Topic Revisit - Transportation - The Subway "Game"
The idea behind it was that it A) was a creative outlet for kids and B) it forced them to think of the intricacies of games--rules, challenges, design, mechanics, etc.--in a scaled-down version so that way we could apply it to video games in a larger context. So we really tried to get kids to think outside of the box and make games that incorporated more than just a board or dice. Sometimes it worked great and families really got into it. Other times not so much.
During one of these workshops, there was this little 7-year old boy who was very excited to participate, but we were overbooked. It was a pretty full workshop, since most of these involved multiple families of 4 people each. But since it was just him and his mom, we figured we could squeeze in an extra chair. Never hurts to have an extra face. Or at least that was the idea.
As we were going through the intro, when we ask for people to give examples of games they play at home or school, this kid was very eager to raise his hand A LOT. But just when you thought he was going to give you something simple like "Tag" or "Monopoly," he would go on about something totally unrelated. It wasn't that he didn't understand the discussion; his brain was just on many other things, more so than 7 year olds normally are. So pretty quickly, the other educator and I made a mental note to try to keep him focused when we spoke with him, and moved on.
Now, usually during the activity portion, where kids and their parents brainstorm ideas and get to pick their materials--silly putty, buttons, dice, boards, cards, darts, monkeys, money, dinosaurs, beach balls, you name it--we would try to get smaller families to work together. Social skills building (and it saves our materials haha). But when we suggested to this kid to work with another group, he had very clear plans to make his own game. And he didn't need much for it. All that he took for the material pile was a big piece of paper and a bunch of markers, and then he sat down and started doodling.
At some point, as we were walking around to check on everyone's progress, I came up to this kid to see what his "game" was. All that was on this large maybe 3ft x 2ft sheet of paper he had was a giant drawing of a subway car. I asked him what it was, and got the obvious answer. And when I asked how it was a game, like what is the main objective of the train, does it pick up some many passengers in a particular amount of time or something, he gave a vague answer about what the train did. But it was fairly obvious this kid really just wanted to draw a subway.
His mother, who had been checked out the whole time playing games on her phone, lifted her head up to let me know they had just been to the Transit Museum. So, it all started to make sense. He rides on subways, he saw a bunch of them at the museum. He's a typical kid who likes trains. And to be perfectly honest, his drawing of a subway was pretty amazing. He had the windows right, the shape of the coaches seems accurate, and the colors of the old orangish/yellow seats looked cool. The passengers were all smiling. It was very detailed. Not a game per se, but he was having fun, so I let him be.
About 10 minutes later, I came back. It was getting to be time where the other educator and I would demo kids games and let families swap to test out other people's stuff. I knew this kid's work wasn't going to really make sense to another family, but I was curious to see if he had come up with any more of an idea of how to play it. But when I got to his table, I realized that he instead had decided to add more accurate details to his subway. Particularly graffiti.
In huuuge letters down the side of the car was the word "FUCK" and some phrase that involved the N-word (can't remember anymore). And there he was just doodling away with a big ol' grin on his face. It was obvious he hadn't done this as a joke, nor did he have any idea what it was he had written. It's just what subways look like, he probably figured. I didn't know what to do, so I just made up some bullshit about subway cars being painted black and I convinced him to shade in his drawing with every black marker I could find. And his mother just sat, her head buried in her phone the whole time.
So, now anytime I see graffiti on a subway car, I just think of that kid and how proud he must of felt before I tricked him to color it in, that he had created a truly accurate drawing of his favorite thing in the world, the subway.