Analysis of Elkonin's research on the psychology of play. D.B. Elkonin. Game and mental development. Game and development of mental actions
D.B. Elkonin created the theory of periodization of the mental development of children.
He proceeded from the fact that age and age characteristics are relative concepts, and only the most general age characteristics can be distinguished.
The scientist considered the age development of the child as a general change in personality, accompanied by a change in life position and the principle of relationships with others, the formation of new values and motives of behavior at each stage.
The mental development of the child occurs unevenly: there are evolutionary periods and, or critical periods.
During the evolutionary period, changes in the psyche accumulate gradually, then there is a jump, during which the child switches to new stage age development.
On our website you can download the book "Psychology of the Game" by D. B. Elkonin for free and without registration in pdf format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.
The book summarizes the basic materials on the psychology of the game. The author gives a detailed analysis of foreign theories of the game, the understanding of the game, which has developed in domestic psychology, shows its significance for the mental development of the child. The publication is intended for practical psychologists, teachers, researchers in the field of developmental psychology, general and preschool pedagogy.
In memory of my daughters Natasha and Galya and their mother Nemanova Ts.P., who died tragically during the Great Patriotic War
From the Author. Research biography
I became interested in the psychology of children's play at the very beginning of the 1930s in the course of observing the play of daughters and in connection with lecturing on child psychology. Records of these observations were lost during the war in besieged Leningrad, and only a few episodes remained in memory. Here are two of them.
One weekend I had to stay at home alone with the girls. Both girls were preschoolers and attended kindergarten. Spending a day off together was a holiday for us. We read, drew, fiddled around, played pranks. It was fun and noisy until it was time for lunch. I made a traditional and rather boring semolina porridge. They flatly refused to eat, did not want to sit down at the table.
Not wanting to spoil the good mood and resort to coercion, I invited the girls to play kindergarten. They gladly agreed. Putting on a white coat, I turned into a teacher, and they, putting on pinafores, into pupils of a kindergarten. We began to fulfill in the game plan everything that is supposed to be in kindergarten: we drew; then, putting on as if little coats, they took a walk, going around the room twice; revered. Finally it was time for food. One of the girls took over the functions of the attendant and prepared the table for breakfast. I, the "teacher", offered them the same porridge for breakfast. Without any protest, even expressing pleasure, they began to eat, tried to be neat, carefully scraped the plates and even asked for more. With all their behavior, they tried to show themselves as exemplary pupils, emphasizing their attitude towards me as a teacher, unquestioningly obeying my every word, addressing me formally. The relationship of daughters to their father turned into the relationship of the pupils to the teacher, and the relationship of the sisters - to the relationship between the pupils. Game actions were extremely reduced and generalized - this whole game lasted about half an hour.
Schiller: the game is a pleasure associated with being free from external. consumption is a manifestation of excess vitality.
Spencer: the game is an artificial exercise of strength; the game finds expression of the lower abilities, and in the aesthetic. activities are the highest.
Wundt: Play is the child of labor, everything in play has a prototype in the form of serious labor, which always precedes it both in time and in essence.
Elkonin: human. game - activity, in a cat. social are being recreated. relations between people outside the conditions of directly utilitarian activity.
When describing children. psychologists emphasized the work of imagination, fantasy.
J. Selley: the essence of children. games are in the performance of some role.
Elkonin: it is the role and the actions associated with it that constitute the unit of the game.
Game structure:
game actions, bearing a generalized and abbreviated character
game use of objects
real. relationship between playing children
The more generalized and abbreviated the game actions, the deeper the meaning, task and system of the recreated activities of adults are reflected in the game; the more concrete and expanded the play actions, the more the concrete-subject content of the recreated activity appears.
The plots of the game are decisively influenced by the reality surrounding the child, social. conditions of life.
The game is especially sensitive to the human sphere. activities, labor and relations between people (the railway - they played only after they were shown specific mutual relations, actions).
About the historical arose and role play.
Plekhanov:
in human history. total labor is older than play
the game arose-t in response to the consumption of the community-va, in the cat. children and assets live. members of the cat. they should become
amaze. stability children. toys (the same for different peoples)
primitive toys. general and recent historical. the past are essentially the same - the toy responds somehow unchanged. natural the individual child and is not in connection with the life of society (contradicts Plekhanov); but Arkin does not speak of all, but only of the original toys: sound (rattles), motor (ball, kite, spinning top), weapons (bow, arrows, boomerangs), figurative (depicts of belly x, dolls), rope (from figures make it).
Elkonin: these toys are not original, but also arose on a specific basis. stages of development of society-va, they were preceded by the invention of people-com defined. tools (N., making fire by friction, friction is provided by rotation, hence rotational toys, cubes, etc.)
The initial unity of labor activity and education. Education in the primitive. total wah:
equal upbringing of all children
a child should be able to do everything that adults do
short period of education
directly participation of children in the lives of adults
early inclusion in labor (!!!)
where a child can work with adults right away, there is no game, but where you need to preliminarily. preparation is.
there is no sharp line between adults and children
children become independent early
children play little, games are not role-playing (!!!)
if this work is important, but not yet accessible to the child, reduced tools are used to master the tools, with a cat. children practice in conditions that are close to real, but not identical to them (the Far North - a knife is important, they are taught to handle it from early childhood; throw a rope on a stump, then on a dog, then on an animal); building there is an element of the game situation (conditional situation: a stump is not a deer; acting with a reduced object, the child acts like a father, i.e. an element of a role-playing game)
the identity of the games of children and adults - outdoor sports games
there are imitative games (imitation of a wedding, etc.), but there is no imitation of the work of adults, but there are games of a cat. reproduction of the situation of life, cat. not yet available for children
The complication of labor tools - the child cannot master reduced forms (you reduce the gun - it no longer shoots) - a toy appeared as an object that only depicted labor tools.
Role-playing game appeared in the course of history. development as a result of those changes in the place of the child in the system of societies. relational, social in origin.
game theory.
Groos exercise theory:
Every a living being has inherited predispositions, which give expediency to his behavior (in the higher stomachs, this is an impulsive desire for action).
At higher living beings innate reactions are insufficient to perform complex. life. tasks.
In life every higher beings are childhood, i.e. period of development and growth, parental care.
The goal of childhood is the acquisition of adaptations necessary for life, but not developed directly from innate reactions.
Strive to imitate elders.
Where the individual from ext. motives and without external. goal manifests, strengthens and develops its inclinations, we are dealing with the original phenomena of the game.
Those. we play not because we are children, but childhood is given to us so that we can play.
Groos did not create a theory of play as an activity typical of the period of childhood, but only indicated that this activity was for him. def. biological important function.
Objections:
believes that the individual experience arose on the basis of hereditary, but opposes them
it is strange that in the game of the stomach, which is not connected with the struggle for existence and, therefore, takes place in other conditions, not similar to those in the cat. there will be, N., hunting, real adaptations arose, tk. there is no real reinforcement.
transfers without reservation biological. the meaning of the game from animals to people
Stern. Shared the views of Groos, but added:
notion of prematurity of abilities
recognizing the game as a special instinct
necessary for the preparation of maturing ways of intimate contact with their impressions of the outside. peace
Groos, unlike Stern, does not raise the question of the role of external. conditions in the game, because is an opponent of Spencer's position on imitation as the basis of the game.
Buhler. To explain the game, he introduces the concept of functional pleasure. This concept is delimited from pleasure-enjoyment and from the joy associated with the anticipation of the action. He further said that for the selection of forms of behavior, a surplus, a wealth of activities, body movements, is necessary, especially in young animals. And also the principle of form controls the game, or the desire for a perfect form.
Criticism of Buhler: functional. pleasure is the engine of all kinds of trials, including erroneous ones, it should lead to the repetition and consolidation of any actions and movements.
Buytendijk. Arguing with Groos:
instinctive forms of activity, like a nerve. fur-we underlying them mature regardless of exercise
separates practice from play
not play explains the meaning of childhood, but vice versa: a creature plays because it is young
The main features of behavior in childhood:
non-direction of movements
motor impulsivity (young belly is in constant motion)
"pathic" attitude to reality - the opposite of gnostic, directly affective connection with the environment. world, arising as a reaction to novelty
timidity, timidity, shyness (not fear, but an ambivalent attitude, consisting in moving towards and away from a thing)
All this leads the animal and the child to play.
Restriction of the game from other activities: a game is always a game with something - move. animal games are not games.
At the heart of the game is not a department. instincts, but more general drives. Following Freud: 3 exodus. urges to play:
attraction to liberation, removal of obstacles coming from the environment that fetter freedom
attraction to merging, to community with others
tendency to repeat
A game object should be partially familiar and at the same time have unknown capabilities.
Game in its outcome. form is a manifestation of orienting activity.
Claparede objected:
features of the dynamics of young. organism is not m / b the basis of the game, because:
they are characteristic of cubs and those animals that do not play
dynamics is manifested not only in games, but also in other forms of behavior
adults have games
max. openly these individuals are manifested in such activities as fun, lounging and playing very small ones, a cat. according to Buytendijk, they are not games
Buytendijk limits the concept of play: round dances, somersaults do not belong to him as games, although they are characterized by the indicated features of children. speakers
Cons of all these theories:
phenomenological approach to separating games from other types of behavior
identification of the course of mental. child and animal development and their games
Elkonin: the game arose on a certain. stages of evolution of the abdomen. world and is associated with the emergence of childhood; play is not a function of the organism, but a form of behavior, i.e. activities with things, moreover, with elements of novelty. The game is young. belly-x - exercise is not a department. engine systems or department. instinct and type of behavior, and an exercise in quick and precise control of the engine. behavior in any of its forms, based on the images of the individual. conditional, in the cat. there is an object, i.e. exercise in orientation activity.
J. Selley - features of role-playing game:
transformation by the child of himself and surrounding objects and transition to an imaginary world
deep preoccupation with the creation of this fiction and life in it
Stern. The tightness of the world, in the cat. the child lives, and the feeling of pressure he experiences is the cause of the tendency to move away from this world, the cause of the emergence of play, and fantasy is the mechanism for its implementation. But Stern contradicts himself: he himself said that the child introduces the activities of adults and related objects into his play, because. the adult world is attractive to him.
Z. Freud. Two primary drives: to death (the tendency to obsessive reproduction is associated with it) and to life, to self-preservation, to power, to self-affirmation. This is the main dynamic forces. mental life, unchanged in the infant and adult. Children's play, like culture, science, art, is a form of bypassing barriers, a cat. puts society in the original drives, looking for a way out. When analyzing the play of a small child with throwing things and with the “appearance-disappearance” of a spool of thread, Freud suggests symbolizing in this game the situation of the mother’s leaving the child that traumatizes the child.
Objection: the fact of such an early symbolization is doubtful.
According to Freud, the period of childhood is a period of continuous traumatization of the child, and the tendency to obsessive repetition leads to games, play as the only means of mastering by repeating those unbearable experiences that these traumas bring with them. Those. since childhood, a person has been a potential neurotic, and the game is a natural therapeutic tool.
The game arose on the basis of the same mechs that underlie the dreams and neuroses of adults.
An important thought: the play of children is influenced by the desire that dominates at this age - to become an adult and do as adults do.
Adler - a feeling of weakness and lack of independence, painfully felt, the child tries to drown out in himself the fiction of power and domination - he plays the wizard and the fairy. Games - attempts to create a situation that reveals those social. relation, to the cat. the affect is fixed, i.e. role-playing game as a semantic center to them. social relations between adults and between an adult and a child.
Hartley. Role-play observation - finding out how the child imagines adults, the meaning of their activities, relationships, and also in roles. game the child comes into reality. relations with others. playing and shows its inherent quality and some. emotional. experiences.
Disadvantages of Freud's interpretations:
biologizing, does not teach the history of ontogenetic. human development, identifies the main. attraction of a person and a stomach and reduces them to sexual
tolerates the hypothetical fur-we are mental dynamics. life from adult patients to children
the idea of the relationship between the child and society as antagonistic, leading to injuries, and play is a form of the child's departure from reality. really
ignorir-Xia arose games in the history of society and in the development of the department. individual, not considered game value for the psychic development
Piaget. The child assimilates the reality around him in accordance with the laws of his thinking, first autistic and then egocentric. Such assimilation creates a special world, in Oct. the child lives and satisfies all his desires. This world of dreams is the most important for the child, it is the real reality for him. The path of development from the standpoint of Piaget: at first for the child there is a single world - the subjective. the world of autism and desires, then under the influence of pressure from the world of adults, the world of reality, two worlds arise - the world of play and the world of reality, the first being more important for the child. This game world is something like the remnants of a purely autistic world. Finally, under the pressure of the world of reality, these remnants are also repressed, and then a single world appears, as it were, with repressed desires that acquire the character of dreams or daydreams.
