Berkeley General
Frowning and Fighting: The Laws of Fort Play
Posted: 05/15/08 04:30 PM
[This post is the second in a series on fort play by Mark Powell. In the first part, he describes how the children at Lexington Montessori School in Massachusetts began building and playing in forts at recess. Both posts are edited extracts from Mark Powell’s thesis “The Hidden Curriculum of Recess” in which he writes in detail about the fort play phenomenon he studied while at LMS. A third post in this series will appear shortly.
*All names used are pseudonyms.]
As a lower elementary teacher at Lexington Montessori School in Lexington, Massachusetts from 1994 through 2002, I witnessed for eight years the development of an extraordinary child-centered and spontaneous world of recess play. As children entered the elementary program at LMS, they were initiated into a culture of fort building by their peers. The forts, built entirely from sticks, leaves and found objects from the surrounding woods, were the site of considerable experimentation with different forms and rules of social organization and various styles of construction.
By the spring of 2000, the elementary program at LMS had grown to a population of 104 students. Almost 60% of these children were involved in 11 forts by the spring of 2000, with somewhat greater interest shown by lower elementary students than upper elementary students, and with more involvement among girls than boys.
Fort play was tolerated by LMS teachers for the most part with a mixture of fascination, confusion and frustration. Fort conflicts and issues requiring mediation and arbitration by teachers seemed to fill staff meetings and dominate classroom discussions. One teacher recalled a period in the mid-1990s “where recess was one long stream of crying children saying ‘Someone stole my stick!’” At one point the faculty came very close to banning forts altogether, but most understood how important fort culture was to the children who engaged in it, and so were prepared to allow it even while secretly wishing it would disappear.
Despite the ambivalence of many teachers, the students I interviewed were clear about the benefits of fort play. Fort play was unpredictable, immediate, exciting and fun. Many continued this form of play through sixth grade as their main recess activity, citing multiple reasons for their interest.
In the early years of fort culture at LMS, rules were not explicitly discussed among students, and many former students believed that there were no commonly accepted rules of fort play—aside from the general school rules that teachers imposed. Those in leadership positions sometimes saw a benefit in the lack of common rules of fort play and the lack of direct teacher involvement. Many leaders hinted at the importance of not getting caught stealing sticks and of limiting conflict so that teachers would not be called to arbitrate.
However, when asked to describe the worst thing about playing in forts, most children complained about the seemingly lawless social dynamics of fort play. Arguments within and between forts over property or rank, stick stealing, exclusion, being “fired” or “bossed around” by leaders who expected younger or newer fort members to spend recess gathering sticks or sweeping out the fort, and fort “wars”—these were all cited by both girls and boys as the most unpleasant aspects of fort play.
As the competitive nature of many forts escalated already existing tensions both on and off the recess field, parents and teachers were becoming increasingly concerned and frustrated. By 1994 the new interim Head of School had begun facilitating weekly lunchtime community meetings for any interested students on issues of their choosing. These voluntary meetings soon came to be dominated by fort disputes, and rules decided at community meetings were supposed to be binding on all elementary students. However these meetings were generally avoided by those fort leaders whose competitive interests were often driving the conflicts. Several scoffed at what they perhaps saw as attempts by less powerful children to use these teacher-sanctioned meetings to challenge their authority.
In December 1995, after many long, voluntary community meetings, The Ultimate, Absolute Fort Rules were agreed upon by those children who attended, and then presented to the rest of the community. These rules governed ownership and boundary rights, stick trading rights, and under what circumstances members could be “fired.” Conditions and exceptions, however, left plenty of room for maneuver by distorting and misrepresenting the intentions of others. Although negotiated by students themselves with facilitation and sanction by the Head of School, all former students surveyed unanimously reported feeling that these rules were subtle impositions by teachers that did not help their situation.
Although it held the promise of making life easier on the recess field, the formal regulation of fort play was actively or passively resisted by most children because it reduced the individual control they exercised over their play.
Perhaps the most lasting effect of these community-wide discussions, however, was an emerging awareness among students that there were different points of view to be heard and that the rules of fort play were not natural law but were in fact open for negotiation. By the fall of 2000, fort membership was becoming increasingly fluid, with larger numbers of children involved in more than one fort simultaneously. The structure of forts also showed greater diversity in many respects, including race, class, gender and inter-classroom membership. Trade in found natural objects had also become more important, with a currency emerging among various groups.
One group had even started offering their fort “condo” for rent! Open clashes between forts settled down as children realized that, no matter how things may have been portrayed at first by the older fort leaders, nothing was written in stone.
by Mark Powell
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Mark-
Thanks for this fascinating story. I especially appreciate hearing about how the community meetings and the “laws” that resulted from them were not a direct influence on resolving the conflicts, but may have had an indirect positive effect. There are some interesting lessons here.
In the second paragraph of this installment you mention that there was initially more involvement among girls than boys, but in your first installment you mention the opposite. In any case, you say that eventually there was more gender diversity in play - which you seem to ascribe to a generally increased fluidity in fort play, and an awareness that “rules” were not set in stone. Were there any other factors you noticed?
-Zach Pine
http://www.naturesculpture.com
by Zach Pine on 05/16/08 11:00 AM
Thanks, Zach. Yes, the community meetings and the “laws” were not completely effective in resolving the conflicts because, I think, they were facilitated by adults in authority positions. My take was that this left some children feeling there was pressure for a particular outcome.
I think the fluidity was an organic resolution that evolved among the group to the problems produced by the territoriality of fort play. Some kids realized (perhaps more at a feeling than a conscious level) that if they were members of multiple forts, then the likelihood of fort “wars” was reduced. Others followed, and they changed the culture by their modeling. It may be different since I left the school in 2002, but that was the trend I noticed over the period I observed this play.
As to the gender imbalance, I observed the play in the spring of 2000 and the fall of 2000, which was a different school year. There was some continuity (being a Montessori school), but some change of characters, membership and interest resulting from the summer break. There was more boy involvement in one period and more girl involvement in the other, which was probably more a function of the small numbers than anything else. I didn’t sense greater interest in forts from either gender overall--it was much more individual than that.
The biggest gender difference was in the style of fort building. Boys prefer closed forts that center around construction, and girls tend to prefer open style forts that allow the focus to be on relationships.
I’ve never heard the constructions called “dens” in the US, though I know this is their name in Britain. My guess is that the word “fort” has cultural roots here in the US related to the old west and the lure of a good battle.
Forts require unused, fallow wild space. As a new resident in Berkeley (2 years, most of that focused on work, and I don’t have my own kids yet) I can’t tell you where a good location might be for a wild space in Berkeley. There is, however, a great adventure playground down at the Berkeley marina, a fairly unique place in my experience! I’m guessing Tilden Park might be a good place for fort building, but perhaps there are some long-time Berkeley residents who might be able to suggest good locations for fort play. Anyone know of any?
by mark_powell on 05/19/08 02:26 PM