The "fist to five" technique for voting or consensus decision-making (see "Dedocracia" can be used for rapid, on the fly, evaluation. It gives people an easy way to practice an important technique for democratic decision-making and the experience of expressing their judgment in a group context. For the facilitator(s) and the group, it provides important information about the usefulness of the techniques being used.
Based on a Japanese puzzle game and the famous speech by early feminist leader Kishida Toshiko, this game asks players to identify the obstacles to the freedom of young women and then remove them one at a time.
Making the game is a key part of the activity. In teams, participants:
Brainstorm:
Use the haka form to practice the body language of other emotions and attitudes: instead of intimidation, how about love, shame, flattery...?
Use it with language, as a kind of competition -- each side having its players say something in English, different for each player, showing off their language skill and clever ideas.
Use it with sounds, each side taking turns making one sound or word, like my name "Matt." The leaders can coach their teams and tell them which word is next.
In pairs, one person is the Engineer the other is the Robot. The engineer gives the robot instructions. The robot does exactly what z is instructed to do, if possible in the spirit of "yes, and...". It is okay for the robot to fail to perform an action -- that requires the engineer to adapt the instruction. This will be most interesting if the instructions are creative: write a poem, pretend to eat ice cream, explain the meaning of life...
Variations:
For centuries board games have been used for entertainment, propaganda, and education. Monopoly was based on the Landlord Game, which was designed by followers of Henry George to education people about Land Rent and the single tax. Coopoly is designed to teach the challenges of running a worker cooperative. Some Japanese sugoroku games present bildungsromans or cautionary tales.
Excellent guide to instructions for games:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gv1WqLwVWeagmJiWVuvOeXHbTA4MEpXGV2yV...
Work & Education, Past and Future Sugoroku Process Notes
Standing in a circle, a group of five to ten people. The joker hands the first player an index card with a word on it (or an object or picture). Player 1 has to ask Player 2 a question based on that word. Player two answers, then does the same for Player 3, etc.
Idea for an activity: in trios, one player is the couch potato, the other two are actors in a TV show. The actors improvise a dialogue. At any time, the couch potato can say, "mute!" as if hitting the mute button on a remote control. When s/he does that, the players continue their dialogue without any sound.
The players have to pay attention so that when the couch potato turns off the mute, they have something to say.
On index cards, one each, write tasks, roles, resources, decision-making, access to information that go with each position in the organization. E.g., the production worker in the coop, the manager in the coop, the union steward, etc.
Draw one card for each position: steward, president, member, etc.
Line up the roles, resources, etc that belong to each position.
Then, re-distribute the roles, etc. in teams -- what is the best way to distribute roles, responsibilities, why? Are new positions needed? Are some existing positions superfluous?
I got this idea from a TedX talk by Chris Lonsdale: "How to learn any language in six months."(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yGdNEWdn0).
The concept is simple: create a simple 3x3x3 matrix of three nouns, three verbs and three adjectives. Make sentences using one of the nouns, one verb, and one adjective. The goal is to make as many meaningful combinations as possible.
The players should feel free to add other words and parts of speech, but the basis of the sentence should be three words from the matrix.
As a child I remember playing a game in which one person made a repetitive mechanical movement, with a sound to match. The next person added a new movement and sound, and so on, until the participants had assembled a big, clanking, wheezing machine.
In this activity, the first player says one word, again and again, establishing a beat. (1, 2, 3, 4 --> The, The, The, The...) The next player adds a word and another rhythm. (1, rest, 3, 4 --> time, --, time, time) Each successive player builds the sentence and the sound.