Objections. The premises are incorrect: that the needs of the child are given to him from the very beginning in the form of a psychic. formations, in the form of desires or expenses; that the child's needs are not being met. Research by Lisina: the initial cost of a child is the cost of communication with an adult. The world of a child is, first of all, an adult person. The world of a child is always some part of the world of adults, refracted in a peculiar way, but part of the objective world. And besides, no satisfaction of expenses in an imaginary world is possible.
K. Levin, schematic views:
Psych. the environment of an adult person is differentiated into layers with differences. degree of reality.
Transfers from one plan to another are possible.
This is also in children, but their differentiation is different. degrees of reality is not so clear and the transitions from the level of reality to the level of unreality are made easier.
Main fur-mom of transition from layers is various. degrees of reality to unreal layers is substitution.
Main the property of play: it deals with phenomena related to the level of reality in the sense that they are accessible to the observation of outsiders, but are much less bound by the laws of reality than non-play behavior.
Sliozberg (research). In a serious situation, the child vol. rejection of game substitution. In the game, he often rejects the real. things or real. actions offered to him instead of playing. Pts. an important factor in the adoption of substitution is the degree of intensity of consumption. The stronger the consumption, the less the value of the replacement action becomes.
Levin and Sliozberg: the game is a special layer of reality, but the actions in the game are similar in their dynamics to the actions in the unreal layers.
Piaget. The child uses his body and department. movement for originality. simulation of position, movement and sv-in some. objects (Zaporozhets also pointed out). The study of imitation leads Piaget to the idea that a person who is born thinks. the image is an internalized imitation. Thus, according to Piaget, imitation is a sensorimotor released from the undivided. movements are pure accommodation to visual or acoustic patterns. And the game is first of all a simple assimilation, functional or reproducing. Psych. assimilation is the incorporation of objects into patterns of behavior that are themselves nothing more than a canvas of actions that have the ability to be actively reproduced.
One of Piaget's criteria for playing is to free oneself from conflicts.
3 main Piagetian game structures:
exercise games
symbolic games
games with rules
All of them are forms of behavior, in which assimilation predominates, but their difference lies in the fact that each. stage, reality is assimilated by different schemes. What is the structure of the child's thought at a given stage of development, such is his game, for the game is the assimilation of reality in accordance with the structure of thought.
Symbolic play is egocentric thought in its purest form. Main the function of the game is to protect the "I" of the child from forced accommodations to reality. The symbol, being the personal, individual, affective language of the child, is the main means of such egocentric assimilation.
The game is so egocentric. assimilation, in a cat. use a special language of symbols, which creates the possibility of its most complete implementation.
Piaget's conception of play as an expression of the unconscious. conflicts and the convergence of the symbolism of the game with the symbolism of dreams - the proximity of his understanding of the game to psychoanalytic.
Objections: the game is not a conservative force, but, on the contrary, an activity that produces a genuine revolution in the relationship of the child to the world, including in the transition from centered to decentralized thinking, plays a progressive role in the development of the child. Symbolic the game is not egocentric. thought in its purest form, as Piaget thinks, but, on the contrary, its overcoming. In the game, the child acts with his experiences, he takes them out, recreating the material conditions for their occurrence, transfers them into a new form, gnostic (the girl, struck by the sight of a plucked duck, lies on the sofa and says in a muffled voice: “I am a dead duck”).
Piaget believes that in the game any thing can serve as a fictitious substitute for anything. But it's not. Vygotsky: some objects easily replace others, zd. the similarity is not important, but the functional use is important, the ability to perform a depicting gesture with a substitute.
One cannot agree with Piaget in bringing the symbolism of play closer to the symbolism of dreams.
The merit of Piaget: put the problem of the game in connection with the transition from sensorimotor intelligence to thinking in representations.
Chateau. Pleasure, cat. the child receives in the game - this is a moral pleasure. It is connected with the fact that in every game there is a definition. plan and more or less strict rules. The fulfillment of this plan and rules creates a special moral satisfaction. The child has no other forms of self-affirmation, except for play. Chateau's self-affirmation is an expression of the desire to improve and overcome difficulties, to new achievements.
Soviet Ψ. Ushinsky emphasized the importance of the game for the overall development of the soul (for the development of the personality and its moral side), Sikorsky - the role of the game in the mind. development.
Vinogradov - taking in the main. Groos's theory, believes that he did not sufficiently take into account "human factors": imagination, imitation, emotional moments.
Basov: playing them. structural features, max. characteristic is the absence of any child in a child. def. obligations, this freedom in relations with the environment leads to a special kind of behavior, the main driving force and feature of the cat. yavl-Xia procedurality. Chel-to - an active figure, the rejection of a purely naturalistic. theories of the game, which saw its sources within the personality, and not in the system of the relationship of the child with the reality around him.
Blonsky. Games:
imaginary games (manipulation)
imitative
dramatization
mobile
intellectual
What we call play is, in essence, the constructive and dramatic art of the child. The problem of play conceals the problems of labor and art in school age.
Vygotsky.
In children's games primitive. people happening. their preparation for future activities. Human game. the child is also aimed at future activities, but chapters. way to work-Th social. character
The game is the fulfillment of desires, but not individual, but generalized affects. Central and characteristic of the play situation is the creation of an imaginary situation, which consists in the child taking on the role of an adult, and its implementation in the play environment created by the child himself. The rules in the game are the rules of the child for himself, the rules of the inner. self-restraint and self-determination. Everything in the game is internal. processes are given in ext. action. Play continually creates situations that require the child to act not on an immediate impulse, but along the line of greatest resistance. The game is, although not the predominant, but the leading type of activity in preschool age. The game contains all the tendencies of development, it is the source of development and creates zones of proximal development, behind the game there are changes in costs and changes in the consciousness of the general character.
Rubinstein. Exodus. the particularity of the game is the particularity of its motives. The motives of the game are not in the utilitarian effect and the real result, cat. about. gives this action in practice. in a non-playful way, but not in the activity itself, regardless of its result, but in the diverse experiences that are significant for the child of the parties really. In play, actions are expressive and semantic acts rather than operational devices.
The emergence of play in ontogeny.
The entire first half of the first year of life passes with advanced formation of sensory systems. Probing movements of the hand are important for the subsequent development of the act of grasping. First, the hands accidentally bump into the object, resulting in the subsequent direction of the hands towards the object when it is on the object. distance from the eye, bringing to opred. the position of the hand and fingers at the sight of an object under the definition. angle of view. In the course of the formation of the act of grasping, the connection between visual perception and movement is established instantly. In the process of grasping, feeling, a connection is formed between the retinal image of an object and its action. form, size, remoteness, the foundations of spatial object perception are laid.
Repeat development. movements begin with a pat on the subject, then they become more diverse. In the call and maintenance of repeated and chain actions with objects, a large role belongs to orienting research activities associated with the novelty of objects and the variety of their inherent qualities. The child predominantly focuses on the new object and grasps it. Manipulative actions in the first year of life appear when all the prerequisites necessary for this arise, as well as coordinated movements regulated from the side of vision. Orientation to the new, developing throughout the second half of the year, is already a form of behavior, and not a simple reaction. The exhaustion of the possibilities of novelty leads to the cessation of actions with the object. Elkonin does not call the initial manipulative actions a game. By the end of the first year of life, immediate emotional. communication between the child and the adult is replaced by a new one. qualitatively original form, unfolding in joint. activities with an adult and mediated by manipulations with objects. The child seeks the appreciation and approval of an adult.
The emergence of a role-playing game is genetically linked to the formation of objective actions in early childhood under the guidance of adults. Subject. actions - historically established, fixed for def. public objects for their use. The bearers of the subject. actions are adults. Development subject. actions - the process of assimilation occurring under the direct supervision of adults. In the course of the form-I subject. actions the child first learns the total. scheme of action with the subject associated with its societies. appointment, and only then does the adjustment of the department. operations to physical the form of the object and the conditions for carrying out actions with it. Learning by observing the actions of adults. 2 types of transfer: transfer of an action with an object to other conditions and the implementation of the same action, but with a substitute object. For the first time, the substitution of one object for another arises when it is necessary to supplement the usual situation of action with the missing object. To cut something with a knife - use a stick, because. it can perform the same actions externally.
Naming objects: children name an object after an adult has named it and after an action has been performed with the object.
Children already perform a number of actions performed by adults, but do not yet call themselves by the name of adults. Only at the very end of early childhood, between 2.5 and 3 years old, did the first rudiments of the role appear: the naming of the doll by the name of the character appeared and the child’s conversation appeared on behalf of the doll. Actions are performed with puppets, but this is a series of unrelated departments. actions, there is no logic in their deployment: first he cradles, then he walks, then he feeds, then he rocks on a rocking chair ... There is no logical. last, cat. there is in life, actions m / be repeated several times. Only towards the very end of early childhood do games begin to appear, which are a chain of life actions. About. in the center is a doll.
During the development of the subject. playing, the child does not learn to act better with objects - to own a scallop, a spoon ... M / b, in play actions, the child does not learn new things. physical St. in objects. Into the subject. game chapters are digested. way the values of objects, there is an orientation to their societies. function, society. usage.
There is a generalization of actions and their separation from objects, there is a comparison of their actions with the actions of adults and calling themselves the name of an adult.
The child produces an object. actions first on those objects, on the cat. they were formed with the help of adults; he transfers these actions to other objects offered at first by adults; calls objects by the names of replaced objects only after actions with them and naming them with adult game names; Naz-t themselves by the name of those people, the actions of the cat. reproduces at the suggestion of adults.
The game does not arise spontaneously, but with the help of adults.
The development of play in preschool age.
Arising on the border of early childhood and preschool. age, the role-playing game develops intensively and reaches its top level.
Arkin - 5 base. game development lines:
from smaller groups to more and more crowded
from unstable groupings to increasingly stable ones
from plotless games to story games
from a series of unrelated episodes to a systematically unfolding plot
from reflection of personal life and immediate environment to events public life
Rudik pointed out a number of new symptoms:
change in the nature of conflicts in older people compared to younger ones
transition, to the cat. every the child plays in his own way, to the game, in the cat. children's actions are coordinated and children's interaction is organized on the basis of the roles assumed
change-e har-ra pacing game, cat-I'm in younger age arises under the influence of toys, and in the elder - under the influence of design, regardless of toys
change in the nature of the role, which first has a generalized character, and then more and more endowed with individual features and typified.
Junior games age are procedural in nature; on Wednesday preschool the age of the role is of paramount importance, the interest of the game for children lies in the performance of the role; at an older age, children are interested not just in this or that role, but also in how well it is performed.
Mendzheritskaya - new special children. games:
the development of Spanish-tion by children is different. items in the game, cat-th when replacing real. the subject of the game is dressed from a distant resemblance to an ever greater exactingness in relation to similarities
smoothing with age of contradictions between inventing a plot and the possibility of its implementation
the development of the plot comes from the image of the external. hand yavl-th to the transfer of their meaning
the appearance in the older age of the plan, although schematic and inaccurate, but giving a perspective and clarifying the actions of each. game participant
strengthening and at the same time changing the role of the organizers of the game to older age
Slavina's observations.
Characteristic features of the games of older children. Children vol. agree on roles and then develop the plot of the game according to the definition. plan, recreating the lens. logic of events in a definite, strict sequence. Every child's action. logical continuation in another action that replaces it. Things, toys, furnishings get defined. game values, cat. persist throughout the game. Children play together, their actions are interconnected. Actions are subject to the plot and role. Their implementation is not a goal in itself, they are always them. services meaning, only realizing the role, are generalized, abbreviated, integral character.
Junior game. children has a different character. Kids consider toys, choose the most. attractive and begin to individually manipulate with them, performing monotonously repetitive actions for a long time, not showing interest in what toys and how the other child plays. But it is important for children that there is a role and an imaginary situation in the game, although in fact they are almost never played out. 2 motivational plans in the game: 1) directly. the urge to act with toys, 2) taking on the def. a role that gives meaning to actions performed with objects.
Mikhailenko experimented. In the preliminary series, it was found out the possibility of the implementation by children of the elementary. game forms. activities according to adult patterns. Children from 1.5 to 3 years. The plot was different. bami. The first series - in verbal form - zd. out of 55 children, only 10 older than 2 years old started to play. The second series - the experimenter not only told the story, but also acted it out in front of the children. Out of 45 children, cat. did not accept the plot in the 1st series, 32 children accepted. Then a special series - to translate learned elementary. action with plot. toys in the playroom - they offered the children to reproduce the actions with the wrong object, on the cat. they were assimilated, but with substitute subjects. Part accepted by verbal suggestion. and some just after the show.
In the course of generalization and reduction of the action, its meaning changed: the action with a spoon turned into feeding the doll. But although the actions became playful in form, they were not yet role-playing. Mikhailenko suggested that the transition to playing the role is associated with 2 conditions: with the assignment of a number of actions to the same character (the doctor listens, gives medicine, gives an injection ...) and with the adoption of the role of the character, the cat. given in the plot, on yourself.
