I’d just as soon as put my hand in an
open crocodile as play cards, especially on holiday, so getting me to the porch table for a ‘friendly’ game took some serious peer pressure. I’d never played 500 before and this was going be the first time in a while that I’d pushed myself to learn about something that I ..Simply. Didn’t. Like.
How often do we ask that of our students?
‘Last Card’ is more my game of choice (when I have no choice.. and there’s no available crocodile). There’s nothing more satisfying than watching truly competitive people fall to the fickle whims of skill-free chance. This game however, seemed to involve skill, knowledge and (as a virtual crocodile began to nibble at my index finger).. strategy.
Without any real prior knowledge I had 500 pegged with a difficultly somewhere between Last Card and Bridge.
Bridge has also been a mystery to me. All I remember from my Nan’s all-day gaming sessions with the ladies from church was a near-silent hypnotic hum over the table, and the guarantee of scones and jam. Scones have remained a permanent, diet-slaying
Achilles’ heel for me. Cards.. not-so-much. Turns out 500
is similar to Bridge. It still involves a bit of strategy but doesn’t take as long, so it’s more suited to the younger player who may have other things to do with their day, like
checking facebook.
500 shares sailing’s frustrating trait of making up special words for things we already know. (Can we just turn the boat to the
right?). You have a left bower and right bower.. which are both Jacks.. (
24 anyone?) and the scoring involves ‘tricks’, ‘runs’ and other novel complexities. As more details followed I found myself gazing out across the coastal flax, idly scanning for crocs. The idea is to work with your partner to win as many ‘tricks’ as you can and reach a score of 500 first. I decided that 500 was a goal far too large to be fun, let alone likely. The chance of losing points along the way also means the game can go for a while. Thankfully I was paired with the only other person who had never played so it was probably going to be a quick one.
Our ineptitude began as comical and then became insulting when, after 50 tricks a bag of chips and playing several left and right bowers (with
celebratory song) we had cleaned up and won by a 400 point margin. We had learned just enough to play a rough game and come away equal parts victorious and bewildered. Our gracious instructor Scott on the other hand, was a broken man. Still, it was thanks to his careful guidance through a few open hands, and his generous on-the-fly play tips that we learned and scored as well as we did.
“You’d never play a spade at this stage mate.. have you got something better?… yeah… that one.. that’ll……win it for you…. “
It’s our job to not just teach skills, but to give people the passion to use those skills every day. We know it’s not all the literate kids who achieve, it’s mostly those who choose to read in their own time, and they have to want to do it when we stop looking.
If Scott had done it any other way he’d have lost us.. in so many ways. As it stands he set us up to not only understand a bit of the game play, but to want to play it again. If we didn’t have that, we simply wouldn’t ever do it again and that sprouting branch of future learning would be cut back to the trunk, never to grow again.
Thanks Scott. I’m glad you’re a teacher.
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