SAIIER 2020:Using Aurogames to Improve Attention
The ability to focus and maintain attention in an activity is crucial for learning. As Sri Aurobindo writes:
- “Attention is a factor in knowledge, the importance of which has been always recognized. Attention is the first condition of right memory and of accuracy. To attend to what he is doing is the first element of discipline required of the student, and, as I have suggested, this can easily be secured if the object of attention is made interesting. This attention to a single thing is called concentration.”
(Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings, p.402)
In current times we see a lack of ability to focus among children, exacerbated by the indiscriminate use of phones, computers, T.V. and other devices to watch and play games. All of these hinder attention in other areas off-screen. In many cases, the unique capabilities of a child do not match their learning success. These children cannot sufficiently focus and sustain attention in class.
After three years exploring Aurogames with people ages 3 – 80+ and developing the original games into a number of activities, I came to understand more deeply the value of these games. The colours, shapes and flexibility of use supports creativity, versatility and are visually stimulating. I found that after only a few sessions children learned to focus and engage with ease. It was particularly profound when this occurred in children that could not speak or understand English. In this case it was not language that supported the attention; it was the games themselves.
This research project was the first step to explore this relationship between Aurogames and development of focus.
About Aurogames:
In the 1970s a woman named Auroculture joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. She felt she “had to do something for the children”. She was inspired to make educational games. She was not an artist nor did she know how to make boxes. Yet the games she created follow an aesthetic sense that reflects her intuition. When a game ‘came’ to her she made it. She says, “they are not my games; they are Mother's”. All were created with inspiration and love. She named these games ‘Aurogames’.
In a letter dated December 2009 she writes:
- “Since more than 40 years I work with Mother on such a new learning system. In an amazing process, often during the whole night, She realizes through my hands many special learning materials which are waiting for their further development.”
Description of project:
9 children from of 3 different schools – Aikiyam School, Deepanam School and Isai Ambalam School – were chosen to participate in this project. One child was from each class: Aikiyam School grades 2, 3 and 4; Deepanam School grades 1, 2 and 3; and Isai Ambalam School grades 2, 3 and 4.
All 9 classes were observed for 1-6 days during their regular classroom activities. I met with teachers from each class, sharing my observations. Names of all the children who were observed to be unable to sustain focus on an activity for more than 5 minutes were provided. In some instances, teachers did not agree or had not noticed focus difficulties for some of the children observed. From this list, the teachers chose a child from their class that they agreed had attention difficulties, to participate in the research project. Interestingly enough, there was at least one child from each school that appeared quite bright and had focusing difficulties. None of these children were selected.
Demographics of the children:
| Male | Female | |
| Age | ||
| 7 | 3 | |
| 8 | 3 | |
| 9 | 1 | 2 |
| Grade | ||
| 1st | 1 | |
| 2nd | 3 | |
| 3rd | 2 | 1 |
| 4th | 1 | 1 |
| Ethnicity | ||
| Tamil | 6 | 1 |
| (Tamil and British) | 1 | |
| Russian | 1 | |
Each child had one session per week. At times due to sickness, holidays, school trips, etc. sessions were delayed for 2 or more weeks. Exceptionally, two children from Deepanam had daily or very regular sessions in my home when the school closed early before lockdown.
The sessions were intended to last only for as long as a child was able to focus on the activities. This would support a memory in the child – ‘when I work on these games I am focused’. In addition, the activities were varied to help support an increase in time that children could engage and remain focused.
The facilitator went into the session with eyes open and documented what qualities and capacities she saw. Patterns were seen to emerge over a number of sessions. The specific capacities/skills are explained in Outcomes below. The facilitator’s role in an Aurogames session was to be present and attentive to the child. To allow them to make mistakes and just notice in oneself when the desire to correct arose, and remain silent. To learn to understand the child and their developing capacities through play. The facilitator would also be alert to provide support just before the child began to disengage in a difficult activity. All of the support provided was to assist the child to: be successful, become more independent, persevere, problem solve, learn to ‘see’, understand and self-correct. Support did not mean providing the solution. Rather questioning the child to think, look more deeply and come to a better understanding leading to the solution.