Development of the role in the game. Expert. The first series: games in ourselves, in adults and in comrades. The second series: games with a violation of the sequence of actions when the child performs a role. The third series: games with a violation of the meaning of the role.
Younger children refuse to play themselves, without motivating the refusal. Wed. preschool from the same refusal, but it is always replaced by the offer of another game. Older children offer some from about. classes as the content of the game or offer to repeat the entire routine of life for children. garden. Realizing this content, children perceive the relationship with the expert not as playful, but as serious. The game is possible only if you have a role!
They take the role of a teacher willingly, but the elders do not want to take on the roles of children. The role of the child cannot serve as the realization of the motive of the game (the motive of the game is the role), and the relationship with the teacher for them no longer seems to be essential in the content of their life.
An offer to take on the roles of comrades from the juniors. children are met with the same attitude as playing in themselves. A senior. children, taking on the role of another child, isolate his typical actions, activities, and characteristic features of behavior. Probably, the younger ones can’t isolate it, that’s why they don’t take such roles.
The essence of the game is the recreation of social. relation th between people. The meaning of the game for children is different. age. groups is changing. For the younger ones, he is in the actions of that person, the role of a cat. child performs. For medium - in relation to this person to others. For seniors - in typical face relationships, the role of a cat. performed by the child. For every the role hides certain rules of action or society. behavior.
Game development levels:
First level.
there are roles, but they are determined by the character of actions, and do not determine the action
actions are monotonous and consist of a series of repeated operations
the logic of actions is easily broken without protests from children
Second level.
relays are called children, a separation of functions is planned, the execution of a role is reduced to the implementation of actions associated with this role
the logic of actions is determined by their sequence in real life. really
violation of the sequence of actions is not actually accepted, but is not protested, rejection is not motivated by anything
Third level.
roles are clearly outlined and highlighted, children name their roles before the start of the game, roles are defined and direct the child's behavior
the logic and character of actions are determined by the role taken on, actions become diverse, a specific role-playing speech appears, addressed to a playmate in accordance with his role and the role performed by a friend
violation of the logic of actions is protested by reference to the real. life
Fourth level.
roles are clearly delineated and highlighted, throughout the game the child clearly leads one line of behavior, the role functions of children are interconnected, speech is clearly role-based
actions unfold in a clear sequence, strictly recreating the real. logic, they are diverse, the rules referring to real life
violation of the logic of actions and rules is rejected not just by referring to real. life, but also an indication of the rationality of the rules
Violation of the meaning of the role (in the expert, the role was put in conflict with the actions that the child would produce). They asked to play in such a way that the carriage driver distributes tickets, and the conductor leads the train. The second game - the mice catch the cat. Children 3 years old, the first game - it is impossible to take the child out of the role, i.e. the role is merged for the child with objects, he acts with cats, so a change of objects is a change of role. The next level is different. The child assumes the new functions of a leader, being called a conductor, but, having begun to act as a leader, he enters the role and calls himself in unity with the sp-bom of his actions. At the last level (the oldest preschoolers), children laughingly accept the suggestion of the expert, m / to act inconsistently with the role and name themselves inconsistently with the content of their play actions.
The question of stability in obedience to the rule. Put in a situation, in a cat. for the sake of fulfilling the role, the child must give up an object that is attractive to him or refuse to perform an action. 4 stages in obedience to a rule in a role-playing game:
there are no rules, because in fact, there is no role, the immediate impulse wins
the rule does not yet appear explicitly, but in cases of conflict it already defeats the immediate desire to act with the object.
the rule clearly plays a role, but the behavior has not yet been fully determined and is violated when a desire arises to produce others. action. When a violation is indicated, the error in the performance of the role is immediately corrected.
behavior is determined by the roles taken on, inside the cat. the rule of behavior clearly stands out, in the struggle between the rule and desire, the rule wins
Symbolism in role playing. Modern the child lives not only in the world of objects, through the cat. Satisfy his consumption. but also in the world of images and even signs (pictures in books, etc.). The process of turning an object into a toy is the process of differentiation of the signified and the signifying object of the birth of a symbol. Having studied various symbolic forms. functions (drawing, designing, playing, using signs), Getzer concluded that already at the age of 3, children m / master the arbitrary combination of sign and meaning - m / start learning to read earlier than they usually do.
Bows: a technique for double renaming items in the game. The number of objects that could fulfill the roles of adults or children necessary during the game and replace objects was specially limited in order to force children to use objects selected by an expert to replace them (N., first a horse is a child in a kindergarten, then a cook ). At the age of 3, children easily change, following the expert, the purpose of things in the game and their names, but rarely keep it new for a thing for a long time. game use and name, constantly returning to the original. pre-game sp-bu action with the subject and to the previous name. At the age of 5, children themselves are actively looking for among the proposed toys necessary to replace characters or objects, and if they do not find them, then they agree with the suggestions of the expert, although with some. labor. Having changed the sp-b actions with the object and its name, the child firmly retains its new purpose for the object, even if it is not in direct correspondence with its original, pre-play use. The condition for one toy to replace another is not external resemblance, but the possibility of a definition. how to act with this thing (a horse can be placed, laid down like a child, but a ball cannot be). For older children, play sp-b actions in relation to substitute objects are also very good. stable. According to own initiative children never produce recycled. replacement, so the initial attempt by the expert to destroy the accepted play value things come across some. resistance, but after several such changes, the children willingly go for further secondary renaming.
Building we see the separation of the sp-ba of the use of the subject from the concrete. things for the cat. this sp-b was originally fixed, as well as the separation of the word from the subject.
Elkonin. The first series is a game of renaming - a number of objects are in front of the child, he/she must call objects by other names, rename them. Second series: 4 objects and their game names are given, a series of actions must be performed with them (N., a pencil is a knife, a ball is an apple: “cut off a piece of an apple”). The third series is similar to the second, but N. was given a knife as a pencil and a pencil as a knife - a playful use of an object in a conflict situation, in the presence of a real object.
Results First episode. Already in children of 3 years old, simple renaming does not cause difficulties. But many children, calling objects by new names, make mistakes, calling the object either by its own name or by another. Naib. the number of errors falls on the younger. age (3-4 years). The renaming of objects by children is limited to those objects, cat-e in their real. Saints allow you to perform the actions required by the new name. Throughout preschool. age happens mean. the expansion of the actions assigned to the word with the object and its saints, which creates the possibility of a freer, but still limited game renaming.
2 series. Half of three-year-old children will experience difficulty in performing the actions of feeding the dog with an apple (a cube - a ball). 4-year-olds are better at this task. At 5 year olds, there is no noticeable shift. All 6-year-olds coped with the tasks of this series much more freely, there was not a single case of non-completion of an action.
3 series. The number of children is increasing. do not accept game use items. Special differences between younger and older preschoolers h. no. Only 3-year-olds give a significant number of refusals, and in other ages the number of children who accept play use is almost the same, but in younger children the resistance is much greater than in older ones. The introduction of a real object strengthens the connections of the object with actions and weakens the connections of the word with actions, or even completely slows them down.
There are 2 symbols in the development of the game:
transferring an action from one item to another when renaming an item
the child taking on the role of an adult person, while the generalization and abbreviation of actions act as a condition for modeling social. relations th between people in the course of their activities, and thereby clarifying their human. meaning.
Development of the child's relationship to the rules in the game. Mobile games with rules.
The younger the children, the more meaningful and direct the connection between the rules to which the child must obey his actions and the role he takes on.
The game of the relay race is the subordination of the immediate impulse to run to the experimenter to the rule of running on a signal. Only the youngest children have disobedience to the rule. Children either run until the end of the command, or do not run even after it ends; the immediate impulse to run either wins or is retarded; there is still no struggle between the impulse to run and the rule. Already at the age of 4, it is different: out of 11 trials, in 9 cases, obedience to the rule. Complication: game of burners, zd. the command is longer, so the impulse to run grows all the time, and it is more difficult to contain it. Children of 7, in contrast to 5-year-olds, are conscious of their impulse and, =>, already consciously obey the rule. The introduction of the plot increases the possibility of obeying the rule in younger children (when playing a steam locomotive it is better than in a simple relay race). With the introduction of the plot, there is, as it were, an alienation of one's actions, their objectification, hence the possibility of their comparison and evaluation, =>, greater controllability. Already on Wednesday. preschool age, it becomes possible to obey a game rule that is not clothed in role content; in the older preschool age, games with ready-made rules occupy a significant place; at school age, plot role-playing games are relegated to the background.
Expert t is a guessing game. The child, together with the teacher, in the absence of the expert, thought about what action the expert should take, the teacher agreed with the child that they would not say what needs to be done, let the guesser himself guess. The expert played the role of a guesser, allegedly not knowing what action was planned. The child simultaneously has the rule to be silent and the impulse to suggest, they come into conflict. A child (4.5 years old) follows the line of desire, the presence of a teacher at this stage does not contribute to the fulfillment of the rule. At the second stage (5-6 years old), the behavior changes, the meaning of the game for the child is not to tell what was planned. The child is guided by the rule, but can hardly cope with the desire to prompt. Children do not directly prompt, but they look point-blank at what they have planned, they give leading instructions, they are glad when the expert guesses. The presence of a teacher or other child at this stage helps to contain desires. At the third stage (6.5 - 7 years) for children, the meaning of the game is not to tell what was planned, the rule wins, the struggle is not so visible. The rule is observed even when the teacher is absent.
The development of the game goes from an expanded game situation with rules hidden inside it to games with open rules and a collapsed game situation.
The game "inventing the rules of the game" (they give a playing field, soldiers, riders, a commander, 2 balls, you need to come up with a game with them). Steps:
pre-game; there are no rules, there is no formalized plot, the actions of children are reduced to manipulating toys
elements of the plot and roles appear, the commander stands out, the game is in the main. reduced to formation and marching, department. episodes of the game are not interconnected, there are no clear rules
the plot comes forward, the war is played out, the rules are closely related to the plot, the rules are not generalized, but in the course of the game a department. rules are formed
the rules are singled out and formulated before the start of the game, and purely conditional rules appear, independent of the plot and the game situation
game and mental development.
Game and development of the motivational-need sphere.
Vygotsky brought to the fore the problem of motives and expenses as central to understanding the very emergence of a role-playing game (rights), pointed out the contradictions between emerging new desires and the tendency to their immediate realization, a cat. not m/b carried out.
Leontiev. Subject. the world perceived by the child is expanding, not with all the objects the child is able to act. For the child, there is no abstract theoretical activity, awareness appears for him primarily in the form of action. The child strives to enter into an active relationship not only with the things available to him, he strives to act like an adult.
When moving from subject. role-playing games directly in the subject environment of children will not cause significant changes. The child still washes the doll, puts her to bed. But all these items and actions with them are now included in the new. system otnosh th child to really, in new. affective-attractive activity, thanks to this they objectively acquired a new meaning. The transformation of a child into a mother, and dolls into a child, leads to the transformation of bathing, feeding, cooking into caring for a child. These actions now express the attitude of the mother to the child - her love and affection, and perhaps vice versa; it depends on the specifics. conditional life of the child, those specific. relative, cat-e surround him. The generalization and abbreviation of play actions is a symptom of what a person is. relation occurs, and that this highlighted meaning is emotionally experienced.
The value of the game is not limited to the fact that the child has new motives for activities and related tasks in their content. It is essential that new things arise in the game. psychological form of motives. Hypothetically, one can imagine that it is in the game that the transition from motives that have the form of preconscious affectively colored immediate desires to motives that have the form of generalized intentions that are on the verge of consciousness takes place.
Game and overcoming of "cognitive egocentrism".Zh. Piaget characterizes the quality of thinking of preschool children. age, ott cat. all the rest depend, like cognitive egocentrism - insufficient delimitation of one's point of view from other possible ones, and hence its actual dominance. Role play leads to a change in the position of the child - from his individual and specifically childish - to new position adult. The game is an activity, in Oct. origin. main processes associated with overcoming the cognizant. egocentrism.
Vin's problem about three brothers. Correctly indicating how many brothers he has, the child does not correctly indicate how many brothers someone has. from his brothers, i.e. take their point of view. Expert Nedospasova: the task from the three brothers was offered not in relation to their own family, but in relation to a strange or conditional family, zd. egocentric the position did not manifest itself at all or manifested itself to a much lesser extent. That. under experimental conditions. games managed to overcome the phenomenon of cognition. egocentrism.
Game and development of mental actions. Galperin established the main stages of formation of mental actions. If you exclude the pre-stage. orientation in the task, then the formation of minds. actions and concepts with predetermined St. you prooodit naturally trail. stages:
stage of forming actions on the material. objects or their material substitute models
the formative stage of the same action in terms of loud speech
the stage of forming the actual mental action (sometimes there are also intermediate stages, N. the formation of the action in terms of extended speech, but to oneself, etc.)
