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p I wish to stress once again that my memory operates in a goal-oriented manner; it highlights elements that are of vital concern to me today.

p Today’s pedagogics possesses a major shortcoming: it seeks to limit itself to school activities, but these do not extend to the entire educational process. This brings to mind Konstantin Ushinsky’s wise words in his article "Concerning the National Principle in Social Education": "The influence on character development of education based on abstract or foreign foundations ... will be much weaker than will a system created by the nation itself....

p “It is neither pedagogics nor teachers, but the nation itself and its great representatives who carve the path into the future; education only follows that path and, acting together with other social forces, helps individual personalities and new generations follow that path....

p “Public education can be effective only when its problems become social problems for all and family problems for each. Systems of public education divorced from social conviction will be ineffective no matter how cleverly they may be designed, and will influence neither the nature of individuals nor that of society....

p “An activation of public opinion with regard to education offers the only sound basis for all corresponding improvements; where no public opinion concerning public education exists there will be no progress of public education, even though there may be numerous educational institutions.”  [30•* 

p The central problem of present-day pedagogics (I believe I am not mistaken in this) is that of ensuring a more individual approach in school matters. Of course, the teaching process in schools must be uniform. Still, initially a teacher should pay the greatest attention to his pupils’ personalities, their mental gifts and abilities and their inner world. This requires a skilled and gifted educationist. One may object (and many have done so) :

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p “One cannot be oriented on talent. Where will you find so many gifted teachers?”

p I can only answer this as follows:

p “Each teacher can develop his abilities to the highest level.”

p In short, two ways are available—an orientation toward the highest level of teaching skills and an orientation toward students’ individuality.

p In recent years I held seminars on classroom practice for teachers from different schools.

p “To become a remarkable teacher,” I would say, "one merely has to know two things: how to understand childhood as a specific psychological state based on unbounded energies and a need for self-realization; and how to combine play and work in one’s creative activities.”

p I referred to the paradoxical thought of an English teacher who stated that in order to teach one must throw away all pedagogics and replace it with play. I do not share his views although I am convinced that play (role playing and non-role playing, improvisation, dramatisation, inventiveness) can make the life of both students and teachers truly interesting and creative in ways that encourage involvement.

p In his Grammatica della fantasia Gianni Rodari has shown the manner in which the invention of fairy tales can help children solve the major problems of creative education. I agree with Rodari. But I believe that there are also deeper connections which exist between a child’s psychological state and that of a teacher seeking to make use of fantasy as a method for developing both the physical and intellectual powers of a child. In my own case, for example, it was a revelation to learn that such great writers as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Faulkner told children a variety of stories, including fantastic ones, in order to present in an accessible form their own most cherished thoughts, the life of which they dreamed and the gnawing reflections that gave them no peace.

p At a certain stage of my development as a teacher I suddenly realized that play activities themselves should rest on such whales as the teacher’s sense of civic responsibility, his striving to find truth, kindness and beauty in this world, in himself and in children.

p My very first year in school completely transformed my inner self, my mode of behaviour and my entire character. I found myself in a turbulent stream whose force was greater than my own. It carried me along in spite of my own wishes. Most probably that stream would have drowned my recently 32 acquired calling had I not begun to search for the origins of play activities.

p I intuitively recognized that one should understand the nature of childhood through one’s own primeval emotions and I sought to establish why I was attracted to children and why they were drawn to me. My thoughts continually turned to the past and I suddenly realized that my own need to play and fantasize was linked to the deepest and most secret layers of my emotions.

p What a connection there was here with my former life, when I lived with my mother in a small room with a small window and the subsequent secret knowledge that no one should learn that you live in a small room, moreover one with a small window. People are ashamed of poverty; that is the tradition and such is life when one does not play. Actually, there is no life at all when one does not play. And my mother’s words are always on my mind: "Do not feel shy, as long as there is life there will be everything—including larger rooms and bigger windows.” "It is even better this way,” I replied. "Everything is small as in a fairy-tale.” And in that fairy-tale I found pleasure in reading Andersen, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dumas, and Wells. In fact, there were few authors I did not read in our modest home, and each stimulated hope, imagination and dreams— and that was already a genuine game. And how closely that game came to be linked with my future life when I left our tiny room in search of myself within the vact game-playing and non-game-playing streams of life.

