At 09:17 AM 9/28/98 +0100, Marc Armitage wrote:
>
> Dear List members
>
> Apologies! I seem to have sent a draft message by mistake (not quite sure
> how) - here's the real one.
>
> ----------
>
> On reflection I think Julienne may have appoint: perhaps a form of play
> language was not a good example. Here's one that may be better before
> leaving this thread.
>
> In the grounds of a school in Hull, East Yorkshire, that has a mix of
> original 1880's buildings and a 1980's extenuation there is a long black,
> metal down-pipe (drain pipe) that the present school-generation of children
> call "The Long Black Pipe". This is used as the unique centre of one
> particular rule based game. This is a hiding and hunting game that many
list
> members may remember playing themselves that the children at this school cal
> 'block'; but it is also called 'stumpy', hide and seek tig', '40-40- home'
> and pom-pom home' to mention just a few variations.
>
> This is significant for three reasons: firstly, because the game is one of
> only about half-a-dozen that have appeared on the list of games being played
> (throughout all seasons) on all the nearly 100 detailed play audits of
> school grounds I have made over the last 10 years. It must be an important
> game as other surveys have also found this game (and variations) taking up
> something like 10%-15% of available play time (second only to ball games).
>
> Secondly, although some of the teaching staff at this school know of the
game
> from their own childhood none know that the game was being played with such
> regularity at their school (the game was played 'at least once a day' but
> often more than once), or that the "Long Black Pipe" was the centre of the
> game or even had a special name.
>
> Thirdly, and I think most significant, is that this also seems to have been
> the case throughout the 1960's, when discussions with past school members
> have found that the same feature was in use for the same purpose (although
> any special name in use was not identified) but this was not common
knowledge
> in the teaching staff - AND this was also the case throughout the
> 1920's/1930's, where again the same feature is used for the same game and
was
> know among the children in the school as - "The Long Pipe".
>
> So, we have one specific environmental feature being given the same simple
> descriptive name, and being used for the same complicated and significant
> playground game for something like 60 years plus - or to put it another way,
> about 10 changes in the school child population/generation group; all this
> time the location and rules of the game being passed from child-child,
> without the involvement or intervention of adults.
>
> Is that a better example?
Actually, Marc, one of the things I expect to see in the near future is more
and more children not only inventing their own games, but perhaps even
living together and taking care of each other. Already many are leaving home,
despite the stories we here of them staying home into their late twenties, and
creating their own shared lives, or communities of very young mothers. I
wonder, with the unfortunate popularity of such movements as "tough love"
even being touted by pop psychologists and Oprah Winfrey types, if we
aren't going to see even more and younger.
I thin adult's unsupportive expectations of children nowadays
are going to have extraordinary repercussions.
Julienne
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