Game as a type of human activity
Olesya Borovikova
Game as a type of human activity
1. The concept of gaming activity
Let's consider what activity is in general and gaming activity in particular . In L. M. Fridman and I. Yu. Kulagina we find: “ activity is understood as the activity of a subject aimed at changing the world, at producing or generating a certain objectified product of material or spiritual culture” [27, p. 30], [19, p. 131].
A.V. Petrovsky says that activity is internal (mental)
and external
(physical)
human activity , regulated by a conscious goal. The purpose of an activity is its focus on a specific result, certain knowledge, skills and abilities acquired in the process of activity . All authors identify three main types of activities : gaming, educational and labor. “Game activity is the simplest form of activity – a unique reflection of life, a means of understanding the world around us.”
In an active play form, the child learns more deeply the phenomena of life and people’s relationships [20, p. 93]. The concept of " game "
includes a huge range of ideas, and different authors have their own approaches to the interpretation of this definition.
So, for example, according to D. G. Mead, play is a process in which a child, imitating adults, perceives their values and attitudes and learns to play certain roles [18, p. 40].
N. D. Ushinsky about
, and L. S. Vygotsky described the game as the first school of raising a child, as the arithmetic of social relations.
There are original formulations of the term “
game ” [26, p. 39].
H. Hoagland believes that "understanding the atom is child's play compared to understanding child's play." One cannot but agree with the opinion of J. Collarits that: “an exact definition of a game is impossible, any search for such definitions should be qualified as “scientific games”
the authors themselves [31, p. 62].
Research into game theory began in the second half of the 19th century, and the most significant, in our opinion, are the works of K. Gross, G. Spencer, F. Boytendak, E. L. Pokrovsky, F. Schiller, F. Froebel, K. Bühler and many others [12, p. 17].
K. Gross in his works creates a theory of the emergence of games as an exercise, training skills necessary for a person to support life.
G. Spencer's theory is based on the fact that the appearance of the game is associated with “excess strength”
that
a person does not waste in the process of his life . This contradiction is refuted by the opinion of the German psychologist M. Lazors, who came to the conclusion that in order to restore his strength expended in the process of work , a person plays [28 , p.
43]. Many Soviet scientists in the 20-30s also worked on the development of game theory as the most important means of comprehensive development and education of a person . But scientific research was mainly focused on studying the game as a method of self-education.
If we turn to the deciphering of the concept of “ game ”
, then the Russian encyclopedic dictionary of 1877 classifies
round dances , sports competitions, gladiator fights, horse races and even animal demonstrations in the circus as games.
In the Great Encyclopedia, edited by S. Yuzhakov, the concept of game is defined as an activity that has no practical purpose and serves for entertainment or amusement, as well as the practical application of certain arts [4, p. 90].
The most detailed definition of the concept “ game ”
gives by V.I. Dal in his Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language.
" A game . what they play with and what they play with : fun, established according to directions, and things that serve for this purpose” [9].
Modern approaches to the concept of " game "
are considered in the works of E. Bern, I. Huizinga, A. Leontiev, D. Elkonin, I. Kohn, S. Shmakov, P. Ershov [14, p. 50].
The creators of the theory of psychoanalysis identify three main motives that lead a person to play . The first is the attraction to repetition, thereby indirectly aligning with the theory of exercises by K. Gross. The second is the desire for liberation, the removal of obstacles that fetter freedom, pointing to the psychological and individual nature of the need for play. And the third is determined by the desire to merge with the community and the surrounding world [6, p. 12].
In the published edition of “ Human ”
P. M. Ershov, published in 1990, the author proposes to consider the game as one of the transformations of the needs inherent in all higher animals and
humans - the need for equipment (auxiliary needs for accumulating and improving the means of satisfying one’s needs [10, p. 37].
A. N. Leontiev believes that play is personal freedom in the imagination, “the illusory realization of unrealizable interests”
.
But no matter how various authors interpret the term “
game ” it has always been one of the leading forms of development of
human and a way of real knowledge of the world. A game is a type of activity that arises at a certain stage of ontogenesis and is aimed at recreating and assimilating social experience, in which self-government of behavior develops and improves [15, p.
49]. An attempt to derive its definition in a wide variety of concepts of “ game ”
, made by scientists of the 19th-20th centuries, is considered inappropriate by us, since it can simply replenish the terminological series.