In play, the child already acts with the meanings of objects, but still relies on their material substitutes - toys. Reliance on substitute objects and actions with them is more and more reduced. Thus, game actions are of an intermediate character, gradually acquiring the character of mental actions with the meanings of objects, performed in terms of loud speech and still slightly based on external. action, but already acquired the character of a generalized gesture-indication. In the game, the prerequisites for the transition of minds are being formed. actions at the mental stage. actions based on speech.
J. Bruner: the role of preliminary. manipulations with the material (elements of the tools) for the subsequent decision of the intellectual. tasks. He highly appreciates the importance of games for intellectuals. development, because in the course of the game m / arise such combinations of material and such an orientation in its properties, which m / lead to the subsequent use of this material as tools in solving problems.
Game and development of arbitrary behavior. In the game every minute there is a refusal of the child from fleeting desires in favor of fulfilling the role he has taken on. In the game, a significant restructuring of the child's behavior takes place - it becomes arbitrary, i.e. is carried out in accordance with the sample and is controlled by comparing with this sample as a standard.
In all age groups, the duration of maintaining an immobility posture (N., hourly) in a situation of performing a role exceeds the indicators of maintaining the same posture in conditions of a direct task. Great importance to them. activity motivation. The performance of the role, being emotionally attractive, stimulates the performance of actions in which the role is embodied. In the presence of the group, the immobility posture was performed longer and more strictly than in the situation of loneliness. The presence of others, as it were, increased control over their behavior. The child performs 2 functions in the game: he fulfills his role and controls his behavior, i.e. there is reflection, so the game can be considered a school of arbitrary behavior.
D.B. Elkonin.
The psychology of the game.
M., Pedagogy, 1978.
Chapter Two
On the historical origin of the role-playing game
1. From the history of toys
Central to the theory of the role-playing game is the question of its historical origin - this is the question of its nature.
Waging a struggle for a materialistic understanding of the origin of art, G. V. Plekhanov also touches on the question of play: “The solution of the question of the relation of labor to play or, if you like, play to labor is extremely important for elucidating the genesis of art” (1958, p. 336). At the same time, G. V. Plekhanov puts forward a number of propositions that are also fundamental for resolving the issue of the origin of the game.
The most important is his position that in the history of human society, work is older than play. “First, a real war and the need it creates for good warriors, and then a game of war to satisfy this need” (ibid., p. 342). This position, as Plekhanov points out, makes it possible to understand why play in the life of an individual precedes work. “... If we had not gone further than the point of view of the individual,” writes Plekhanov, “we would not have understood why play appears in his life before labor; nor why he amuses himself with precisely these, and not some other games” (1958, p. 343) Play, in the light of these provisions of Plekhanov, is an activity that arises in response to the needs of the society in which children live and whose active members they should become.
In order to answer the question under what conditions and in connection with what needs of society a role-playing game arises, a historical study would be necessary.
In Soviet psychology, the first question about the need for historical research to build a full-fledged game theory was raised by E. A. Arkin “Only on the basis of factual material, gleaned from the past and compared with the present, can a correct scientific theory of the game and toys be built, and only from such a theory can a healthy, fruitful, stable "pedagogical practice" should come out. “The history of children's play and children's toys,” continues E. A. Arkin, “should serve as the foundation for building their theories” (1935, p. 10).
In his study, E. A. Arkin almost does not touch on the question of the historical origin of the game, in particular the role-playing game, but dwells mainly on toys and their history. Comparing toys obtained during archaeological excavations with modern toys, Arkin writes: “In the collections they (archaeologists - D.E.) collected and stored in museums, there was not a single one that would not have its double in a modern nursery” (ibid. , p. 21). Not limited to comparison with an archaeological toy, E. A. Arkin also explores the children's toys of peoples at the lower levels of development. And here the author comes to similar conclusions - “Indeed, the fact that, despite the heterogeneity of the sources from which we drew our material, the picture, when changing forms and differences in details, retains unity, that among peoples separated from each other by vast spaces, a toy remains the same unfading, eternally young, and its content, its functions remain the same among the Eskimos and Polynesians, among the Kaffirs and Indians, among the Bushmen and Bororoths - this fact speaks of the amazing stability of the toy and, consequently, of the need that it satisfies , and those forces that create it” (1935, p. 31).
Further citing the facts of the identity of not only toys, but also the games of modern children and children of peoples standing at lower levels of social development, E. A. Arkin concludes his comparison “... the stability of a children's toy, its universality, the immutability of its basic structural forms and functions performed by it is an obvious fact, and perhaps it was the obviousness of this fact that was the reason that the researchers did not consider it necessary to dwell on it or emphasize it. But if the amazing stability of a child's toy is an indisputable fact, then it is completely incomprehensible why psychologists, anthropologists and natural scientists did not draw any conclusions from this indisputable fact, why they did not look for an explanation for it. Or is this indisputable fact so simple and clear that it does not require any interpretation? This is hardly the case. On the contrary, it should seem strange that a child born and growing up in the conditions of the culture of the 20th century uses very often, as a source of joys and a tool for his development and self-education, the same toy that is the property of a child, born from people who, in their mental development, are close to to the inhabitants of caves and piled buildings, and growing in the conditions of the most primitive existence. And these children of epochs of mankind so remote from each other show their deep inner closeness by the fact that they not only receive or create similar toys themselves, but, what is even more striking, by the fact that they make the same use of them” (1935, p. 32 ).
We have cited these lengthy excerpts from the work of E. A. Arkin in order to show how a seemingly historical study led the author to anti-historical conclusions. Comparing the toys of children of primitive societies and archaeological toys of a relatively recent historical past with the toys of modern children, the author did not find anything specific in them. And here and there the same toys and the same use of them by the child. Consequently, there is no history of the toy, no development of it. The toy has remained the same as it was at the dawn of human culture.
E. A. Arkin sees the reason for this seeming immutability of toys in the fact that “the human child, like his toys, manifests its unity in the unity of human traits of development” (ibid., p. 49). E. A. Arkin needed a statement about the historical immutability of toys to prove the position that with the emergence of homo sapiens, children in all eras - from the most ancient to the present - were born with the same opportunities. Yes, it certainly is. But one of the paradoxes of the development of children lies in the fact that, coming into this world with the same measure of helplessness and the same opportunities, they pass in societies at different levels of production and culture, a completely different path of development, reaching both in different ways and in different ways. time of their social and psychological maturity.
E. A. Arkin’s position on the immutability of toys in the course of the historical development of society logically leads us to the conclusion that the toy corresponds to some unchanging natural features of the child and is not in any connection with the life of society and the life of the child in society. This fundamentally contradicts G. V. Plekhanov's correct position that play, in its content, goes back to the work of adults. It is quite natural that a toy cannot be anything other than a reproduction in one or another simplified, generalized and schematized form of objects from the life and activities of society, adapted to the characteristics of children of a particular age.
E. A. Arkin leaves the historical point of view and becomes, in the words of G. V. Plekhanov, the point of view of the individual. But such a point of view cannot explain to us why children play certain games and use certain toys in their games. At present, it is generally recognized that the content of children's play is closely connected with the life, work and activities of adult members of society. How can it be that play is determined in its content by the life of society, and that the toy, this necessary companion of any game, has nothing to do with the life of society and corresponds to some invariable natural features of the child?
The conclusions drawn by E. A. Arkin from his comparative historical research, first of all, contradict the facts. The nursery of a modern preschooler is filled with toys that could not exist in a primitive society and the play use of which is inaccessible to a child of this society. Is it possible to imagine cars, trains, airplanes, moon rovers, satellites, building materials, pistols, sets of parts for construction, etc. among the toys of a child of this society. E. A. Arkin, to the detriment of facts, seeks unity where an obvious difference. This change in the nature of the child's toys throughout human history clearly reflects the actual history of the toy in its causal dependence on the history of the development of society, the history of the development of the child in society.
True, E. A. Arkin does not write about all toys, but about toys, which he calls the original toys, to which he refers:
a) sound toys - rattles, buzzers, bells, rattles, etc.;
b) motor toys - top, ball, kite, primitive variants of bilbock;
c) weapons - bow, arrows, boomerangs, etc.;
d) figurative toys - images of animals and dolls;
e) a rope from which various, sometimes the most intricate figures are made.
First of all, it should be noted that the so-called original toys have their own history of origin. It is quite obvious that the bow and arrow could become toys only after they appeared in society as real hunting tools. Before the advent of tools that required rotational movements for their use, there could not be any toys set in motion in this way (buzzers, tops).
To analyze the process of the emergence of each of the “primordial toys”, a special historical study would have to be carried out, and then it would become clear that they were not “original” at all, but arose at certain stages of the development of society and that their appearance was preceded by the invention of the corresponding tools by man. The history of the emergence of individual toys could be presented in such a study as a reflection of the history of tools of human labor and objects of worship.
All toys that E. A. Arkin refers to as “original” are in fact the product of historical development. However, once having arisen at a certain historical stage in the development of human society, they did not disappear along with the disappearance of the tools of which they are copies. The bow and arrow have long since disappeared as hunting tools and have been replaced by firearms, but they have remained in the world of children's toys. Toys live longer than the tools of which they are images, and this gives the impression of their immutability. Such toys really seemed to have frozen in their development and retained their original appearance. However, these toys lack a history only in the external, purely phenomenological consideration of them as physical objects.
If we consider the toy in its function, then we can say with full confidence that the so-called original toys in the course of the history of human society radically changed their function, becoming a new relationship to the process of child development.
The study of the historical change of toys is a rather difficult task: firstly, the archaeological toy does not tell the researcher anything about its use by the child; secondly, at present, some toys, even among peoples at the lowest levels of social development, have lost their direct connection with tools and household items and have lost their original function.
Here are just a few examples. In the early stages of the development of society, man used to make fire by rubbing one piece of wood against another. Continuous friction was best provided by rotation, which was achieved by means of devices in the form of a variety of drills. Among the peoples of the Far North, for fastening the sledges, it was necessary to drill many holes. Drilling also required continuous rotation. According to A.N. Reinson-Pravdin (1949), small wooden drills with a primitive bow device made of a stick with a cord, which can be set in motion by children, still exist among the children's toys of the peoples of the Far North. Training in continuous rotation was necessary, since a child who possessed this skill easily mastered the tools that required this skill.
Such training could be carried out not only on a small drill model, but also on its modified versions. Modified versions of the drill were kubari, which are nothing more than a drill driven not by a beam, but by fingers. So, if you remove its beam from the drill rod, then we will find ourselves in front of a simple top with a somewhat elongated stick.
Another version of the drill was the buzzer, in which continuous rotation was achieved by a special ability to stretch and release the twisted rope. Thus, a variety of kubari and buzzers were modified drills, using which children acquired the technical skills to produce the rotational movements necessary to work with a drill. The toy and the child's activity with it were at this stage a modification of the instrument of labor and the activity of adults with it, and stood in direct relation to the future activity of the child.
Centuries have passed, the tools and methods of making fire and drilling holes have changed significantly. Kubari and buzzers no longer stand in direct relation to the labor of adults and the future labor activity of the child. And for a child, they are no longer reduced drills and do not even depict them. Kubari and buzzers have turned from “figurative toys” into “motor” or “sound”, according to the terminology of E. A. Arkin. However, actions with them still continue to be supported by adults, and they still exist among children. Actions with these toys have evolved from training certain, almost professional skills to forming some general motor or visual-motor functional systems.
It is interesting to note that in order to cause and maintain the manipulation of these toys, one has to resort to special tricks, to invent humming and musical tops, etc., i.e., to give them additional properties. It can be assumed that the mechanism that causes and supports actions with these toys, which are only identical in appearance, has fundamentally changed. These toys are always introduced into children's lives by adults who show actions with them. However, if earlier, at the stage when these toys were reduced models of adult tools, actions with them were supported by the “toy-tool” relationship, now, when there is no such relationship, manipulation with them is supported by an orienting reaction to novelty. Systematic exercise is replaced by episodic use.
Similarly, the process of developing games with a rope takes place. At that stage in the development of society where tying knots and weaving were essential elements of the labor activity of adults, these exercises, which existed both among children and adults, were supported by the needs of society, were directly connected with weaving nets, etc. At present, they degenerated into purely functional, developing fine finger movements, and entertaining: they are extremely rare and are not in direct connection with the work activity of adults.
The process of change and development on such “original toys” as bows and arrows is especially clearly visible. Among the hunting tribes and peoples, who stood at relatively low levels of development, bow and arrows were one of the main hunting tools. Bow and arrows became the property of the child from a very early age. Gradually becoming more complicated, they became in the hands of the child the most authentic weapon, a device for his independent activity, with the help of which he can get small animals (chipmunks, squirrels) and birds, says A. N. Reinson-Pravdin (1948). A child who shot small animals and birds with a bow felt himself to be a future hunter, just like his father; adults looked at the archery child as a future hunter. The child mastered the bow, and adults were extremely interested in the child's mastery of this tool to perfection.
