-level terms side by side. All this leads to unimaginable confusion. For example, in the teacher’s plan you can see the following entry: “Carry out an ecological game,... a story game,... a didactic game...”, etc.

Another conflict with the “names” of the game needs clarification. This is the relationship between such general terms as “educational game”, “educational game” and “formative game”.

In fact, an “educational game” is nothing more than a “didactic game” in the sense proposed above. However, the term “educational game” itself is discredited because, according to established tradition, it is used too broadly and vaguely, covering any training exercises that lack elements of a game structure. As a result, its use does not clarify, but, on the contrary, obscures the state of affairs.

Talking about an “educational game” is completely pointless. We noted this above in relation to play as a cultural practice with its internal developmental potential. Likewise, any didactic game develops a child.

As for the term “formative play,” which we used in our research and in joint work with N. Ya. Mikhailenko, then, in my understanding, it refers to play as a cultural practice. These are situations where an adult connects an adult to the free play of children, where an adult, as an equal partner and at the same time as a bearer of gaming culture, demonstrates increasingly complex methods of gaming activity, that is, “from within” the gaming process contributes to the transfer of children to a higher level of gaming practice, renders, so to speak, "formative" influence on children's play. In these situations, the adult maintains the free, relaxed nature of the game process, uses subcultural content close to children (and does not solve specific learning tasks, does not impose educational content as in a didactic game). In other words, this is a free game between an adult and children with the aim of transmitting a gaming culture to them.

The scheme proposed above, by more clearly presenting the forms of play in the educational process of a kindergarten, will facilitate mutual understanding between researchers and practitioners, as well as the understanding of each other by practicing teachers themselves, that is, it will help all interested parties to speak a common language.

A clear distinction between the forms of play in the educational process also makes it possible to understand the catastrophically intensifying process of displacement from kindergarten of free play (with its inherent developmental potential) in favor of didactic play (solving specific educational problems).

The problem of restoring one's rights to play as a cultural practice is very relevant for kindergartens. By the way, this is not a problem today; it arose a long time ago, after the introduction of compulsory training sessions in domestic kindergartens in the 50s of the 20th century. Even then, A.P. Usova, under whose auspices this radical transformation of the preschool education system was carried out, having realized the degree of threat to the absolute regulation of the life of preschoolers, began to demand guarantees for free play - reserving a place and time for it in kindergarten.

Published in the magazine “Child in Kindergarten” 2010/4

[1] First published under the same title in the magazine “Child in Kindergarten.” 2010. No. 4.

[2] BorgesX. L. Analytical language of John Wilkins // H.L. Borges. Prose from different years. M.: Raduga, 1984. P. 218.

[3] Huizinga J. Homo ludens. In the shadow of tomorrow. M.: Progress, 1992. P. 24.

[4] Huizinga J. Ibid. P. 24.

[5] Caillois R. Games and people. Articles and essays on the sociology of culture. M.: OGI, 2007. pp. 47-48.

[6] Mikhailenko N. Ya., Korotkova N. A. Playing with rules in preschool age. M.: Academic project, 2002.

[7] Arutyunova N.D. Types of game actions//Logical analysis of language. Conceptual game fields. M., 2006.

Play is a creative process

According to A. Maslow, primary creativity is based on the unknowable; it can always be observed in a healthy child. This creativity is characteristic of those who can play, dream, laugh and be lazy, who can be spontaneously open to unconscious desires and impulses.

Intuition is “like a voice from heaven,” “the lord of revelation,” a new structure. This miraculous clarification, enlightenment, is a mechanism of intuition and is called insight, which translated from English and German (this term was introduced within the framework of Genetic Psychology) directly means perception.

Insight as a moment of remembrance can be seen in almost every narrative game, when it comes to finding substitute objects, actors for certain roles, integrating new circumstances into the plot, and the appearance of obstacles.

A game action is not born from an imaginary situation, but on the contrary, an operation with an action causes a game situation. Thus, the condition of play action contributes to the development of imagination and makes it necessary.

While the child is not playing, he does not imagine the game situation, and his imagination does not work.

Only during the game does the object seem to dissolve in its real properties and game meaning. Bisociation becomes the mechanism of imagination.

The term “bisociation” comes from A. Koestler, a researcher of the creative process who turned his attention to the subconscious. He emphasized the role of chance, the need to delay making decisions and think about the little things.

In the consciousness of being, as Freud said, “THE ONE,” there are no typical opposites, good and bad, right and wrong.