However, we will dwell on a number of provisions that outline the boundaries of this phenomenon (according to T. S. Bibartseva)
:
- play is a certain action: physical, emotional, intellectual, social or any other;
- the game is initiated by an internal need for something: rest, learning, and so on, but without the energetic charge of the motivational sphere, the game cannot take place ;
- the game is not only a “school”
communication, but also a school of interaction between specific players;
— a game is an optional and kind of irresponsible activity, since it is always carried out not in a real, but in a conditional, deliberately fictitious situation [3, p. 15].
With the term " game "
“play
activity ” is closely related .
In human practice, gaming activity occupies a leading place, especially in childhood, and it has such functions as: entertaining, sociocultural, diagnostic, correctional, communicative, socializing, educational, cognitive, self-realization, and play therapy. The last of the above is of no small importance, as it helps to overcome various difficulties that arise in other types of human activity .
Considering that gaming activity is always voluntary and includes elements of competition and opportunities for self-realization, the structure of the game as an activity includes goal setting and implementation, planning, and analysis of results. Game activity is an important means of mastering various life situations. During the game, not only are human , but the consciousness is also activated and the subconscious is liberated. It is gaming activity that contributes to the rapid assimilation and consolidation of information used in the game. It is no coincidence that role-playing and business games used in the educational process have recently become popular.
Thus, the main characteristics of gaming activity include : accessibility, activity, progressiveness, competitiveness, emotional elation, adaptability, improvisation, voluntariness, creativity, pleasure.
2. Types of gaming activities
Since play activity is a natural need of a child, which is based on intuitive imitation of adults. Play is necessary to prepare the younger generation for work; it can become one of the active methods of teaching and education.
Games can be divided according to the age characteristics of children [10, p. 34]:
1) games for preschool children.
The leading activity of a preschool child is play . Emerging at the border of early childhood and preschool age, role-playing game develops intensively and reaches its highest level in the second half. In the game, the role plays a role as a mediating link between the child and the rule. Accepting the role makes it much easier for the child to follow the rules.
The games of children of the third and fourth year of life are varied in content. A large place is occupied by mobile games (catch-up, hide-and-seek, manipulative with objects (moving objects, ride-on toys)
.
Children love to play with sand and water; by the fourth year of life, children not only make thoughtless movements with building materials, but also try to construct something. In the third year of life, children show their desire for group games .
In middle preschool age, creatively plot-based play , both the plots or themes of these games and their content (action that reveals the plot)
are becoming more and more diverse, reproducing phenomena of everyday, industrial, social life, as well as material from fairy tales and stories.
By the age of 6-7, thanks to the accumulation of life experience, the development of new and relatively more stable interests, imagination and thinking, children’s games become more meaningful and more complex in form.
Often the plots of children are events of school life, that is, the game “school”
, being a close perspective of older preschoolers.
2) games for primary school children
At the age of 6-7 years, the child begins a period of change in the leading type of activity - the transition from play to directed learning (in D. B. Elkonin - “crisis of 7 years”
).
Therefore, when organizing the daily routine and educational activities of younger schoolchildren, it is necessary to create conditions that facilitate a flexible transition from one leading type of activity to another . Solving this problem, you can resort to the widespread use of games in the educational process (cognitive and didactic games)
and during recreation [31, p. 60].
At primary school age, role-playing games continue to occupy a large place. They are characterized by the fact that, while playing , a schoolchild takes on a certain role and performs actions in an imaginary situation, recreating the actions of a specific person . Thus, role play acts as a means of self-education for the child.
The educational significance of story games for younger schoolchildren is fixed in the fact that they serve as a means of understanding reality, creating a team, fostering curiosity and forming strong-willed feelings of the individual.
At this age, outdoor games are common. Children enjoy playing with a ball , running, climbing, that is, those games that require quick reactions, strength, and dexterity. Such games usually contain elements of competition, which is very attractive to children.
Children of this age show an interest in board games , as well as didactic and educational ones. They contain the following elements of activity : game task, game motives, educational solutions to problems.
Didactic games can be used to improve the performance of first grade students [25, p. 16].
During primary school age, significant changes occur in children's games : gaming interests become more stable, toys lose their attractiveness for children, and sports and constructive games begin to come to the fore. Less time is gradually devoted to the game, as reading, going to the cinema, and television begin to occupy a large place in the leisure time of younger schoolchildren.
pedagogically well-organized game mobilizes children’s mental capabilities, develops organizational skills, instills self-discipline skills, and brings joy from joint actions.
3) games for teenage children
This age is often called “difficult”
, transitional. The uniqueness of the social situation of a teenager’s development is that he is included in a new system of relationships and communication with adults and peers, occupying a new place among them, performing new functions. At this age, the dominant need becomes the need to communicate with peers and the need for self-affirmation.
