Perception Shift

Wednesdays I take my two boys to the Waitakere Home Educators group for an hours PE followed by social swimming. The PE session is facilitated by the trained instructors on site, and is generally conducted in the gymnasium sports centre. The session provides opportunities for our homeschooled children to experience large group physical activities, such as basketball, hockey, soccer, and volleyball, as well as sports that may require more specialised facilities, such as badminton, and gymnastics. If you are thinking "sounds like high-school PE, then you have a pretty clear idea of what happens in the one hour.

The group usually splits into appropriate groupings dependant on number of children present, and their age / ability. Today that meant two groups, appr single digit age and double digit age. My boys aged 7 and 9, were in the singles.

I watched with interest as the instructor placed five hoops upon the ground, one in the centre of the large rectangle de marked by the other four hoops in each corner. The single digit aged children were divided into 4 teams, each allocated one of the corner hoops as their territory. Nine balls were placed in the centre hoop. The instructor then gave the following instructions.

Each team could send out only one runner to collect a ball from the centre.
Once all the balls were gone from the centre, as many children could retrieve balls from other hoops as they wanted, until the instructor called the time.

My first thought was... Silly woman did not point out the objective of the game was to atain as many balls as possible in your team hoop. My brain also immediately started to calculate the optimal strategies, how many retriever to send from each team, how many to defend etc.

I watched with delight and mirth as the balls were gathered from the centre and experienced a competitive, ferocious ( and thankfully purely internal) YES!! When my lads' team got the last ball from the centre hoop, giving them an advantage... Then was amazed at how ALL the children from ALL the teams started to run and gather balls from the other teams' hoop.

I experienced a second moment of YES!!! When one of the children in my lads' team started to stay by the team hoop.... Something none of the other teams were doing yet. Tactical advantage, protecting the acquired resources Woot!

I was stunned, STUNNED, when the tactical genius, threw a ball to a member from an opposing team, so they would not have to bend down to get it! Some of the other teams were doing the same. Blimey! I thought to myself, these kids have not got a CLUE! The instructor should have told them they needed to get the most for their team. I watched to the end, and enjoyed the fact that even though they might not be getting the point, and playing the game wrong, they sure were enjoying themselves, running around, throwing the ball to the opposition, and interacting with each other.

Finally the whistle blew indicating an end. The instructor had a quick look around, and all the teams had two balls, and one team had a member in transit with the last ball. This team was declared the winner. ALL the children looked confused... Then it hit me.

They were working together, sharing resources, ensuring everyone had enough. They weren't playing it wrong at all.

They were playing it RIGHT.

I was wrong.

Me! With all my liberal socialist style thinkings, i was still expecting a pure capitalist style game. One team to come out tops, with as much acquisitions as possible, others with as few as possible.

These wonderful bright children understood something that is integral to human survival, something that is ingrained in our genetic coding.
That in order for us all to be happy, and survive, we share.
When we share, and enjoy the process, we life a fuller happier life.

This was abundantly clear in the joy on the faces of those children as they ran around gathering.