In this sphere of the psyche, opposites, right and wrong, are perceived as united, general, widespread.

This value-neutral perception promotes a new creative view of the world.

There are many known “techniques” of imagination. Among them is a combination of known elements in new combinations, which can be constantly observed in children's games.

It is also necessary to mention accentuation - emphasizing certain features of appearance (which is revealed). Exaggeration or arrogant understatement helps a child in a game or fairy tale to emphasize the game in some - or subjectively very important - sense. An accentuated reflection of a specific character or situation contributes to generalization and typification, since some features are simplified, discarded, and random features are discarded.

A child’s play activity is always of a generalized nature, since the motive is not determined by a specific phenomenon, but by the action itself, as a personal relationship.

In play, the child does not inherit or convey any specific characteristic traits; he is always typified.

Intuition stimulates the imagination, and the imagination perceives the development of creative thought.

Every active person has an ineradicable need to move from sensory perception of the world to rational thinking, the mechanism of which is mediation.

Thinking is the process of indirect cognition of things and phenomena, understanding the relationships and connections between them.

In all sensory phenomena, the child makes every effort to find the corresponding meaning, and his endless “how? Why? For what?" aimed at revealing the secrets of its existence.

New things that appear before a child every day are a mystery to him.

Thinking becomes a generalization of the result of observation, a generalization of indicative activity.

A person will not calm down until a mysterious, unknown phenomenon, disturbing by its very existence, acquires a certain meaning, which appears at the beginning of the game.

Play concentrates all developmental tendencies; through play, the child rises, as it were, above the ordinary level of his thinking and behavior.

"Nature" games

There are three that genetically replace each other and coexist throughout life: Play, study and work. They differ in the final result (product of activity), organization, and motivational characteristics.

Work is the main type of human activity. The end result of labor is the creation of a socially significant product. It could be a crop grown by a collective farmer, steel smelted by a steelmaker, a scientific discovery by a scientist, a lesson from a teacher.

The game does not produce a socially significant product. It is in the game that the formation of a person as a subject of activity begins, and this is a great and enduring value.

In the mental development of a child, play serves, first of all, as a means of coping with the world of adults. In it, the child assimilates the objective world of adults at the achieved level of mental development. The game situation includes substitutions (instead of people there is a doll), simplifications (for example, the external side of receiving guests is played out). Thus, in the game, reality is crudely imitated, which for the first time allows the child to become a subject of activity.

The game is freely organized and not regulated. No one can oblige a child to play board games from 10 to 11 o’clock, and after 11 o’clock to play mother-daughter games. The game can be organized, but he himself must accept this offer. This does not mean that the child should not have a strict daily routine. You should indicate the time of sleep, meals, walks, games and activities. But the content of the game, the child’s participation in it, and the end of the game are difficult to regulate. The child himself moves from one game to another.

Various types of activities complement each other, coexist, and interpenetrate. In kindergarten, a preschooler not only plays, but also learns to play and draw. The schoolboy plays with pleasure after school.

Game moments have been successfully introduced into the organization of the lesson. Lessons with elements of game situations captivate the student. The game is an imaginary journey through a map of our country or a map of the world in geography lessons, when students talk about what they “see” based on their imagination. Students enjoy taking on playful roles - in foreign language classes: teacher, guide, salesperson - in the role of active language acquisition.

An employee not only works, he also studies (at night school, technical school, college, or engages in self-education). He can play chess and participate in other sports games.

Although activities do not exist in isolation, they have different meanings at different stages of a person's life. Before a child enters school, the leading activity is play.

When we analyze play as an activity, we must first analyze its nature. In foreign psychological literature, theories of play are widely used, according to which a child’s play releases the innate biological need for activity, which is inherent in both animals and people. They try to connect the development of children's play with the corresponding stages in the development of human society. Interest in playing in the sand, digging holes, stages of growing bread, playing with animals - animal husbandry, etc.

Games according to rules are widespread in the lives of schoolchildren and adults. By playing sports, solving crosswords and other games that require mental stress, a person switches to another type of activity, increases mental and physical strength and receives emotional release.

Being the main activity of preschoolers, play does not exclude other activities. At the age of three or four years, the child is introduced to self-care. He must wash himself, get dressed, put away his toys. At 5-6 years old, the child’s responsibilities include caring for house plants, helping elders clean the room, etc. In kindergarten, children are happy to be on duty in the dining room, in the living corner and in the playroom.