8.5. The game as a means of education

An important means of education is the game - an imaginary or real activity, purposefully organized in a group of students for the purpose of recreation, entertainment or learning. In the game, the child develops as a person; he forms those aspects of the psyche on which the success of his social practice, his relations with people around him and himself will later depend.

With regard to the educational process, they talk about collective games (organizational-activity, competitive, imitation, plot-role-playing, social-orienteering, etc.), which are more focused on shaping the child’s personality, because, first, they represent public relations, secondly, recreate the most typical situations of vital activity in a material, child-friendly form, and thirdly, they allow to actively master forms of socially approved behavior.

The main pedagogical meaning of collective games is the creation of situations of choice in which a child can find a way to solve a particular social problem based on his values, morals and social experience. This is due to the fact that during the game there are:

• activation of the participants, which is achieved by posing them to the need to solve the problem in a situation where there are no ready-made solutions or their search is hampered by objective circumstances;

• overcoming intellectual and cognitive difficulties that are experienced by the child as a personal problem;

• actualization of the child’s need for self-improvement, review and reassessment of existing experience, self-mobilization;

• the emergence of the possibility of effectively solving multi-dimensional problems by immersing participants in a special gaming atmosphere and simultaneously including them in solving a completely real (especially significant) problem for them in all its complexity;

• substitution, in which the game very quickly ceases to be just a game for participants, because the real life clashes that arise in its course due to the special work of the teacher, become so intense that children act as if the game becomes a reality for them;

• improvement of the processes of interaction of participants, the expansion of their communicative competence.

The game as a means of education has its own characteristics. Thus, in addition to the relationships that are played by children in accordance with the plot adopted and the role assumed, there are other kinds of relationships - not depicted, but real, real. These types of relationships (game and real) are closely interrelated, but not identical, and may be in conflict with each other.

The method of organizing a collective game, as a rule, includes several stages.

1. The work of a teacher in developing a strategy for the game, defining goals and methods for achieving them, planning the expected result. The result of this work is the creation of a model of the game and its plan, the selection of initiative groups to develop the rules and conditions of the game.

2. Organization of work of initiative groups consisting of teachers and children and defining the rules and conditions of the game. The result of this activity is the development of the rules and conditions of the game, the mechanism for its launch, the distribution of responsibilities among the members of the organizing committee of the game.

3. Run a game model based on the alternative inclusion in the game of children. The result of this stage is the determination by each participant of their role in the game, the formation of a group of children participating in it, or several groups competing with each other.

4. Coordination of the actions of the game participants in accordance with the rules and conditions of the game development. The result of this stage is the acceptance by all the participants of the game of their role, the awareness of the rules and conditions of the game, their fulfillment, the realization of the needs and interests of the children.

5. Summing up the game, organization of reflection, i.e. children’s assessment of the nature of their participation in the game and the results achieved. The result of this stage is the determination of the prospects for further joint actions, new ways of interaction between children.

6. After-effect - consolidation and development of positive trends and achievements obtained in other forms of work with children, making changes in the organization of the collective life activity.