Learning does need not to be boring
It's nice and stimulating to broaden your knowledge. The moment you start to understand
something is delightful. Discovering that you're able to use what you already know, but now
in
another way , is great. When you see solutions before the problem is presented can be
breathtaking.
Unfortunately, learning means also memorizing. There are many ways to learn things from the
heart
, but it's mostly boring and not inviting for starting to learn.
Nevertheless, this could be done in another way. By doing something nice, funny, surprising.
Something we can use as a vehicle to transport the new words into our mind.
Boring learning can become fun if we transform this process into playing. It's a question of
Trading
Hats: put of the learning-hat and put on the playing-hat!
Who will make the games?
The nice thing of this project is that we do not only make educational games, also the
production is
a kind of learning process. It helps the people who makes the material to develop their own
skills in
different ways.
Devising and developing:
The games are conceived by Roby Bellemans Produkties, a small company know for it
exhibitions,
art lending program , educational projects and games for children. After 2012 the Trading
Hats
foundation will continue those activities, Roby Bellemans remains as adviser attached to the
Foundation.
Design and shaping of the games:
Games must looks nice and familiar for the kids. Live looks different all over the world. For
this we
invite local artists to develop the games in cooperation with the local producers.
The producing:
Because we expect a creative addition from our partners, we chose for workshops with
disabled
people. People with physical limitations are dependent on finding inventive alternatives. This
mostly
leads to original solutions, the kind that people without limits never would find. The best
example is
Django Reinhardt, because he couldn't use all his fingers he created a complete new way of
playing
nd a complete new kind of music: the Jazz Manouche.
Games for who?
An important target group are institutional institutions such as schools and professional or
voluntary organizations working with children. Beside those, all people who like original
games.
The performing organizations:
Trading Hats foundation (www.trading-hats.nl) & Roby Bellemans
Produkties (www.robybellemans.nl)
Roby Bellemans studied educational science. After experimenting with developing new ways
of
making exhibitions, he specialized himself in making (low budget) educational exhibitions
and
projects for children. He pioneered with an art-lending-program for children. His activities
often
results in developing related educational games.
Some examples of those games:
Rol-Over:
For the Palazzo-Mind-Game festivals Roby developed 'Rol-Over', a mind game based on
crossing the
road, with very simple rules but with a lot of elements from the traditional mind games like
Chess,
Go & Draughts.
After the festival the game was given to a Children's playground. This version was specially
made for
it.
Happy-Family game of proverbs:
Many children living abroad are going to an international school and are talking most of the
time
English. Doing so they do not learn the proverbs in their own language. St NOB (the
Dutch-Education
-Abroad foundation) asked us to develop a game so they would learn these. We choose for a
Happy
Family Game and invited famous Dutch and Flemish illustrators to make the drawings. Shell
International sponsord this international project. Later we developed a second one
commissioned by
Zirkoon editors.
De ÜmRo-puzzles:
During workshops with Turkish and Dutch children the Turkish children book illustrator
Ümit
Ögmel and Roby Bellemans create a puzzle to help the children to learn the two
languages.
Unique is that the parts of the puzzle can have another meaning on his own as when it is with
the
other pieces. To illustrate this an example above (the drawings are not from
Ümit):
when it is on its own, it looks like a tree. Together with the other pieces we see it is hair and a
nose.
The Word-domino:
Learning words is very boring but also very important. Our Vietnamese partner Tran Phuong
Trinh
figured out the solution by using the traditional domino-game.
Adding the new words on it, children will learn them much faster while they also have fun to
play.
On the picture Trinh in a try-out with Vietnamese children who live in the Netherlands
The artists:
In most countries it is difficult for artists to make a living. Using their creative talent to make
nice
designs and drawings can be very interesting for the artists as well for the games.
Of course it is not free work but applied arts, they also have to invest in the project because
they
only will get a percentage of the profits.
They start to work with a local production workshop, but the copyrights of their work will
always be
theirs. So It is always possible that another production workshop also will make use of their
work.
The production workshops:
We only ask that the production workshops create the opportunity for disabled people to
develop
themselves and to become more independent. The production workshops do not have to pay
for
participating in the project. They only will have to pay a small percentage of their profit,
maximum
20% for the artists and the organization.
They will profit of all the research, contacts and new products we develop. In developing the
games
takes into account the specific production capabilities.
The users of the games:
Organizations and schools can buy the products directly at the production workshops. But
there will
be an intensive contact with the staff of the Trading Hats foundation. Partly to the existing
games to
evaluate, partly to develop new games. There are always new wishes, new problems and
.solutions..