But then came the firearms. The bow still remains in the hands of children, but now the action with it is no longer directly related to the methods of hunting, and bow exercises are used to develop certain qualities, such as accuracy, which are necessary for a hunter who also uses firearms. In the course of the development of human society, hunting gives way to other types of labor activity. Children are less likely to use the bow as a toy. Of course, in our modern society, you can find a bow and some children may even get involved in shooting from it. However, the exercises of a modern child with a bow do not occupy in his life the place that they occupied in the life of a child of a society of primitive hunters.
Thus, the so-called original toy remains unchanged only in appearance. In reality, it, like all other toys, arises and historically changes; its history is organically connected with the history of the changing place of the child in society and cannot be understood outside this history. E. A. Arkin's mistake lies in the fact that he isolated the history of the toy from the history of its owner, from the history of its function in the development of the child, from the history of the child's place in society. Having made such a mistake, E. A. Arkin came to anti-historical conclusions that are not supported by facts from the history of the toy.
2. The historical origin of the extended form of play activity
The question of the emergence of role play in the course of the historical development of society is one of the most difficult to study. Such a study requires, on the one hand, data on the place of the child in society at various stages of historical development, and, on the other hand, data on the nature and content of children's play at these same historical stages. Only by relating the life of a child in society with his games can one understand the nature of the latter.
Data on the development and life of the child and his games at the early stages of the development of society are extremely poor. None of the ethnographers ever set themselves the task of such a study. It was not until the 1930s that special studies by Margaret Mead devoted to the children of the tribes of New Guinea appeared, in which there are materials on the way of life of children and their games. However, the works of this researcher were devoted to some special issues (on childhood animism, puberty in a society at a relatively low stage of development, etc.), which naturally determined the selection of material. The data, which is scattered across countless ethnographic, anthropological and geographical descriptions, is extremely schematic and fragmentary. In some there are indications of the way of life of children, but there is no indication of their games; in others, on the contrary, it is told only about games. In some studies, the colonialist point of view is so clearly carried out, for the sake of which the researchers tried in every possible way to belittle the level of mental development of the children of oppressed peoples, that these data cannot be considered in any way reliable. Correlation of the available materials about children with the life of society is also difficult, since it is often difficult to determine at what stage of social development this or that tribe, clan, or community was in the period of description. Difficulties are compounded by the fact that, being approximately at the same level community development, they can live in completely different conditions, and these conditions, in turn, undoubtedly affect the life of children in society, their place among adults, and thereby the nature of their games. Regarding the early periods of the development of human society, M. O. Kosven writes. “There can be no question of a real approach to the starting point of human development or, as they say, to the zero point of human culture. Here only more or less admissible hypotheses are possible, more or less successful approximations to the enigma of our past hidden from us forever” (1927, p. 5). This applies to an even greater extent to the study of the child and his life in the conditions of primitive society. Our task is to answer, albeit hypothetically, at least two questions. Firstly, whether role-playing has always existed, or was there a period in the life of society when this form of play did not exist for children, and secondly, with what changes in society and the position of the child in society the appearance of role-playing may be associated. We cannot directly trace the origin of the role-playing game. The very scarce data available make it possible to outline only in the most general terms a hypothesis about the emergence of role-playing play, to establish, and then only approximately, the historical conditions under which the need for this peculiar form of the child's life in society arose. In our study, we have far from exhausted all the available materials and present only those of them that are sufficient to formulate our assumption, leaving aside all their diversity.
The question of the historical origin of the game is closely connected with the nature of the upbringing of the younger generations in societies that are at the lowest levels of development of production and culture. R. Alt (K. AN, 1956), on the basis of extensive materials, points to the existence of an initial unity of labor activity and education, that is, to the non-singling out of education as a special social function. In his opinion, the following features are characteristic of the upbringing of children at the early stages of the development of society: firstly, the equal upbringing of all children and the participation of all members of society in the upbringing of each child; secondly, the comprehensiveness of education - each child should be able to do everything that adults can do and take part in all aspects of the life of the society of which he is a member; thirdly, the short period of upbringing - children already at an early age know all the tasks that life sets, they early become independent from adults, their development ends earlier than at later stages of social development.
R. Alt considers the main factor that has a formative influence on the development of children to be the direct participation of children in the lives of adults: the early inclusion of children in productive work, associated with a low level of development of productive forces; participation of children together with adults in dances, holidays, some rituals, celebrations and recreation. Pointing to the game as a means of education, R. Alt notes that where a child can take part in the work of adults without special preliminary preparation and training, he does it there. Where this is not the case, the child "grows" into the world of adults through gaming activity which reflects the life of society. (Here there is already a hint of the historical origin of the game and its connection with the change in the position of the child in society). Thus, the position of the child in society at the earliest stages of development is characterized primarily by the early inclusion of children in the productive labor of adult members of society. The earlier the stage of development of society, the earlier children are included in the productive labor of adults and become independent producers.
In the earliest historical periods of society, children lived a common life with adults. The educational function has not yet been singled out as a special social function, and all members of society carried out the education of children, the main task of which was to make children participants in social productive labor, to pass on the experience of this work to them, and the main means is the gradual inclusion of children in the forms of adult labor accessible to them. Primitive vagrant gatherers, according to Wolna (W. Wolna, 1925), together - men, women and children - move from place to place in search of edible fruits and roots. By the age of ten, girls become mothers, and boys become fathers and begin to lead an independent lifestyle. Describing one of the most primitive groups of people on earth, M. Kosven points out that among the Kubu people, the main cell is a small family, the main occupation is the gathering of fruits and roots; the main tool is a stick, which is a split bamboo trunk with a naturally pointed end used to dig up roots and tubers, the only weapon is a wooden spear with a tip made of a sharp bamboo chip; utensils - coconut shells and hollow bamboo trunks. M. Kosven writes: “Children stay with their parents and follow them together in search of food until they are 10-12 years old. From this age, both boys and girls are already considered independent and able to arrange their fate and their future. From this moment, they begin to wear a bandage that hides the genitals for the first time. During the stay, they build themselves a separate hut next to the parent. But they are already looking for food on their own and eat separately. The connection between parents and children is gradually weakening, and often the children soon separate and begin to live independently in the forest” (1927, p. 38) Already in the earliest ethnographic and geographical descriptions of Russian travelers into adult productivity. So, G. Novitsky in his description of the Ostyak people, referring to 1715, wrote: “Needlework is the same for everyone, shooting an animal (kill), catching birds, fish, they can saturate themselves with them. He is cunning and studies his children, and from young nails they adapt themselves to archery, to kill animals, to catching birds, fish (they teach them)” (1941, p. 43).
S. P. Krasheninnikov, describing his journey through Kamchatka (1737-1741), notes about the Koryaks: “The most meritorious thing about this people is that although they love their children excessively, they teach them to work from children; for which reason they are kept no better than serfs, sent for firewood and water, ordered to carry weights, graze reindeer herds, and do other things like that” (1949, p. 457). V.F. Zuev, who visited the Ob peoples in 1771-1772, wrote about the children of the Ostyaks and Samoyeds: which case does not lead to regret. It can be truly said that this people was born to endure unbearable labors and, indeed, if they were not accustomed to this from childhood, then it would not be enough for the fathers to see the sons of great helpers for themselves and to endure the labors of amazing helpers. As soon as a boy begins to have little idea, then his mother or nanny amuses him with nothing more than the rattling of a bowstring, and when he starts walking, his father prepares onions for him. On my way through the Ostyak yurts, I rarely saw such guys who, in the simple evening, between games, would stagger without a bow, but usually shoot either at trees or at something on the ground. There, the Ezes fence around their yurt, there are constipation; and it seems as if their toys already foreshadowed the future life. And is it absolutely possible to look at the ez, made across some river, then it is impossible to see that someday old people with vazhany were sitting here, except for small children, and the big ones themselves swim along the rivers or with seines, or with caldans and traps, where if it’s small, or it’s not in its power, or it doesn’t understand, it’s impossible to keep up” (1947, pp. 32-33).
Famous Russian explorer of the Papuans II. II. Miklukho-Maclay, who lived among them for many years, writes about Papuan children: “Children are usually cheerful, they rarely cry and scream, the father, and sometimes the mother, treats them very well, although the mother usually treats the children less tenderly than the father. In general, the Papuans have a very strong love for children. I even saw among them toys that are not often found among savages, namely, something like head over heels, small boats that children float on the water, and many other toys. But already early the boy accompanies his father to the plantation, wandering in the forest and on fishing trips. The child already in childhood will learn practically his future occupations, and even as a boy he becomes serious and cautious in handling. I often saw a comical scene, how a little boy of about four seriously made a fire, carried firewood, washed dishes, helped his father clean the fruits, and then suddenly jumped up, ran to his mother, who was squatting at some kind of work, grabbed her by the chest and , despite resistance, began to suck. Here the custom is widespread to breastfeed children for a very long time” (1451, p. 78).
In the descriptions of N. N. Miklukho-Maclay there is an indication of the participation of children not only in domestic labor, but also in more complex forms of collective productive labor of adults. So, describing the cultivation of the soil, he writes, “The work is done in this way: two, three or more men stand in a row, sharpened stakes are deeply stuck (the stakes are strong, long sticks, pointed at one end, men work with them, since when working with this tool requires a lot of force) into the ground and then with one stroke they raise a large block of earth. If the soil is hard, then stakes are stuck in the same place twice, and then the earth is raised. The men are followed by women who crawl on their knees and, holding firmly in both hands their stakes - sab (stakes - sab - small narrow shoulder blades for women), crush the earth raised by men. Children of various ages follow them and rub the earth with their hands. In this order, men, women and children cultivate the entire plantation” (1951, p. 231). From this description it is clear that in the society of the Papuans there was a natural age-related sexual division of labor, in which all members of society, including children, except for the smallest, took part. Pointing to the love of teaching others, which is very common among the natives, and which is very clearly visible even in children, N. N. Miklukho-Maclay explains its origin in the following way: “It is noticeable even in children: many times small children, six or seven years old, showed me how they do this or that. This happens because parents accustom their children to practical life very early; so that, while still very young, they have already looked closely and even learned more or less all the arts and actions of adults, even those that are not at all suitable for their age. Children do not play much: the game of boys consists in throwing sticks like spears, in archery, and as soon as they make small progress, they apply them in practical life. I have seen very small boys spending whole hours by the sea, trying to hit some fish with a bow. The same thing happens with girls, and even more so because they start doing housework earlier and become assistants to their mothers” (1951, p. 136). We dwelled in such detail on the data of N. N. Miklukho-Maclay because the testimonies of this prominent Russian humanist are especially valuable for us because of their undoubted and complete objectivity. Similar indications of the early participation of children in the labor of adults are also found by a number of other authors. So, J. Vanyan in his work on the history of the Aztecs writes: “Education began after weaning, i.e. after weaning. e. in the third year of his life. The goal of upbringing was to introduce the child as soon as possible into the circle of those skills and duties that made up the everyday life of adults. Since everything was done with the help of manual labor, the children had the opportunity to join the activities of adults very early. Fathers supervised the education of their sons, mothers taught their daughters. Up to the age of six, their upbringing was limited only to moralizing and advice, they were taught how to handle household utensils and performed minor household chores. “Such an upbringing,” the author continues, “directly introduced the younger generation into everyday life at home” (1949, p. 87). A. T. Bryant, who lived among the Zulus for about half a century, also points to the early inclusion of children in productive labor together with adults: perform assigned work; boys under the guidance of their father, girls under the supervision of their mother” (1953, p. 123). Bryant points out a number of works that are the function of children. “Six-seven-year-old kids drove out calves and goats to the meadow in the mornings, older guys were cows” (ibid., p. 157). With the onset of spring, “women and children roamed the meadows in search of edible wild herbs” (ibid., p. 184). During the ripening period of spiked crops, when crops were in danger of being devastated by birds, “women and children were forced to spend the whole day, from sunrise to sunset, in the field, driving away birds” (ibid., p. 191).