p Let us pause at this point, for this is an important subject and I would like to show the inherent connection between play and non-play activities. I will try to analyze several life situations in order to establish the origins of pedagogical elements, including the corresponding aspects of play.

p I recall the inner courtyard of the house at 34 Grekovskaya Street in Kharkov, where, as a student, I lived in the corner of a small room that I rented from Alexandra Nikolayevna Zlobina—a majestic woman. She lived together with her daughter, Efrosinya Fyodorovna, who was a doctor and whose own son, Volodya, was my age. I eventually left them because I found myself unable to repay their kindness—I am not even certain whom they loved more, Volodya or myself.

p Everyone in the courtyard knew me and I liked to exchange 33 a few words with everyone.

p “How is life, today?" I would ask Grigoriyevna, who was walking towards the clothes-line carrying a basin under her arm.

p “What life can we old people have? It is youngsters like you who have a life to live, as for us...”

p It crosses my mind thai there was a time when Grigoriyevna was different. Today her husband, Matveich, sits in a grey greasy raincoat (even in the summer when it is hot), wearing a cap, always holding his cane and always staring at the same spot. He had been an accountant, and later a worker doing odd jobs. Now he spends the entire day sitting silently on a bench. He is seriously ill and his slightly swollen face expresses only suffering.

p “Matveich was probably handsome in his youth. Indeed his facial features are striking.”

p “He was a military man,” and Grigoriyevna is transformed as if a wave from the distant past reached her. "If you could only have seen how he rode horseback, and turned down from his saddle... One day I nearly fainted. He was riding and then suddenly his head is down under the horse’s belly; he killed himself, I thought, but he was riding normally again as if nothing had happened,” and Grigoriyevna’s eyes were sparkling.

p And then Uncle Vasya comes out into the courtyard wearing a T-shirt. His chest is pure bronze, and it is difficult to believe that his arms are those of a normal man, they are rather like a massive mold sculptured in a modernistic style; all proportions have been distorted as it were, his palms are three times larger than mine, and as for his muscles—I have never seen their likes. I ask him:

p “Uncle Vasya, is it true that you can lift a one-and-a-half-ton truck with one hand?”

p “Of course, where is it?" Uncle Vasya smiles, "but first let’s play a game of dominoes.” To Uncle Vasya a game of dominoes is the greatest source of pleasure. It transforms him completely and, like a child, he becomes angry if he loses, and radiates with pleasure when he manages to win in an elegant manner.

p I liked everyone in that courtyard, all of the people whose entire lives had been spent there. I liked their fates. Children knew the lives of each of its families. This kind of life nourished them, exerted pressures, hurt them, renewed their strength, gladdened and pained them. In my talks with the children I sought to draw their attention to the remarkable qualities 34 that these simple people possessed; these people, whose attitude towards me was one of kindness and whom I truly loved. What was the unexpected force that guided my playful conversations with the children concerning the courtyard’s unusual everyday life? I do not feel able to answer that complex question. I can onl; say this, that unless play is guided by a highly spiritual content it will always degenerate. This applies, it seems to me, to all games, even to the business games that are currently being studied by so many research scientists.

p ...Today it is my turn to cook the soup. As I carry an enamel pail full of water, a knife and a bag of potatoes to the arbour in the courtyard the children run towards me and I begin to tell them stories, some invented and some real. Sitting motionless beside me are Tolik, little Katya, and Grishka from the neighbouring courtyard, as well as Kolya, who is almost a grown up lad—all captivated by my narrative. As 1 toss the potatoes into the pail splashing water in all directions, little Katya winces and presses her lips together, her cheeks aflush.

p “I do not need your help, I will achieve everything by myself!" This, from a critical part in my story. It is about a boy who lived in a house without windows. But he was so good and pure that his heart shone, and this light enabled him to read and write, and although the light was invisible it made him so strong that he could lift two heavy trucks simultaneously.

p “Just like Uncle Vasya,” Katya interjected with great seriousness and resignation.

p “Just like Uncle Vasya,” I agreed, "but even stronger because it was a magical light. The boy then mounted a horse but an artillery shell was fired and he vanished. His enemies looked and saw no boy only his head was hanging under the horse’s belly. Dead, it seems. But actually, as soon as the shell had been fired the boy had pressed the horse between his legs and dived down under the belly—this was a trick he had practised many times.”

p “There really is such a trick,” comments Grigoriyevna’s nephew, and everyone looks in the direction of Matveich.

