by Crazy Ivan
So Kid Myach is soaking up sun on some little island in the Caribbean this week... I guess after all that sun in Australia he needed to keep his tan up to speed so he's relaxing on a beach starting tomorrow and lasting through the week.
Among the many consequences not related to Kid's bronze skin, I did a school club today that normally he does. It's out by the Myachi HQ so it was no big deal to swing out and do it. I sat with the club and asked each of them what they liked and disliked most about the Myachi Club and then we rocked out a few contests.
The second (and last) contest is the one I'm writing about. It was a golf contest with a twist.
See, the problem with these school clubs is that the contests always tend to favor a few kids. It's good that the kids with the most Myachi skills are more likely to win, but it's not always fun for the kids who get close and never quite win a prize.
So today I decided to change that. I had the class split into 2 groups. 7 kids that had won contests before and the 6 that hadn't won all year. I had the previous winners shoot from slightly further back and I kept a cumulative score for the whole team.
We were running out of time, so we did two rounds and each player got 1 shot per round. The target we use has a 1, 2 and 3 point range so the scores rack up pretty quickly. By the end of the first round, the non-previous winners had a 2 point edge, largely due to the smallest girl in the class opening them up with a bull's eye.
Some of the kids on the other team were complaining about the disadvantage, but since they had 7 players to the other team's 6 it struck everybody as fair enough.
In the end, the team that had never won before won. The little girl who opened with a bull's eye got a second one with her second shot and a really shy girl that hardly ever really says anything in class scored the winning shot and almost teared up. It was mad fun.
But there is, of course, a question in all of this. Was it a fair competition? I mean, I was kind of rooting for the underdog team to win, but there was still a chance for all the kids who had won before to just win again and even further demoralize the kids that haven't won yet.
I didn't actually think about that outcome until after the fact so I guess I had the game pretty heavily weighted on the other team. So my question to you is, is it fair to rig the game so that the kids who have never won before have a good chance at winning?
I've clearly already made my decision on this one, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as well. Was this fair? Did I just set one team up to fail? And if I did, was it justified?
My first question to you would be what is the age range of these kids. It does have somewhat of a factor but not too much. It's tricky when it comes to kids. If clearly there are certain kids that have more skill than others, (ie learning tricks, mastering tricks etc) quicker than I think it is very fair to have that particular group of kids thrown a little bit more of a challenge. It's like pegging a group of 13 yr olds against a group of 10 yr olds (still staying in the confines of myachi golf). To keep things fair you're gonna automatically handicap the older group in order to even the playing field based on the fact that they are probably bigger than the 10 yr olds.
ReplyDeleteThe other aspect that you wanna consider is when you're in a leadership position particularly with kids, you want to try to do your best to edify everyone at some point. More importantly, make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. Since it was known that there were a number of kids that had not won any contests all year and there were several that just kept winning (by no fault of their own, if you're good at something that's awesome!), it only makes sense to rig the deck a little. It was an opportunity to boost up some kids that otherwise might have been feeling a bit down because they had yet to win a contest. They still love to play but it's also nice to be able to walk away with the pride that you get for doing well in competition. Working as a camp counselor, some of the greatest challenges included making sure I was providing a way for everyone to have fun and find activities that would complement different people's skill sets but not constantly single people out. Even if that means handicapping people with stronger skill sets to give the other kids a chance to participate equally.
Moral of all that lol. I wouldn't say you set one team up to fail necessarily. There's no reason the stronger team couldn't have won. Unless of course you were making them do like 20 ft. throws, then yes they definitely probably would have failed. But in the end, there's nothing wrong with helping elevate the kids who haven't had their time to bask in the glory that comes with winning :-)
It's a tough call, but I wouldn't consider that unfair. Maybe you asked the winners to play from a little further away but when you think about it... that's a team composed entirely of winners (similar to the Miami Heat in some ways). They obviously have the skills, and it'd be up to them to step up and keep winning.
ReplyDeleteMyachi is about fun, though. Everyone should get a chance to win every once in a while. It's not like you rigged it so there was no possible way the haven't-won team could lose, you just evened the playing field a little bit and let them have some fun.
It put a big smile on my face to read that a girl actually almost teared up. Unless you're some heartless person (hey, speaking of the Heat...) then something like that is always good to hear. I doubt the already-won team was demoralized over it. Hopefully they were happy to see the other kids win.
I think it's fair. The other team must've been good, and it was just a little extra challenge. Besides, the winners needed an ego check, and the kids that haunt won needed a morale boost
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear I'm not alone on this one. After the fact it was clear that it was the right thing. Watching one of the kids that usually gets knocked out in the first round win the game was a pretty cool treat and knowing that now every kid has won a Myachi at some point is groovy as well.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I don't know if I'd feel the same way if the other group had won.