This Gamer Life
As A Teacher, Games Have Helped Me Understand My Students.
Iyanuoluwa Okunade, an education and wellness consultant, discusses how her interest in games began in a kindergarten sandbox. She also highlights the value of extracurricular activities, playgrounds and games in enhancing cognitive development in children.
The funny thing about recounting your early years is that you tend not to remember them as vividly as you would want to. But I do recall attending a foreign kindergarten — or rather, a kindergarten owned by a foreigner — and that while I was there, I played with sand. Well, it wasn’t exactly sand, it looked more like clayey, curved, shaped mounds laid on the floor. I think the proprietor tried to bring learning aids from his own country to Nigeria, but practically all the children played with these mounds in different ways. In retrospect, I believe this helped to easily identify each child’s gift.
I was around two years old at the time, yet that sandbox was the only thing that caught my attention in the whole school. As little as I was, playing with these mounds gave me solitude and an opportunity to contemplate and reflect on life and nature. I could stay outside, get some fresh air and recharge my batteries. The memories of playing in that schoolyard have stayed with me to this day.
At weekends, my father would take us to Trans Amusement Park at Bodija. This was when it was still at its peak. We would slot coins into machines that allowed us to play games and ride the amusement park’s numerous attractions. It is now a shadow of its former self, but the thrill of riding the bumper cars and the Ferris wheel remain memorable. If we won any games at the amusement park, my father would buy us ice cream. He made sure that we went every Sunday, and if he couldn’t take us, an aunt would. We would also visit friends and play games in their homes after a delicious meal of jollof rice or amala with gbegiri and ewedu.
But as I grew older, I realised that primary and secondary school were quite different; we had fewer games because education at this stage was considered to be serious business. I think all we had was a swing, a roundabout or merry-go-round, and a seesaw; so we ended up going round the limited games until we got tired. I played most with the swing and the merry-go-round because it was so much fun to be pushed around until you were dizzy. Outdoor games were pure fun for me!
Games also helped me build friendships. I played ‘Ten-Ten’, a classic foot game with my classmates. Games like this brought us down to earth and made us more receptive to one other. When playing these games, you could interact with others, especially those with shared interests and temperaments. We also played ‘Suwe’ (hopscotch) where players would draw boxes on the ground and pick houses that opponents could not step into. All these traditional games were a cheaper way of getting us to jump and exercise our bodies (because how many of us could afford gym memberships?). There were also hand games that involved clapping. I remember ‘Tinko Tinko’, where you and your opponent do a lot of clapping until one of you gives up. It helped the brain to calculate and anticipate what the opponent would do.
I didn’t have much time for games while in secondary school. I was at boarding school, where we engaged more in sporting activities — track and field events, marching, and sack races — in preparation for inter-house sports. We also jogged around during the harmattan season and even if we started out cold and wearing cardigans, we would be looking for where to dump our cardigans by the time we were halfway through. However, there were times when we played ‘Name, Animal, Place, Thing’, which involved mentioning items associated with a particular alphabet. It helped us to research and learn about various words and items, current affairs, etc. It really helped our critical thinking.
While trying to get admission into the university, I also made some friends who taught me how to play Whot, Ludo, Chess, Snakes and Ladders and Draughts. I have forgotten how to play chess, but it was fun and it requires a lot of intelligence since you have to protect your most important pieces from getting captured. Draughts is similar to chess, I think, because of the strategy and planning involved in defending your pieces. Then, there was Ludo. One thing about Ludo is that you are not moving until you throw a one or a six — this taught us to be resilient, because even if your opponent was lucky enough to roll a six and move ahead of you, you could be lucky enough to throw a double six and regain the advantage. The movement around the Ludo board also helped me to be more strategic in day-to-day tasks, particularly commuting — would I reach my destination faster if I chose this route? Would I have to pay extra for transport? Is a particular route prone to traffic? Amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life, I occasionally look forward to playing all these games again — especially chess and draughts because they were intellectually challenging.
However, as a teacher, I have used games to understand my students. I have been able to study them, understand their temperaments, strengths and weaknesses as well as how to create rewarding learning experiences for them. I have also discovered that sports days and excursions are a solid favourite among my pupils since they get to dress down and approach studying with less formality. I once had a student who used schoolwork to distract herself from the problems at home. She skipped ahead of the curriculum because she did not want to be bored or idle in class. After trying different activities with this multi-talented child, I realised that she could play multiple musical instruments — something she really enjoyed. Eventually, I was able to convince her parents to enrol her in music school.
It would be great if more informal and fun activities and methods could be incorporated into Nigeria’s school curriculum. It will give children the liberty to explore and develop talents that may point them towards their future careers. Most importantly, it would be beneficial for government to invest in functional public parks and playgrounds so that parents can also relax as they observe their children in these spaces. It would also be beneficial to have grants, scholarships and awards dedicated to these sports so that more people would be encouraged to participate in them or perhaps pursue them as professions.
I also hope that this attitude spreads into adult workplaces, with management understanding that offices should be enabling environments where employees can approach their work with a more relaxed and productive mindset rather than stuffy facilities that discourage outstanding performance and job satisfaction.
IyanuOluwa Okunade was speaking to Adefoyeke Ajao.
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