Level-Based Games: Rules, Listening, and Self-Esteem

Children work together through progressive levels of a theater game under the guidance of the workshop leader.

Whenever someone claims that children and teenagers do not like rules, I reply that I disagree: it depends on the context.

I have also devised a workshop sequence about rules entitled “Dove i Sì… Quando i No”.

Games have rules, and no one likes playing with someone who refuses to follow them.

If that example were not enough, consider the unbridled enthusiasm many children and teenagers have for video games.

I became interested in their basic “dramaturgical structure” and drew from it several principles that I have used—and continue to use—to create games for my workshops:

• the games are organized into levels of increasing difficulty, with rules that are easy to understand;

• the first levels are very easy: they allow participants to understand how the game works and become invested in it;

• the challenges presented by the next level are always explicit, while participants must discover the possible solutions, of which there may be several;

• by completing the levels, participants acquire skills through play, without experiencing learning as an imposed task.

When participants repeat an earlier level, what initially seemed difficult now appears simple. Seeing concrete evidence of their own improvement strengthens their confidence and self-esteem.

As part of developing listening skills, I use these games to “warm up attention” and teach participants that theater work demands a higher level of attention than we normally use in everyday life.

I alternate them with other exercises that engage participants more deeply, either emotionally or through action.

One example is the Train Game.