All 6 children from Aikiyam and Isai Ambalam schools had limited or no understanding of English. All sessions in Aikiyam school were facilitated in English with nonverbal support and a few Tamil words to help in understanding. If these children had difficulty during an activity it was not possible to determine if this was due to a lack of understanding of the instructions, not listening to understand and/or the activity was just difficult. In December at Isai Ambalam school, halfway through the sessions, a Tamil facilitator had been trained and took over the sessions. These sessions were subsequently conducted exclusively in Tamil. At that point, if these children had difficulty in an activity either the activity was difficult and/or the child did not listen to understand the instructions. At Deepanam School, all three children had sufficient comprehension in English to understand instructions. When a particular word was used – like ‘flexibility’ or ‘strategy’ – the meaning and how it related to the games was explained.
In the design of this research project, each child would complete 15 sessions. After the 14th session, the facilitator would observe the child in class for one or more lessons to see if any changes had occurred in the child's focus in their regular classes. After these observations the child would have their final 15th session. The first and final sessions were video recorded. Since schools closed early due to COVID-19, some of the observations and final sessions were not completed. At Aikiyam School, all three children completed 15 sessions and class observations took place. At Isai Ambalam School each child had 14 sessions and class observations took place; however, no final session with video recording was possible. At Deepanam School none of the children were observed in their class since the schools closed before this could occur. Two children completed all 15 sessions and the other child had only 14 sessions.
Outcomes:
Through progressive game sessions where children engaged in Aurogames a number of capacities developed. The capacities are listed and defined below as they relate to playing Aurogames.
- Perseverance: continued effort to do or succeed in an activity despite difficulties. Willingness to maintain focus through the struggle.
- → All children learned to persevere in the majority of their sessions. The development was often incremental: in the beginning, needing verbal support to solve the difficulty while maintaining focus and, later, persevering with focus and no verbal support while coming to the solution.
- Building stamina: the bodily or mental capacity to sustain effort and remain focused in an activity (endurance). Though this includes the time spent in the session, it is also related to perseverance, motivation and an interest in the activity. When an activity was engaging and the child was motivated, s/he generally participated for increasingly longer amounts of time. In contrast to this, the child may have ‘worked’ for a long time in a session yet if they were so fatigued that they could not maintain focus, this was not considered building stamina.
- → Looking at the outcome for this capacity, it appears that understanding the language of instruction might be involved. It was found that the 3 children from Aikiyam school, with instruction exclusively in English, had fewer sessions where they were building their stamina as compared to the other students (except 1). Despite this, 2 students still maintained effort with focus in more than half of their sessions. The 3rd grade student from Isai Ambalam school had difficulties with this capacity. He fatigued easily yet the sessions continued, therefore he increasingly had difficulty with focus and problem solving.
- Visual discrimination and acuity: the ability to see details in patterns and detect differences and similarities in size, shape, colour, orientation, and pattern. Acuity refers to the ability to discriminate fine details in small and larger patterns.
- → As success in Aurogames requires the development of this capacity, all children quickly learned to look closely and compare subtle differences as they were motivated to succeed.
- Visual flexibility: ability to see details of the patterns and move them around to match a pattern.
- → Many of the materials used to make larger patterns have cards that are mirror images. Starting in the first session, children quickly learned how to ‘see’ this. With the support of a mirror they ‘saw’ the reflection of a card. Then the mirror was lifted revealing a card placed exactly as the mirror image. This gave the child firsthand experience that one card was indeed the mirror reflection of the other. Most were fascinated by this experience and started to ‘see’ and not get fixed looking at the small parts but noticing the card was different.
- Flexibility: willingness to change something to avoid getting stuck in one position.