Many Soviet researchers of the peoples of the Far North also point to the early inclusion of children in the work of adults and special accustoming to work. So, A. G. Bazanov and N. G. Kazansky write: “From a very early age, Mansi children are drawn into fishing. They can barely walk, and their parents are already taking them into the boat with them. And as soon as they begin to grow up, small oars are often made for them, they are taught to drive a boat, they are accustomed to the life of a river” (1939, p. 173). In another work, A. G. Bazanov writes: “The Vogul child has just turned 5-6 years old, and he is already running around with a bow and arrow near the yurts, hunting for birds, developing accuracy in himself. Wants to be a hunter. From the age of 7-8, Vogul children are gradually taken into the forest. In the forest they teach how to find a squirrel, wood grouse, how to handle a dog, where and how to set slops, chirkans, traps. If a native cuts down poles for the bastards, then his son sets up alerts for the bastards, loosens the soil, arranges bait, puts a sandpiper, pebbles, berries here” (1934, p. 93). Children, even the youngest, are passionate hunters and come to school with dozens of squirrels and chipmunks to their credit. A. G. Bazanov, describing fishing, very well noticed the basic principle of education in these conditions: “We were four adults and the same number of small children ... We went out to a sandy cape protruding with a sharp tongue and, standing in two rows, began to choose a net on the platform. There were children in the middle between us. They also clung to the edges of the seine with their tanned little hands and helped to transfer it to the boat.” “My guide is a Zyryan,” continues A. G. Bazanov, “I shouted to one of the guys: “Don’t push under your feet.” The old Vogul looked at him angrily, shook his head. And then he remarked: “You can’t do that, you can’t. Let the children do everything we do” (ibid., p. 94). G. Startsev points out that “as early as 6-7 years old, children are taught to drive deer and catch them with lassoes” (1930, p. 96). S. N. Stebnitsky, describing the life of Koryak children, writes: “In the economic life, the independence of children is especially manifested. There are a number of economic branches and jobs, the execution of which lies entirely with the children.” “S. N. Stebnitsky points to the children, - there is also a firewood harvesting. In any frost and bad weather, the boy must, harnessing the dogs left at home, sometimes go ten kilometers for firewood. “Girls,” continues S. N. Stebnitsky, “enter into all this work effortlessly. First, they will give you a scrap, a serrated blunt knife, a broken needle, then he will take up a real one without skill, then he acquires skills and, imperceptibly for himself, is drawn into a century-old woman's strap” (1930, p. 44-45).
We will not multiply examples, because the materials cited are sufficient to show that in a society that is at a relatively low stage of development, with a primitive communal organization of labor, children are very early included in the productive labor of adults, taking part in it to the best of their ability. This happens in the same way as in a patriarchal peasant family, in which, according to K. Marx, “differences in sex and age, as well as natural working conditions that change with the change of seasons, regulate the distribution of labor between family members and the working time of each individual member. But the expenditure of individual labor forces, measured by time, already from the very beginning appears here as the social determination of the work itself, since individual labor forces from the very beginning function here only as organs of the total labor force of the family. The employment of mothers and the early inclusion of children in the work of adults lead to the fact that, firstly, in primitive society there is no sharp line between adults and children, and, secondly, to the fact that children very early become truly independent. This is emphasized by almost all researchers. So, for example, S. N. Stebnitsky writes: “In general, it must be said that the Koryaks do not have a sharp division into children and adults. Children are equal and equally respected members of society. During a general conversation, their words are listened to as carefully as the speech of adults. The leading Russian ethnographer L. Ya. Shternberg also points to the equality of children and adults among the peoples of northeast Asia. “It is difficult for a civilized person to even imagine what a sense of equality and respect reigns here in relation to young people. Adolescents 10-12 years old feel completely equal members of society. The deepest and most respectable elders listen with the most serious attention to their remarks, answer them with the same seriousness and courtesy as their own peers. No one feels any difference in age or position” (1933, p. 52). Other authors point to early independence as a characteristic feature of children living in a primitive society. These characteristic features of a child living in a primitive society, his early independence and the absence of a sharp line between children and adults are a natural consequence of the living conditions of these children, their real place in society.
Did role play exist for children at that stage of development of society, when the tools of labor were still quite primitive, the division of labor was based on natural age and sex differences, children were equal members of society who participated in the common labor in accordance with their own (K. Marx, F Engels, Works, vol. 23, p. 88) possibilities? There are no exact data on the games of children at this level of development of society. Ethnographers and travelers who described the life of peoples close to this level of development indicate that children play little, and if they do, then the same games as adults, and their games are not role-playing. So, D. Levingston, describing the life of one "of the Negro tribes - Bakalahari, notes:" I have never seen their children play "(1947, p. 35). N. N. Miklukho-Maclay also speaks of the children of the Papuans, that "children play little" (1951, p. 136). A. T. Bryant, who lived for fifty years among the Zulus, in the work already mentioned describes a number of games of Zulu children, but among them there is not a single role-playing game. M. Mead (M . Mead, 1931), who described the life of children in a society of primitive fishermen in Melanesia, on one of the islands of the Admiralty Archipelago, says that the children of the Papua people are allowed to play all day, but their game resembles the game of little puppies and kittens.According to M. Mead, these children do not find in the life of adults such models that would cause them admiration and a desire to imitate them. She emphasizes that in the social organization of adults children do not find interesting models for their games. Only by chance and very rarely, once a month, we managed to watch the imitative game in which de They acted out scenes from adult life, such as paying a bride price at a marriage or distributing tobacco at funeral ceremonies. The author observed such games only 3-4 times. The author at the same time points out the lack of imagination in these games. Although, according to the author, children have every opportunity to play role-playing games (a lot of free time, the opportunity to observe the life of adults, rich vegetation that provides a lot of all kinds of material for play, etc.), they never play scenes from the life of adults , never imitate in their games neither the return of adults from a successful hunt, nor their ceremonies, nor their dances, etc. no. This provision should not lead to a conclusion about the low level of mental development of children, about their lack of imagination, etc. , according to some researchers. The absence of role-playing games is generated by the special position of children in society and does not at all indicate a low level of mental development. Children living in a primitive society lag behind their peers, the children of modern society, in the development of role-playing games as much as they surpass them in terms of independence, participation in the work of adults and related mental abilities: “The general conditions of primitive education and that independence, under the sign of which childhood mainly flows, writes M. O. Kosvenz, one should explain the remarkable ability for rapid development and the special giftedness that children of backward tribes and nationalities show in colonial schools. The leap from primitiveness to civilization turns out to be extremely easy for them” (1953, p. 140). Primitive tools and forms of labor accessible to the child give him the opportunity to develop early independence, generated by the requirements of society, direct participation in the work of adult members of society. It is quite natural that children are not exploited, and their work is in the nature of satisfying a naturally occurring need that is social in nature. There is no doubt that children bring specific childish features into the performance of their labor duties, perhaps even enjoying the very process of labor, and in any case, experiencing a sense of satisfaction and pleasure associated with this activity carried out together with adults and as adults. This is all the more likely because, according to the testimony of most researchers, education in primitive society, severe in content, is extremely mild in form. Children are not punished and in every possible way support their cheerful, cheerful, cheerful state. However, the enthusiasm for the process of labor itself, the joyful mood and the experienced feeling of satisfaction and pleasure do not turn these, albeit the most primitive and simple forms of child labor, into a game. In the conditions of primitive society, with its relatively primitive means and forms of labor, even small children, starting from three or four years old, could take part in simple forms of domestic labor, in collecting edible plants, roots, larvae, snails, etc., in primitive fishing with simple baskets or even hands, in hunting small animals and birds, in primitive forms of agriculture. The requirement of independence presented to children by society found a natural form of realization in joint work with adults. The direct connection of children with the whole of society, carried out in the process of common labor, excluded all other forms of connection between the child and society. At this stage of development and in this position of the child in society, there was no need to reproduce labor and relations between adults in special conditions, there was no need for role play. The transition to higher forms of production - agriculture and cattle breeding, the complication of fishing and hunting, their transition from passive to more and more active forms was accompanied by the displacement of gathering and primitive forms of hunting and fishing. Along with the change in the nature of production, a new division of labor in society also took place. “The development of production,” writes M. Kosven, “expressed in the transition to plow farming, and the emergence of cattle breeding led to the most important socio-economic result, which Engels called the first major social division of labor, namely, the division between farmers and pastoralists, with all the ensuing consequences , in particular the development of home crafts and regular exchange. These profound changes also determined the socio-economic result, which was expressed in a new division of labor according to sex, in a change in the place of men and women in social production. The division of labor according to sex took shape and existed, having, as Engels says, "a purely natural origin" even under matriarchy. Now it has acquired an incomparably deeper character and deeper social and economic significance. Cattle breeding has become a branch of labor belonging to a man. The changes that took place in the general economy led to the singling out of the household as a special branch of production, “which has become the predominant area of \u200b\u200bwomen's work” (1951, pp. 84-85). Along with the change in the nature of production, there also took place a new distribution of labor in society. With the increasing complexity of the means and methods of labor and with its redistribution, there was a natural change in the participation of children in various types labor. Children have ceased to take a direct part in complex and inaccessible forms of labor activity. The younger children were left with only certain areas of household work and the simplest forms of production activity. Although at this stage of development, children are still equal members of society and participants in the activities of adults in some areas of their labor activity, new features are outlined in their position. Some of the materials already cited by us (materials of studies of the peoples of the Far North) refer precisely to this period of the development of society. With regard to the most important areas of labor, but inaccessible to children, they are faced with the task of mastering the complex tools of such labor as early as possible. Reduced tools of labor appear, specially adapted to children's abilities, with which children practice under conditions that approach the conditions of the real activity of adults, but are not identical with them. What these tools are depends on which branch of labor is the main one in a given society. Here are some related materials. Among the peoples of the Far North, a knife is a necessary tool for a reindeer herder, fisherman. Handling a knife begins to be taught from early childhood. N. G. Bogoraz-Tan writes. “The childhood of the Chukchi is very happy. Children are not constrained or intimidated in any way. Little boys, as soon as they begin to grasp things tenaciously, are given a knife, and from that time on they do not part with it. I saw one boy trying to cut wood with a knife; the knife was a little smaller than himself” (1934, p. 101). “Just like an adult hunter,” writes A.N. Reinson-Pravdin), “each boy has a belt to which a knife is attached to a chain or strap, not a toy, but a real one, sometimes even of very impressive size. An accidental cut will only quickly teach a child to properly handle the most necessary weapons in life. A boy needs a knife both for eating - to cut off a piece of meat, and in order to make a toy, cut an arrow, skin a dead animal, etc. An ax is also an obligatory tool for a boy ... A small knife, the first in life way of a child, usually a gift from his mother, a large knife with a skillfully finished handle, he receives from his father. Under such conditions, it is clear that in the toys of Ob children it is very difficult to find a knife or an ax, toys built from a plank, which we often find among children of many peoples of this culture, where the child does not have early accustoming to this type of weapon” (1948, p. . 100). “It's the same with skis. Very tiny, "doll" skis in children's toys are very rare to find. There is no need for them, since the child receives skis literally from the age when he is just learning to walk on his feet.” He further writes: “Children's skis are considered by adults to be the best toy for children. Children arrange ski competitions, many hunting games are held on skis. Mothers decorate the skis with a small pattern, put colored cloth under the belt, sometimes even paint the skis red. This emphasizes the play functions of toy skis. Growing up, the boy learns to make his own skis, and in preparation for fishing, he sheaths his skis with reeds, that is, he glues the skin from the forehead and legs of a deer under them, as the elders do, for hunting over long distances. From that moment on, skis cease to be a toy” (1948, p. 198). It is completely incomprehensible to us why A. N. Reinson-Pravdin classifies a children's knife and children's skis as toys. The fact that the knife and skis are adapted to the capabilities of children - reduced and painted, does not give grounds to classify them as toys. The fact that children cut out toys with a knife, and that children can play competitions on skis, also does not give them the right to classify them as toys. These are not toys, but household items, the use of which the child must master as soon as possible and which he masters, practically using them in the same way as adults. To these tools common to all the peoples of the Far North, which children should master as soon as possible, are added among the hunting peoples - a bow and arrow, among fishermen - a fishing rod, among reindeer herders - a lasso. “Homemade bows, arrows and crossbows, such as ancient Russian ones, a round stake do not come out of the hands of the guys. One breaks - the guys are taken to cut the other, - writes S. N. Stebnitsky. In dressing them they have reached great perfection. Here we must also include the so-called sling, that is, the strap with which the stone is thrown. You can be sure that you will not meet a single Koryak boy between the ages of five and fifteen who does not have this same sling dangling around his neck, which is put into action at every convenient and inconvenient occasion. Crows, magpies, partridges, mice, hares, lambs, ermines are inexhaustible material for hunting, and it must be said that the children are very dangerous enemies for all this beast. I have seen how some kid, shooting from his clumsy bow, knocked down a crow on the fly or from a sling killed a sea duck or a loon swaying on the waves 20-30 meters from the shore” (1930, p. 45). “The Vilsky child has only just managed to hit five or six years old,” writes A. G. Bazanov, “and he is already running with might and main with a bow and arrow, hunting birds, developing accuracy in himself” (1934, p. 93). “Usually a children's bow is made from one layer of wood. But while the child is growing, the bow-toy is remade several times, taking into account children's capabilities, - writes A. N. Reinson-Pravdin. Gradually becoming more complex, it becomes in the hands of the child the most authentic weapon adapted for his independent activity, with the help of which he can get small animals and birds” (1949, p. 113). “The children of nomads,” writes S. N. Stebnitsky, “to the three listed types of primitive weapons, a fourth is added - a lasso, their same constant companion, like a sling. They cannot pass by a peg protruding in any way from the ground, past a bush, even with its very tip sticking out from under the snow, without testing the accuracy of their hand on it. This is how the amazing accuracy with which the Koryak shepherds unmistakably catch from the eternally restless herd exactly the deer that is needed for a trip or for meat is developed” (1931, p. 46). The art of lassoing quickly and deftly is not acquired immediately, writes Reinson-Pravdin, they master it gradually, learning to handle the tynzei from early childhood. Therefore, among the fishing toys that introduce children to reindeer husbandry, the lasso occupies a large place. The sizes of light tynzei are very diverse: 0.5 m, 1 m, 2 m and more. Tynzei, like the bow, grows with the child as the latter accumulates dexterity and skill. Children's lassos are twisted from bast (for small ones), for seven-year-old and older children they make belt ones, like in adults. Games with a lasso for children are no less interesting and effective than games with a bow and arrow. The kids lasso at first long narrow stumps, then move on to a moving target - they try to lasso a dog or catch young deer calves” (1448, p. 209).
