So, the week of October 16 (Oct 16-22) I decided I would have the students play a game rather than read them a story. They were very excited to hear that and grew restless pretty quickly. After reviewing the previous week's discussion, I told them that we are to play the game of Hot Potato. Most were unfamiliar with the game, which surprised me. I told them that the basic rules to the game is that everyone shall assort themselves into a large circle, pass an item that is designated as the "hot potato." While the original version of the game requires players to pass the hot potato while music is playing, I didn't have any means to play music and instead asked them to all clap their hands while they weren't holding the hot potato. When the music stops (or when I shout "STOP!"), whoever is holding the hot potato is then "out." I used one of my Beanie Babies® known as Stripes the Tiger as the hot potato. For the duration of the game, I had the children stand in a large circle and if they were made "out," they must take two steps in towards the center of the circle and sit down. I emphasized that Stripes should never be thrown or tossed in any way, only handed over quickly. The students understood the game's rules readily.
Once the first round was over, some loopholes were spotted by the kids. For one, they noticed some would drop Stripes, intentionally or not, but be reluctant to pick him back up. Another problem was that sometimes the passing of Stripes would skip a person, eliminating the possibility of that person in being forced out. Lastly, there were players who would stop clapping, even though I didn't shout stop. We discussed this and made a consensus in adding the following rules:
They really liked the addition of these rules. We continued the game for 4 more rounds, then we started the game over and played for 5 rounds. Altogether, playing Hot Potato took a total of about 40 minutes. Everybody seemed to have fun!
Unfortunately, when I was trying to bring them back together to sit in the reading area, there was way too much restlessness. The students had nearly no interest in holding any discussion, thus making me a bit disappointed. We did talk a little about phenomenology, though I didn't introduce the term. I asked them why they thought the game to be fun. "We had to pass Stripes around, otherwise we would be out." "What happened when you were out?," I replied. "We had to sit down." "Was there anything wrong with that?" "No." "Then why did everyone get more and more excited the closer Stripes got to you?" They took their time on this question. One child replied, "Well, then you had to be out of the game." I decided to restate their argument, "The game is fun because you got to pass around Stripes or you'll be out. There's no problem with being out. Still, it was exciting when Stripes came around to you because you could be out. What does this mean? What's going on here?" There was no response.
"Is it exciting to know that you may or may not be out?" I received a resounding "Yes!" "Is that what you were thinking when Stripes was coming your way?" "Yeah," some said. "Really? Did you think, 'I wonder if I will be out!' or was it, 'Stripes is coming my way!'?" "...Both." "Can you think two thoughts at once? Like, right at the same time?" One of the children responded, "You can't really, but they change so fast!" I thought for a bit. "Hmm. Why didn't you just think one thought or the other? What made you think one of the thoughts and not the other during a moment?" By then, they all got really tired and frustrated. More and more of the students began to make requests to play another game; it was actually pretty funny. I'm glad they got as far as they did here, impressed even. Before closing the session, I decided to toss up another challenge: Wittgenstein's rule-following.
This the children found more interesting. I first asked of them to tell me the initial rules of Hot Potato before we started playing the game. After an excellent, more positive response, I asked them the rules we added later on in the game and why did we agree to add them. Nothing very notable was said until I asked, "Do all games have rules?" Most replied "Yes," though there were a small handful who said "No." I inquired this minority. "Well, [the game of] Tag doesn't have any rules," said one. Several disagreeing hands popped up. One responded, "The person who is it has to chase everyone and everyone has to run away. Those are rules." After some additional debate, we all came to the conclusion that all games have rules. "If this is the case, then why do we have rules?" "Then we could do anything! There would be no reason to play the game. We would be doing just whatever we felt like!" We giggled and made some jokes, though not too many, for mirth might completely replace attentiveness.
Steering them back on track, I noted, "There are many things that we do that involve rules. Can anybody name a few?" They gave me a list that included school, manners, and the law. "What about other things that don't require you to get into trouble that required punishment? How about language." They really liked the thought of that. I gave them some time to think about it. "We can't say cuss-words," said one of the children. "Even if we never use any bad words, may we still say just anything?" I said some self-created gibberish. "Did I just say anything? Is that part of our language?" A clever reply was made, "No, but it could be part of someone else's." "Maybe. Maybe that gibberish I made belongs to no language. If I can't just say anything or else it could be gibberish, then does language have rules?" "YES!," and eyes grew around me. The sight was really cute, as they became incredibly eager to speak and hands sprung up like popcorn on a hot pan. They gave me several examples of what they thought I meant, including sentences where words were rearranged to not make sense. "Yup!," I chimed. I then decided to introduce the concept of the "language-game." "Remember when we read the book called One?" "Yeah...?" "Remember when we were talking about what it means to 'count'? And that the word can mean two different things depending on how I'm using it?" They replied eagerly that they remembered, explained the two discussed ways in which the word could be used, but didn't know what I was trying to get at. "Well, there are rules as to how we use the word or how we are to understand it depending on what we would be talking about, right?" "Oooooh." "So, depending on the language-game, we understand the word differently." There was a "cool," some silence, a tangent on how one student got confused when his mother told him one thing and he understood it as another, and continuous drifting. We had a bit more discussion, however they were tired by now and we ran out of time.
Wittgenstein seems to be more comprehensible to the class than phenomenology. I can't help but laugh aloud at the mentioning, let alone the thought, of what had happened during that session. What a stunt the class pulled off; second-graders discussed Wittgensteinian philosophy! You know, while I should remain humble and give complete credit to the efforts of the kids, I feel kinda proud of myself. :)
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