This was the first question put to us at the third of our explorations into ‘Primary Schools’. A mixture of tentative and enthusiastic hands went up, and those that didn’t know a clapping game were soon learning one from someone in the group that did. It did seem to fit the stereotype at first that it was predominantly the younger people and females in the group who had a game to teach, but the games and chants soon proliferated around and before long people were sharing their newly learnt game with someone else.
When showing the clapping games back to each other, we pondered
as a group what it is that makes clapping games an enduring phenomenon - are they just something to do to extinguish
playground boredom? Is it about something creative? Or is it about winning? A
mum and daughter showed us back a clapping game that elicits a winner and a
loser, the mum squealing as she made a mistake and lost. It seemed there was pleasure
to be had in racing to go as fast as you could, with a mistake costing you the
game.
Tic-tac-toe
Give me a high
Give me a low
Give me a three in a row
Don’t get hit by a UFO
Now who can remember making or looking at a ‘nature table’
at primary school? This was next on the evening’s agenda; in small groups we
set about making our own ‘nature table’, the contents of which would be centred
on one topic and could be as wide and as playful as our roaming imaginations.
Groups set off round the Bubble building and surrounding park gathering objects
to illustrate their chosen theme, thinking also about how to arrange and
'present' their table to the rest of the group. It was a rewarding exercise in
thinking laterally about a topic and tuning into environment to spot objects
that would convey an aspect of something, as well as an exercise in teamwork.
Attention and importance was given to the process of
explaining and demonstrating the contents of each nature table; the group
curating ‘water’ demonstrated buckets and bottles and watered some plants in
front of us, the ‘rainbow’ team were inspired by the brightly coloured T shirts
of the group and incorporated themselves into their nature table (the inclusion
of the white/off white/yellow toilet roll caused confusion and discussion as
its colour was debated!). It was interesting how the other themes - pets,
summer, an office - had a similar simplicity and naivety to them. Maybe this
was a reflection of how we were approaching the broader subject matter at the
moment, or perhaps to do with people gently getting to know each other.
We wondered what our ‘nature tables’ of primary school might
look and feel like if we were to curate one about school celebrations or
teachers, or maybe school dinners, or the playground. A group applied this to
'school chants' by asking to be greeted with 'good morning everyone' before
replying in monotonous unison with 'Good morning Mrs. Henderson’. What might
the others be like?
And what if we did one about teachers? We would need to
include their mannerisms and body language; it was time to get into our bodies
and relive the physicality of being in that environment. To get this started we
mirrored a partner’s movements in pairs, echoing the lines their limbs sketched
out, and then mimicking the particularities of how that person walks across the
room and sits in a chair. Watching these back as a group was entertaining and
brought out people’s different nuances, it was a chance to get to know each
other non-verbally by noticing each other’s movements and relationship to
space.
Translating this into recalling our teachers movements
brought into sharp relief some of the particular movements and body language we
remembered from school. We curated these in small groups to perform back; the
sharp, energetic and demonstrative pointing of one teacher balanced by the
still, moody, expectant stance of another. Theatrical and dynamic sketches were
beginning to emerge…
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