- → All children either quickly understood or were supported to understand flexibility. Often all the support needed when a child was frustrated and struggling in an activity was to remind him/her to be flexible. In life people can get ‘stuck’ in one way of doing or seeing something. Most of the games provided children with an opportunity to move from this ‘stuck’ position and become more playful and move things around. This transition from stuck to flexibility and movement was often fascinating to witness.
- Selective focused attention: the ability to focus one’s attention on an activity at the exclusion of other sensory inputs.
- → Though this capacity occurred very rarely, it is astounding that it was expressed at all. These children all had difficulties engaging and focusing in class. And all of them had at least one session where they were focused on an activity to such a degree that all other sensory inputs were ignored. Most of the sensory distractions were loud noises from people nearby. An example that illustrates this capacity quite profoundly: a cleaning woman was working nearby and came across a snake. She was very animated yelling and interrupted our session. I spoke very briefly to her and told her to call the gardener. Despite this unfolding drama, the 2nd grade student at Deepanam did not look up. He remained focused.
- Willing to take challenges: agrees to try a new or increasingly complex activity. Agrees to try an activity without the supports (e.g. grid) previously required to be successful.
- → Though some children were reluctant to engage in a new and complex activity, they always agreed to try. Sometimes they asked for supports like a grid that they were familiar with but they were asked to try without it first. They were instructed to “Do what they could see and understand first.” If needed, the grid was available. Another component that helped was all children quickly understood that it was acceptable to make mistakes as they learned from them. The pressure of having to do it all perfectly disappeared and they were freer to explore and understand the activity.
- Looking to see: ‘Look’ means to focus your eyes on a pattern; and ‘see’ means to actually perceive it. During an activity the child engaged the perception of sight to understand what they are seeing – to find pairs, reproduce patterns, etc.
- → In order to succeed in an activity, the child was required to be visually active and engaged. Right from the onset they learned the necessity to ‘see’ in order to succeed. Introduction of new activities were presented in accordance with the development of this capacity. When observing a child engaged and looking to ‘see’, this subtle difference between ‘look’ and ‘see’ was obvious. ‘Seeing’ involved an intensity and softness in the eyes that was not rushed – it took time. Once this capacity was developed further, they played a game with 24 cards. It required them to look to see for only a fraction of a second and to remember a pattern and its colours. The same pattern card with reverse colours was also in the deck to distract. All children enjoyed this activity as they had the capacity to be successful most of the time. Another activity offered in subsequent sessions was to sort 36 cards by pattern, ignoring the colours. This required a well-developed ‘looking to see capacity’ and the ability to disregard colour which they normally had to focus on. This created a dissonance within the children and they really needed to focus and persevere to succeed.
- Sees mistakes and Self-Corrects (S/C): this indicates that the child noticed the mistake (without any verbal or non-verbal support) and corrected it.
- → This capacity did not occur very often. To ‘see’ a subtle mistake in a larger pattern without support was very difficult. To help develop this capacity, children were shown how to check and compare what they had done. This checking was also modeled while speaking out loud. One child became so proficient at checking that during the 12th session I said “I always take you through checking the pattern. This time, I want you to take me through the pattern. Choose a colour and take me through”. She did it with care and precision.
All children learned early on that mistakes were allowed to happen so looking to see and compare continuously was important. When the design was completed we checked the whole pattern. Watching a video of some sessions, it appears that some children deliberately ‘made a mistake’ and looked up to see if the facilitator would say anything. When silence remained, they corrected it before moving on. Most often in the sessions, the facilitator supported the child to ‘see’ that something was not the same. This provided the opportunity for the child to self-correct.
- Listening to understand: This is not about nodding, shaking their head or smiling while instructions were given. It involved actively participating – paying attention to comprehend what was being said in order to act accordingly.
