War and War Games

By Kathy In Weapons and War Games On April 28, 2015

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As long as no one really gets hurt .

Recently some of the children began to create weapons and to make use of their five-minute breaks to do mock battles. When the battles became borderline dangerous, I called a meeting.

One student took it upon himself to make a list of the rules for war he thought were most important.

I facilitated the conversation and took notes.

For the next class I’d put together the following outline.

Outline of Notes from Combat Games Meeting

In our meeting we talked about:

1. Rules for Combat
2. Preparations for Combat
3. Types of Combat

Under Rules for Combat:

• Warriors would have to make weapon not just pick up a branch or an object.
• If you sneak up on your enemy, you can’t hit as hard as if you were face to face.
• Not only does everyone have to wear goggles, everyone has to wear armor and have a shield.
• Trash Talk
  • Some Trash Talk is OK during war preparations and during war
  • But if you’d be arrested for actually doing what youre about to say, that talk is not allowed
  • If someone takes offense at what is said, that talk is not allowed either. Don’t do it again.
• New materials for making weapons are now available in the studio and we’ll be designing and testing the weapons before we use them for combat.

Under Preparations for Combat:

Places for Meetings about Combat  by James

• Each team has its own private place to strategize.
• There will be a place called Global where everybody can come together to talk.

Strength Tests: To be supervised and adjudicated by teacher

• Warrior’s hardest stroke against inanimate object
• Warrior’s moderated stroke against inanimate object to demonstrate stroke used against opponent

I spoke to Thomas, a mature older participant. “You recommended that a teacher supervise the Strength Test. That’s valid because it helps to keep things fair. I have a problem though, because I’m not sure I can judge whether a blow would hurt someone or not by just looking at it. Do you feel you would be able to evaluate that? If so, I’d want you to share your sense of this with me when we do our strength tests.”

Under Types of Combat [Every type of combat will have to comply with all the rules of combat.]

• Gladiatorial Combat
• Hunger Games Combat
• Special Events depending on the people who come to class

Gladiatorial Combat

• A Gladiator can have 1,3 or 5 lives.
• The audience would rules on the fighters by giving them thumbs up or down.
• We could have two gladiator teams
• Gladiator #1 from Team #1 would fight Gladiator #1 from Team #2, etc.

Hunger Games Combat

• Two Teams
• Each field of combat will be designed and laid out by everyone who wants to be involved from both teams

A question: Could people who are not going to be combatants also create the war game?

• There will be time between events to invent the next challenge and how to determine the winners of the new challenge

Special Events Combat: to Be Determined

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