Among peoples whose main trade is fishing, children just as early receive fishing rods and catch small fish, gradually moving to commercial fishing together with adults using other, more complex fishing gear. Thus, the knife and axe, skis, bows and arrows, lassoes and fishing rods - all this on a reduced scale, adapted to children's hands, is transferred very early to the use of the child, and children, under the guidance of adults, master the use of these tools. Of particular interest for the consideration of the question of interest to us is the analysis of the functions of the doll, which occurs in children of almost all peoples at this stage of social development.
Interesting materials on this issue are contained in the works of Soviet researchers in the Far North. N. G. Bogoraz-Tan, describing the dolls of Chukchi girls, says “Chukotka dolls depict people, men and women, but most often children, especially babies. Their size is almost as variable as that of cultured children. They are sewn quite similar to reality and filled with sawdust, which spills out in every accident. These dolls are considered not only toys, but also patrons of female fertility. When a woman marries, she takes her dolls with her and hides them in a bag in the corner that falls under the head, in order to get children as soon as possible under the influence of them. It is impossible to give a doll to someone, since at the same time a pledge of family fertility will be given. But when the mother gives birth to daughters, she gives them her dolls to play and tries to share them among all her daughters. If there is only one doll, then it is given to the eldest daughter, and new ones are made for the rest. There are, therefore, dolls that pass from mother to daughter over the course of several generations, each time in a corrected and renewed form” (1934, p. 49). Thus, N. G. Bogoraz-Tan singles out a special function of the doll - the function of protecting the family, the doll was supposed to provide the girl with fertility and safe childbearing in the future. Puppet making therefore took on the character of a special occupation. P. M. Obertaller describes the work of making dolls as follows: “The process of making dolls is unique. Usually, every woman in the family, and from a certain age, the girl also has a fur, beautifully ornamented bag, or a birch bark box, where shreds of skin trimmings, beads, etc. are stored. All this material is used for sewing dolls. Dolls are sewn with great pleasure and mainly in the summer, usually in the afternoon, when the girls are free from household chores. If the family is large, then the girls join the sewing mother and begin to sew dolls. Sometimes the girls of one family are joined by others, and then the work becomes common (1935, p. 46). According to P. M. Oberthaller, dolls are made mainly by girls of different ages, from preschool to adolescence, inclusive. In connection with the consideration of the question of the importance of dolls among girls' toys, A. N. Reinson-Pravdin, along with the function of protecting the family, also singles out another function - labor. Through sewing outfits for a doll, a girl acquires sewing skills that are extremely important for women of the peoples of the Far North. S. N. Stebnitsky points out that teaching Koryak girls to sew begins very early: “We must not forget that a girl among the Ob peoples,” writes A. N. Reinson-Pravdin, “had a short childhood, in which she was married off, and that during this short period of childhood she had to master a whole range of skills: dressing reindeer beds, reeds, suede, bird and animal skins, fish skin, sewing clothes and shoes, weaving mats from grass, dressing birch bark utensils, and in many areas also weaving (1948, p. 281). It is only natural that the training of all these skills began very early and proceeded in two ways. On the one hand, as a number of authors point out, the girls were early involved in the work of their mothers, they helped them in cooking, nursed the babies, participated in purely female crafts: harvesting berries, nuts, roots, on the other hand, making a puppet farm, mainly the wardrobe (by the richness and quality of which the future husband judges how much the future wife and mother has mastered all women's skills and is ready for married life), served as a school for teaching sewing skills.
The dolls of the children of the peoples of the Far North, collected in museums, clearly testify to what degree of perfection the girls achieve in the manufacture of a doll wardrobe and, consequently, what perfection they achieve in the manufacture of clothes, shoes, in general, in the use of a needle and a knife. Thus, the doll, being the subject of constant concern on the part of girls, as a guardian of the generic functions of the future woman, from early childhood served to teach housekeeping and sewing. Thus, the development of production, the complication of the tools of labor led to the fact that before taking part in the most important and responsible labor activity jointly with adults, children had to master these tools, learn how to use them. It is quite natural that the age of inclusion of children in the socially productive work of adults gradually increased. When children were included in the forms of adult productive labor depended primarily on the degree of complexity. “Among the Primorsky Chukchi, boys begin to revile various jobs much later than among reindeer herders. When taken on seaside hunts, they are more of a hindrance than a help. A young man does not take part in a serious hunt until the age of sixteen or seventeen. Up to this age, he can shoot a seal from a gun only from the shore or help with the installation of seal nets on the ice fields of the so-called fast ice,” writes N. G. Bogoraz-Tan (1934, p. 103).
Among reindeer herders and other pastoral peoples, the involvement of an adult pastoralist in the work occurs somewhat earlier. G. Startsev reports that “from the age of 6-7, children are taught to drive deer and catch them with lassoes. From the age of ten, boys can herd entire herds of deer, and with snares and traps they catch partridges and other game and animals. From the age of 13-15, children become real workers” (1930, p. 98). The knife and axe, the bow and arrows, the lasso, fishing rods, needles, scrapers, and similar implements are tools that must be mastered so that the child can take part in the work of adults. Children, of course, cannot independently discover how to use these tools, and adults teach them how to use them, indicate the nature of the exercises, control and evaluate the success of children in mastering these essential tools. There is no school here with its system, organization and program. Adults set before children the task of mastering these essential tools. Children strive to learn how to shoot a bow, draw a lasso, use a knife and an ax, a needle and a scraper, etc., just like their fathers, mothers, older sisters and brothers do. Of course, such training did not have the character of a systematic teaching of “all subjects”, but it was a special training caused by the needs of society. It may be that the children introduced some play moments into the process of mastering these tools of adult activity - passion for the process of activity, joy from their successes and achievements, etc., but this by no means turned this activity aimed at mastering the methods of action with tools into a game, and reduced tools into toys, as A. N. Reinson-Pravdin thinks. In contrast to the process of mastering the tools of labor, which takes place with the direct participation of the child in the productive labor of adults, here this process is singled out as a special activity carried out under conditions different from those in which productive labor takes place. A little Nenets, a future reindeer breeder, learns to wield a lasso not in a herd of deer, directly participating in its protection. A little Evenk, a future hunter, learns to wield a bow and arrow outside the forest, participating in a real hunt with adults. Children learn to lasso or shoot from a bow, first on a stationary object, then gradually move on to shooting at moving targets, and only after that they move on to hunting birds and animals or lassoing dogs or calves. Tools gradually change, turning from smaller ones adapted to children's forces into those used by adults, and the conditions of exercises are increasingly approaching the conditions of productive labor. Mastering the methods of using the tools of labor and at the same time acquiring the abilities necessary for participating in the labor of adults, children are gradually included in the productive labor of adults. It can be assumed that in these exercises with reduced tools there are some elements of the game situation. Firstly, this is some convention of the situation in which the exercise takes place. A tree stump sticking out in the tundra is not a real shadow; and the target the boy is shooting at is not a real bird or beast. These conventions are gradually being replaced by real objects of hunting or fishing. Secondly, when performing an action with a reduced instrument of labor, the child performs an action similar to that performed by an adult, and, consequently, there is reason to believe that he compares, and perhaps even identifies himself with an adult hunter or reindeer herder, with his father or older brother.
Thus, these exercises may contain elements of a role-playing game. In this regard, I would like to note that, in general, any action with an object that a child masters according to the model offered by adults is dual in nature. On the one hand, it has its own operational and technical side, containing an orientation towards the properties of the object and the conditions for performing the action, on the other hand, it is a socially developed way of performing the action, the bearer of which is an adult, and thus leads to the identification of a child with an adult. The demands that society puts before children in regard to mastering the use of the most necessary tools of labor and the abilities closely related to this, which are necessary for the future hunter, cattle breeder, fisherman or farmer, lead to a whole system of exercises. It is on this basis that the ground for various kinds of competition will be created. There is no fundamental difference in the content of these competitions between adults and children. A number of authors point to the identity of the games of adults and children, meaning precisely competitions or outdoor sports games with rules.
So, for example, N. I. Karuzin says: “Children play the same games as adults” (1890, p. 33). G. Startsev, describing the life of Samoyeds, gives examples of such common and identical games: “My favorite game is racing. Adult women and men stand in a row and must run a distance of often more than 1 kilometer to the agreed place. Whoever comes running first is considered the winner, and they talk about him as a good runner. For children, he especially serves as a favorite topic in conversation, and they themselves, imitating adults, arrange the same races. “Shooting competitions,” continues G. Startsev, “is also a game, and men and women take part in it. Appreciated marksman. Children imitate adults, but they practice with bows and arrows.” G. Startsev points to the widespread game of reindeer, in which adults and children participate. One of the participants must catch the rest with the help of a lasso (see: 1930, p. 141, etc.). E. S. Rubtsova points to the wide distribution of such games-exercises: “The harsh nature of Chukotka, as well as the hard winter hunting on ice with extremely primitive means of hunting, demanded exceptional endurance from the Eskimos. The older generation strictly insisted that the youth train in the development of strength, running speed, endurance and agility. Some physical exercises that develop strength and dexterity began to be performed by preschool children. Usually the father or educator (adoptive father) showed the boys some kind of training technique. When they mastered one technique, they were taught the next. Some training techniques were also performed by girls. During the long winter evenings, the children practiced indoors. To develop running speed in the summer, on days free from sea fishing, the Eskimos organize running competitions (in a circle), in which both adults and children take part. Usually children exercise separately from adults. In winter, they run not in a circle, but in a straight line and between the boundaries established for this purpose. The winner is the one who is the last to remain on the treadmill.
I had to watch how children train in the development of strength. Let's describe one case here. A group of children gathered in front of the yaranga. There lay a large, very heavy stone. The training participants lined up in one line and began to alternately carry this stone from one wall to another. Each of them carried the stone back and forth to the point of exhaustion. After all the children had done this, they took turns wearing the same stone. around the yaranga, and then in a straight line to a certain place. Since the main occupation of the Eskimos is hunting, the elders begin to accustom children to shooting from a gun very early. It is not uncommon for eight-year-old boys to shoot very accurately” (1954, p. 251). “Whoever was in the Far North and watched the life and life of the peoples inhabiting it, he could not help but notice the great interest of both the adult population and children in various sports exercises and mass games,” writes L. G. Bazanov. Describing the holiday “Deer Day”, this author writes: “At the holiday, hunters and reindeer herders, adults and children, compete in running, wrestling, throwing a tynzei, throwing an ax at a distance, hitting deer horns with a disk, throwing a tynzei on the horns” ( 1934, p. 12).
The isolation from the integral labor activity of its individual aspects and qualities (strength, dexterity, endurance, accuracy, etc.), ensuring the success of not one of any of its types, but a number of production processes, was an important step for the whole matter of educating the younger generations. It can be assumed that on this basis, special exercises were singled out, aimed specifically at the formation of such qualities. It is not our task to consider the question of the historical origin of sports games and competitions, just as we do not touch on the question of the connection between the content of these games and the fishing activity characteristic of a particular people or tribe. For us, it is only important to point out the connection between the mastery of certain tools by children and competitions in the ability to use them. The latter are built on the mastery of tools of labor as a kind of repeatedly repeated exam, in which success in mastering one or another tool of labor and the formation of physical and mental abilities associated with this are subjected to public evaluation and verification.
As we have already noted, at the earliest stages of the development of human society, the early inclusion of children in the work of adults leads to the development of children's independence, directly realizes the social demand for independence. At the next stage of development, in connection with the complication of the means of labor and the relations of production closely connected with them, a special activity arises in mastering by children the tools of labor of adults. Throughout the development of the primitive communal system, adults did not have the opportunity to devote much time to the special education and training of their children. The demand for the earliest possible independence remains the main demand that society places on children. Thus, L. T. Bryant points out, “Mothers had the most difficult duties to perform, and they did not have enough time to babysit the children. From the age of four, or even earlier, girls and boys, especially the latter, were left to their own devices. In the kraal and in the adjacent area, the kids frolic in freedom and took care of themselves” (1953, p. 127). There are a lot of such indications in ethnographic literature of providing children with complete independence in pastime and even in caring for their own food from a very early age. Armed with smaller tools of labor, which are also used by adults, left to themselves, children spend all their free time in exercises with these tools, gradually moving on to their use under conditions approaching the working conditions of adults. Margaret Mead says that the children she observed were left to their own devices all day long and knew how to take care of themselves. They have their own kayaks, oars, bows and arrows. All day long they wander along the shore of the lagoon in groups, older and younger together, competing in throwing darts, archery, swimming, rowing, starting fights, etc. Older boys often go fishing among the reed beds. teaching this occupation to the little boys accompanying them (see M. Mead, 1931, pp. 77-78).