- → This capacity seemed to be directly related to success, motivation and interest in an activity. It is important to understand the steps to do something in order to succeed. At Aikiyam, where there was a language barrier in the instructions, some children seemed to lose interest and motivation in some activities in later sessions. Though Isai Ambalam students had half of their sessions conducted in their mother tongue, they still did not listen to understand in all of those sessions. At the beginning of the project none of the children appeared to listen to understand their teachers’ instructions as seen during observations.
This capacity takes an effort to develop and is useful in life. In future it is important that Aurogames sessions are facilitated in a language the child can understand. Supporting children to develop this capacity is strategic as it is a crucial step in all learning.
- Memory: the power or process of reproducing or recalling what they had learned and retained in an earlier session.
- → Children quickly understood that engaging their memory was important while playing the games. What did they do in the previous session? What was difficult? How did they solve it? Knowing and remembering the answers to these questions helped them succeed in their present session. Early on, they were asked these or similar questions. As memory improved they had to ‘see’ and remember more complex designs.
- Recall and build on learning: to bring back to mind what they had done in previous sessions to grow in abilities to solve current challenges. Closely linked to memory.
- → Children had many opportunities to develop this capacity. In the majority of sessions, all children were able to recall and build on their learning at least once. Examples of this are matching a pattern on top with a grid, progressing to matching it on the side. This began with patterns made with 4 base cards and increased to ones made with 25.
- Strategies to problem-solve: a plan of action to support challenging activities, low energy, improve focus, etc.
- → This capacity refers to an occurrence when the child developed their own strategy or remembered and utilized one provided in a previous session from the facilitator, without prompting. All children were able to think of or remember strategies to support focus in their play some of the time. All children, except one, used strategies in more than 50% of their sessions. Examples of strategies used: taking the small grid to match a medium pattern, stop and do some deep breathing for focus and energy, get up and move their body when fatigued, ways to find pairs quickly and accurately, etc.
- Confidence: belief in one’s abilities/skills to be effective in an activity.
- → Since the games were introduced incrementally to progressively challenge a child within his/her abilities and the facilitator was present and focused on the child, most children engaged in an activity with confidence. It took one child 4 sessions for his confidence to develop and his defeating self-talk to diminish. In the beginning he often said things like “this is too hard” which he believed and distanced him from his focus in the activity. Very quickly he learned to trust in his abilities to such an extent that he wanted to try something (make a right angle triangle with small triangles) that he had been told was not possible. So he tried for some time until he was satisfied it would not work. This instance illustrated a shift in his sense of self and abilities. He was not troubled when he discovered it could not be done, yet pleased he had tried.
- Creativity: use imagination freely to create and problem solve.
- → The capacity of creativity was not engaged enough. Children were not given enough opportunities to explore creatively. One student was so inspired, we co-created new activities. In future it is important that a creative element is provided in each session to support all children to develop this capacity. Being able to come up with creative solutions would be helpful in their lives.
- Motivated: having an incentive or a strong desire to succeed in an activity.
- → Most children were consistently motivated to engage and succeed in all activities. The 2nd grade student at Aikiyam seemed reluctant and unmotivated in most of the activities in the last 4 sessions. He liked to play cooperative memory game often but he did not have the deep engagement and focus he had had in previous sessions. The 3rd grade student at Isai Ambalam fatigued during sessions. This created difficulties to stay focused, look to see, and other capacities to succeed more easily. Therefore, he did not seem motivated, just wanted to finish.
- Enthusiasm/interest: excitement, enjoyment, or a feeling that accompanies giving attention to the activity.
- → Most children found at least one activity that really engaged and interested them during each session. The same 3rd grader from Isai Ambalam school who fatigued and was not motivated developed a keen interest in one challenging and fast-paced activity. Unfortunately, this activity was done with him only 3 times and at the end of his session. He left the session energized but was fatigued for most of the session. For children who fatigue easily, it is important to vary activities to spark an interest that helps to energize them.
Conclusion:
Aurogames is a promising activity to use with children to develop focus, attention, memory and other mental capacities.