p “When his enemies saw that the boy was again on his horse, they became so angry that their legs turned into wood; they could neither bend nor unbend them. The boy continued to ride until suddenly a light flared in his soul as he sensed that in a moment he would see little Nellie, who had been kidnapped by the wooden-legged enemies. And indeed a formation of 35 wooden enemies suddenly appeared on the road. By that time even their heads had turned to wood and sawdust trickled from their ears and nostrils making the road yellow in colour, just like that,” and I point to the sawdust by the carpenter’s door. "A coach rode behind them carrying Nellie. When she saw the light of a close friend she began to cry from happiness and also because she was afraid that the enemies would seize the boy and execute him.

p “As for the boy, he hid in the bushes plucking the petals off a daisy: if the number of petals is even he will fight the enemies and if it is odd he will wait for a while. But when he reached the next to the last petal, light flowed from his chest and took the form of a human voice: ’You should be ashamed to ask yourself whether you should save another human being or not!’ The boy cried from shame and threw himself at the formation. But everyone there continued to stand at attention, for everything within them had become wooden, and while they would have liked to seize the boy they could not move a hand. They could only push him with their bodies, but with no result. It then occurred to them (for some bits of brains had remained among the sawdust) that they could perhaps crush the boy and cause their horses to stamp on him with their hooves. But the boy grasped the coach in one hand, and, giving Nellie just enough time to jump out, began to wave it about like a clothes-line. The horses neighed, the coach’s shafts struck the enemies’ wooden bodies, and the coach broke into a thousand pieces so that it could only be used to make a tool box. The boy seized Nellie and seated her on his horse. As they trotted away Nellie asked: ’But how did you know that I was in the coach?’ ’I sensed it. When you believe strongly in something you also sense everything correctly.’ ’But how did you sense it?’ ’My heart began to beat strongly, and my chest felt warm. I thought: "I am sure that any moment now I will see Nellie.” ’And I, too, thought that as soon as we reached the rock over there I would be sure to meet you.’ ’It always happens this way when you love someone very strongly,’ replied the boy.”

p I am so serious that a shiny glitter appears in the children’s eyes. Katya’s flush deepens as she draws closer to me and confides:

p “I, too, can think of things. I think of something and it then comes true.”

p The boys look at Katya without breaking in and wait for me to go on with my story, but their mothers and grandmothers 36 are already calling them: "Tolya, Kolya, it is time to come home!" and my reply: "Just a sec! Yes, right away!"....

p I now invite the reader to reflect a little with me. In the course of time, states of the highest inner intensity accumulate within a creative person’s psychological “baggage”. And it is precisely these states that can appear as new facets in a game. In actual life such states may be produced by suffering, but in play activities they emerge in a new light as an aesthetic renewal, as a catharsis. No teacher can live without poetry. Unless he is able through play, to even slightly distance himself from his own suffering and to protect himself, if in the least degree, by assertive aesthetic intonations, his human essence will be destroyed. The spiritual force of play elements long continues to be a source of comfort. For play holds hope, and anticipation of pleasure.

p I have known skilled teachers and have had many conversations with them. These were people who had lived a strenuous life, filled with searchings, successes and failures in communicating with children. They shared a breadth of interests, a love for man, and an insurmountable need for creativity, but this was impeded by the bustle and routine of the numerous school duties, and occasionally by stereotyped constraints.

p In order for play activities to become effective allies of schools, children, society and the state, one must not be afraid to go beyond the boundaries of constraints and encounter unexplored interfaces. One must make an in-depth analysis of play activities and this calls for a knowledge not only of psychology and sociology, philosophy and genetics, the theory of management, and systems approach, but also of the way in which psychological elements that are specific to children combine with those that are specific to adults; how unconscious impulses grow into goal-oriented conscious creativity, and intimate personal elements of some stimulate the creative energies of many.

p In teaching, as in poetry, a person’s ability to create is realized only when his spiritual forces develop to the full. It is during these moments that genuine discoveries are made.

p Only through high spiritual development can the teacher become closer to a child’s heart. At times a teacher is unaware that it is precisely a need for purity that draws him closer to children.

p It is in this context that I will turn to perhaps the most 37 important point. It was my painful search for the origins of play activities that brought me to the hidden sources within my own self that contained the best of what my soul had accumulated: my dreams, my hopes, my love.

It is to this that I will now turn.