N. Miller talks about his observations in the Marquesas Islands - as soon as a child becomes able to do without someone else's help, he leaves his parents and builds a hut from branches and leaves in a place chosen according to his own taste (see N. Miller, 1928, p. 123-124). E. A. Arkin cites Displayn’s message that “on the coast of the Niger, he often saw children aged 6-8 years old, who, having left their parental home, lived independently, built their own huts, hunted and fished, and even performed some crude forms of worship ( 1935, p. 59).
Summarizing the ethnographic materials available on this issue, M. O. Kosven writes: “From an unusually early age, children, especially boys, become largely independent; hunt, set traps for birds, already know how to steer a boat, etc. At 6-8 years old they often live almost completely independently, often in a separate hut, conduct more complex hunting, catch fish, etc.
In hunting, children show remarkable endurance and ingenuity. Here are two examples of the hunting of small feasts of the Congo: lying on their backs, they hold some grains in the palm of their outstretched hand and wait patiently for hours until the bird arrives to peck, in order to hold it in their hand at the same moment. Another example: a rope is tied to a tree branch on which monkeys tend to frolic, the end of which is held by one of the boys lurking below. Catching the moment when that monkey is about to jump onto a tied branch, the boy pulls it down, and the monkey falls to the ground, where little hunters finish it off” (1953, p. 149).
The requirement of independence imposed on children by society at this stage of development is realized not through participation in productive labor along with and together with adults, but through independent life, although separated from adults, but identical in content with it and consisting first in conducting independent exercises. with reduced tools, and then in their direct use in conditions as close as possible to those in which adults also use them. Therefore, all authors point out that such an independent life is common mainly among boys. This indirectly suggests that, apparently, we are talking about societies that have switched to patriarchy, when all the household work was left to the woman's share in which girls could take a direct part and thereby learn all women's work. Independence of girls was brought up, thus, by direct participation in the work of their mothers, more primitive in terms of the tools used and therefore more accessible. Those boys could not take a direct part in the work of their fathers, and therefore it was to them that the demand was first addressed on their own, through exercises, to master the tools used by their fathers. The independent life of children in this period consisted in the independent mastery of the means of labor. Adults made smaller tools for children and showed them how to use them. Children, on the other hand, practiced on their own and in the course of the exercises mastered the tools to perfection.
It can be assumed that it is to this period of the life of society that the emergence of the initiation, which still exists today among many peoples, standing at relatively low levels of development, is at the same time an initial school, and an exam of independence and the ability to use tools, and familiarization with adult members of society.
The data we have cited about the absence of role play in children growing up in societies of earlier stages of development also refer to this period. And here, in children, role-playing in its expanded form does not occur at all or occurs very rarely. There is no public need for it. Children enter the life of society under the guidance of adults or on their own, exercises in the use of adult tools, if they take on the character of games, then sports games or competition games, but not role-playing. Recreating the activities of adults in specially created play conditions does not yet make any sense here due to the identity of the tools used by children with the tools of adults and the gradual approximation of the conditions for their use to real working conditions. Although children do not participate in labor together with adults, they lead the same way of life as they do, only in somewhat lightened, but completely real conditions. At this stage of the development of society, they still occur, although very rarely. already role-playing games.
So, for example, I. N. Karuzin, describing the life of savages, writes that children play the same games as adults, in addition, they have two more games, both imitative. One of them is to imitate the wedding: the boy takes the girl and walks with her around the table or around some pillar (if the game takes place in the air), and the rest stand on the sides, and those who can sing sing the words: ". Then two sticks are placed on the head crosswise instead of crowns, after the children go around three times, the sticks are removed and the bride is covered with a scarf. The boy takes the girl somewhere to the side and kisses her. Then they are brought to the table and seated in a place of honor, the newlywed sits still covered with a scarf, bowing her head, the young man hugs her, after sitting at the table for a while, or they start to marry another bunk, or, naturally, the newlyweds go to bed together. This game is played by children of 5-6 years old mainly before someone's wedding and always secretly from their parents, since the latter forbid children to play this game (see N. N. Karuzin, 1890, p. 339).
N. Miller in the work already mentioned gives a description of several games that can be classified as role-playing. So, sometimes, six-year-old children build houses out of sticks and play as if doing housework. Very rarely do they gather for a love game, choosing couples, building houses, paying a bride price as a joke, and even, imitating their parents, lie down together, cheek to cheek. The author points out that little girls do not have dolls and do not have the habit of playing “babies”. The wooden dolls offered to the children were accepted only by the boys, who began to play with them, cradle them, singing lullabies, following the example of their fathers, who are very gentle with their children.
Describing these games, M. Mead repeatedly emphasizes that such games are extremely rare, and she was able to observe only isolated cases of such games. It is important to note that among the described games there are no games depicting the working life of adults, but games that reproduce those aspects of everyday life and relationships between adults that are inaccessible for the direct participation of children and are forbidden for them.
It can be assumed that role-playing games that arise at this stage of development are a special way of penetrating into spheres of life and relationships of adults that are inaccessible for direct participation.
In the later stages of the primitive communal system, there was a further development of the productive forces, the complication of the tools of labor, and a further division of labor closely connected with this. The increasing complexity of the tools of labor and the relations of production connected with them must have affected the position of children in society. Children were gradually, as it were, squeezed out of the complex and most responsible areas of adult activity. There remained an increasingly narrow circle of areas of work in which they could participate with and along with adults. At the same time, the complication of labor tools led to the fact that children could not master them through exercises with their reduced forms. The instrument of labor, when it was reduced, lost its main functions, retaining only an external resemblance to the instruments of labor used by adults. So, for example, if a reduced bow did not lose its main function - it was possible to shoot an arrow from it and hit an object, then a reduced gun became only an image of a gun, it was impossible to shoot from it, but it was only possible to depict shooting (firearms sometimes penetrated societies that stood at the level of the primitive communal system, during colonization or in the process of exchange with Europeans). In hoe farming, the little hoe was still a hoe with which a child could loosen small clods of earth; she resembled the hoe of her father or mother, not only in form but also in function. During the transition to plow agriculture, a small plow, no matter how much it looked like a real one in all its details, lost its main functions: you can’t harness an ox to it and you can’t plow it. Playing with dolls, which is common in our society, mainly among girls, has always been cited as an example of the manifestation of the motherly instinct in play. The above facts refute this point of view and show that this classic game of girls is not at all a manifestation of the maternal instinct, but reproduces the social relations existing in a given society, in particular, the social division of labor in caring for children.
It is possible that it is at this stage of the development of society that a toy in the proper sense of the word appears, as an object that only depicts tools and household items from the life of adults. In ethnographic literature there is a lot of indication of the nature of role-playing games during this period. We will give only descriptions of some of them, borrowing these materials from the work of N. Miller (N. Miler, 1928). The children of West Africa, writes N. Miller, make the likeness of banana fields out of sand. They dig holes in the sand and pretend to plant a banana in each hole. In South Africa, they build small houses in which they stay throughout the day. The girls put small light pebbles between two large hard ones and grind them like flour. The boys, armed with small bows and arrows, play war by sneaking up and attacking. Children of another nation build a whole village with houses 40-50 cm high, kindle fires in front of them, on which they fry the fish they catch. Suddenly, one of them shouts: “It's already night!” and everyone immediately goes to bed. Then one of them imitates the crowing of a rooster, and everyone wakes up again, and the game continues.
Among the peoples of New Guinea, girls build temporary shelters from old leaves. Near them they put slabs with miniature clay pots. The pebble represents a small child. He is laid on the seashore, bathed, and then kept under fire to dry and applied to his mother's breast, and he falls asleep. We will not multiply examples. Even from the examples cited, it is clear that these are role-playing games in which children reproduce not only areas of adult labor inaccessible to them, but also those areas of everyday work in which children do not directly participate.
It is impossible to pinpoint the historical moment when role-playing game first appeared. It can be different for different peoples, depending on the conditions of their existence and the forms of transition of society from one stage to another, higher one. It is important for us to establish the following. In the early stages of the development of human society, when the productive forces were still at a primitive level and society could not feed its children, and tools of labor made it possible to directly, without any special training, include children in the work of adults, there were neither special exercises in mastering the tools of labor, nor especially a role-playing game. Children entered the life of adults, mastered the tools of labor and all relations, taking a direct part in the work of adults.
At a higher level of development, the inclusion of children in the most important areas of labor activity required special training in the form of mastering the simplest tools of labor. Such mastery of labor tools began at a very early age and took place on tools that were smaller in shape. Special exercises arose with these reduced tools. Adults showed the children patterns of actions with them and followed the course of mastering these actions. Both children and adults took these exercises extremely seriously, as they saw the direct connection of these exercises with real work activity.
After a period of mastery of these tools, which varied depending on the complexity, the children were included in the productive labor of adults. Only very conditionally can these exercises be called games. Further development production, the complication of tools, the appearance of elements of home crafts, the emergence on this basis of more complex forms of division of labor and new production relations lead to the fact that the possibility of including children in productive labor is even more complicated. Exercises with reduced tools become meaningless, and the mastery of more complicated tools is pushed back to later ages. At this stage of development, two changes occur simultaneously in the nature of upbringing and in the process of forming the child as a member of society. The first of these consists in the fact that some general abilities are found out that are necessary for mastering any tools (development of visual-motor coordination, small and precise movements, dexterity, etc.), and society creates special objects for the exercise of these qualities. These are either degraded, simplified and reduced tools that have lost their original functions, which served on the previous ethane for direct training, or even special items made by adults for children. Exercise with these items, which cannot be called toys, is shifted to an earlier age. Of course, adults show children how to act with these toys. The second change is the appearance of a symbolic toy. With its help, children recreate those spheres of life and production in which they are not yet included, but which they aspire to.
Thus, we can formulate the most important proposition for the theory of role-playing: role-playing arises in the course of the historical development of society as a result of a change in the place of the child in the system of social relations. It is therefore social in origin, in nature. Its emergence is connected not with the action of any internal, innate instinctive forces, but with the quite definite social conditions of the child's life in society.
Together with the emergence of role-playing, a new period in the development of the child arises, which can rightfully be called the period of role-playing games and which in modern child psychology and pedagogy is called the preschool period of development. We have already cited facts convincingly showing that the increasing complexity of the tools of labor has inevitably led to the fact that the inclusion of children in the productive labor of adults is pushed back in time. Childhood lengthens. It is important to emphasize here that this lengthening occurs not by building a new period of development over the existing ones, but by a kind of wedging in of a new period of development, leading to an upward shift in time of the period of mastering the tools of production. A situation arises in which the child cannot be taught to master the tools of labor due to their complexity, and also due to the fact that the division of labor that has arisen creates opportunities for choosing future activities that are not unambiguously determined by the activities of parents. There is a peculiar period when children are left to their own devices. Children's communities are emerging in which children live, albeit freed from worries about their own food, but organically connected with the life of society. In these children's communities, the game begins to dominate.
An analysis of the emergence of role playing has led us to one of the central questions of contemporary child psychology, the question of the historical origin of the periods of childhood and the content of mental development in each of these periods. This question goes far beyond the scope of this book. We can only suggest in the most general form that the periods of child development apparently have their own history: historically, the processes of mental development that take place in separate time periods of childhood arose and changed. Role play, as we have already pointed out, has a peculiar game technique: the substitution of one object for another and conditional actions with these objects. We do not know exactly how children mastered this technique at those stages in the development of society when play arose as a special form of children's life. It is quite obvious that this peculiar play technique could not be the result of children's amateur creative ingenuity. Most likely they borrowed this technique from the dramatic art of adults, which was quite highly developed at this stage in the development of society. Ritual dramatized dances, in which conditional pictorial action was widely represented, existed in these societies, and children were either direct participants or spectators of these dances.
There is therefore every reason to assume that the play technique was adopted by children from primitive forms of dramatic art. In ethnographic literature there is an indication that adults led these games. True, these indications apply only to war games, but it can be assumed that samples of other types of collective activity were offered by adults. The hypothesis we have outlined about the historical origin of the role-playing game and about the assimilation of its form is of fundamental importance for criticizing the biologization concepts of children's play. The above facts show quite clearly that the game is social in its origin. On the other hand, this hypothesis has a heuristic value for us, indicating the direction in which to search for the sources of role-playing in the course of the individual development of modern children.