For the purpose of a gradual transition from childhood to adulthood, a special transitional form of adolescent life .
The gaming activity of adolescents differs from the gaming activity of children of primary school age. Apparently, because in it he does not act exactly as he can and knows how, but in new conditions he reveals his capabilities, previously unclaimed. The game offers new conditions for a teenager, rather than playing at adults.
Sports games occupy a large place in adolescence. They are attractive to students of this age for their sharpness and combat focus, the opportunity to demonstrate their physical qualities, as well as willpower.
In the gaming activities of adolescents, ingenuity, orientation, and courage come to the fore. The teenager shows increased demands for strict adherence to the rules of the game and for the quality of gaming activities ; he wants not just to play , but to master “skills”
games, that is, to develop the skills necessary for it in the game, to develop certain personal qualities.
Some teenagers prefer construction games, such as design.
However, these meaningful games do not exhaust all the educational possibilities of gaming activities that can be used in working with teenagers.
4) training games for older teenagers
Game training is conventionally called a system of game exercises for teaching communication. Its purpose is psychotherapeutic. These games are played using a special method. The main thing here is what kind of instructions the leader gives in each game exercise.
Due to the fact that older teenagers are very interested in their personality, “psychological games”
. The goal of the training should be formulated directly for schoolchildren, for example, to learn to understand other people, evaluate, understand, overcome and reveal oneself.
Types of games
There are different types of games: outdoor, didactic, dramatization, constructive games [13, p. 71].
In early childhood, elements of role-playing play arise and begin to form. In role-playing games, children satisfy their desire to live together with adults and, in a special, playful form, reproduce the relationships and work activities of adults .
Leontyev A.N., D.B. Elkonin, A.V. Zaporozhets called role-playing the leading activity of a preschool child. Role play arises and exists in connection with other types of children's practice: primarily with observations of the surrounding life, listening to stories and conversations with adults [21, p. 18].
Role-playing play involves children reproducing the actions of adults and the relationships between them. That is, in the game the child models adults and their relationships.
In addition to this type of game, the preschooler masters games with rules that contribute to the child’s intellectual development, improvement of basic movements and motor qualities.
In preschool age, three classes of games are distinguished [5, p. 19]:
– games that arise on the child’s initiative – amateur games ;
– games that arise on the initiative of an adult who introduces them for educational and educational purposes;
- games that come from the historically established traditions of the ethnic group - folk games that can arise both on the initiative of an adult and older children.
Each of the listed classes of games, in turn, is represented by types and subtypes. So, the first class includes:
Creative role-playing games. The concept of "creative play "
covers role-playing games, dramatization games, construction games.
Role-playing game is the main type of game for a preschool child. It has the main features of the game: emotional richness and enthusiasm of children, independence, activity, creativity.
Dramatization games. They have the main features of creative games: the presence of a plan, a combination of role-playing and real actions and relationships and other elements of an imaginary situation. Games are built on the basis of a literary work: the plot of the game, roles, actions of the characters and their speech are determined by the text of the work. play has a great influence on a child’s speech.
Construction games are a type of creative game. In them, children reflect their knowledge and impressions about the world around them. In construction games, some objects are replaced by others: buildings are erected from specially created building materials and construction materials, or from natural materials (sand, snow)
.
In preschool pedagogy, it is customary to divide games with ready-made content and rules into didactic, active and musical.
Didactic games are a type of games with rules, specially created by a pedagogical school for the purpose of teaching and raising children. Didactic games are aimed at solving specific problems in teaching children, but at the same time, the educational and developmental influence of gaming activities .
Outdoor games. They are based on a variety of movements - walking, running, jumping, climbing, etc. Outdoor games satisfy the growing child’s need for movement and contribute to the accumulation of varied motor experience.
Traditional or folk games. Historically, they form the basis of many educational and leisure games. The subject matter of folk games is also traditional, they themselves, and are more often presented in museums rather than in children's groups. Research conducted in recent years has shown that folk games contribute to the formation in children of universal generic and mental abilities of a person (sensorimotor coordination, arbitrariness of behavior, symbolic function of thinking, etc., as well as the most important features of the psychology of the ethnic group that created the game [1, p. 20 ].
Having studied the classifications and characteristics of the main types of games, we can conclude that gaming activity is an integral part in the development of personality.
3. Functions and significance of gaming activities in human life
A game is a special type of human activity . It arises in response to the social need to prepare the younger generation for life.
For games to become a true organizer of people’s lives, their active activities , their interests and needs, it is necessary that the practice of education should include a richness and variety of games. Children's life can be interesting and meaningful if children have the opportunity to play different games and constantly replenish their gaming baggage.
Each individual type of game has numerous variations. Children are very creative. They complicate and simplify well-known games, come up with new rules and details. They are not passive towards games . For them this is always creative inventive activity .
Children's games for the entire period of the Soviet formation were not collected, not generalized, which means they were not classified. The famous psychologist A. N. Leontyev was right when he asserted: “... in order to approach the analysis of a child’s specific play activity , one must take the path not of a formal list of the games that he plays , but to penetrate into their actual psychology, into the meaning of the game for the child. Only then will the development of the game appear for us in its true inner content.”
Children's games are characterized by the following features [11, p. 25]:
1. the game is a form of active reflection by the child of the people around him;
2. a distinctive feature of the game is the very method that the child uses in this activity ;
3. the game , like any other human activity , has a social character, so it changes with changes in the historical conditions of people's lives;
4. play is a form of creative reflection of reality by the child;
5. play is the manipulation of knowledge, a means of clarification and enrichment, a way of exercise, and therefore the development of the child’s cognitive and moral abilities and strengths;
6. in its expanded form, the game is a collective activity ;
7. By developing children in many ways, the game also changes and develops.
Play as a function of culture, along with work and learning, is one of the main types of human activity . G. K. Selevko defines a game as “a type of activity in situations aimed at recreating and assimilating social experience, in which self-government of behavior is formed and improved” [22, p. 58].
Most researchers agree that in people's lives the game performs such important functions as:
1. entertaining (the main function of the game is to entertain, give pleasure, inspire, arouse interest);
2.communicative: mastering the dialectics of communication;
3. on self-realization in the game as a “testing ground for human practice ”
;
4.therapeutic: overcoming various difficulties that arise in other types of life ;
5. diagnostic: identifying deviations from normative behavior, self-knowledge during the game;
6.correctional: making positive changes to the structure of personal indicators;
7.international communication: the assimilation of socio-cultural values common to all people;
8.socialization: inclusion in the system of social relations, assimilation of the norms of human society .
Thus, play accompanies the development of man , starting almost from his first steps, when he differs from higher animals only in his unrealized inclinations, to the heights of his purely human activity . But, accompanying a person throughout his entire journey , the game does not always occupy the same place in his needs. The role of play increases from early childhood to youth and adulthood. Here the need for armament is usually dominant. Further, the game gradually gives way to other transformations of the same need for armament, sometimes competing with them more or less successfully for some time. But when these other transformations successfully fulfill their role, the game again gains strength - a person has leisure ! It is now that the kinship between play and artistic creativity emerges. The artist, fully armed with skill, creates while playing ; High acting art is not only conventionally called acting, but in its improvisational essence it is really similar to acting. Stanislavsky even likened it to a children's game.
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↑ Material and spiritual activity
Based on objects and results, activities are divided into material and spiritual.
Material (practical) activities
associated with practice, creating something new or changing the old order of things.
Material activity, in turn, is divided into two main groups: material-production and social-transformative.
Material and production
activity represents the creation of material wealth, the enrichment of the culture of humanity as a whole. For example, construction, factory production, crafts.
Social transformative activities
associated with changes in society. This type of activity includes the publication of new legislative acts and implementation of reforms.
Spiritual activity
is a process associated with intelligence and creativity, aimed at the spiritual development of the world.
It includes cognitive, value-oriented and prognostic activities.
Cognitive (educational and cognitive)
activities are associated with obtaining new knowledge about the world, events and patterns.
The establishment and formation of spiritual values in society or a value-based attitude towards things is a value-oriented activity
.
Prognostic activity
- making forecasts or plans for the future, foreseeing the results of one’s actions or future events.
The results of spiritual activity are new ideas, values, ideas, which are subsequently embodied in philosophical concepts, scientific theories, works of art, moral, religious, legal and other norms.
Historical forms of spiritual activity are religion, morality, art, science, philosophy, law, political ideology, and spiritual production
- this is the result of activity in these areas, namely spiritual values and benefits.
Spiritual production -
production of spiritual values, those. ideas, ideas, scientific knowledge, ideals, as well as the entire system of human activity associated with this process.
Activities may also vary in nature. Thus, they distinguish the conscious
(conscious setting of goals and their achievement),
productive
(creation of a useful product),
instrumental
(creation of tools),
transformative
(changing the environment, society, self-improvement) and
social
(interaction with people)
nature of activity
.
