今日は子供達の遊びについてちょっとコメントしたいと思います。
私は戦後（団塊世代）の生まれですが・・・子供時代は、遊ぶといっても、現在のようにパソコンもなければゲーム機等もありませんでした。テレビもなくラジオを聞き、電気は裸電球で机はミカン箱、部屋の真ん中に卓袱台一つという生活でした。お風呂は銭湯通いでした。父は厚生労働省の事務官でしたので、それがけして貧しい家の生活ではなく、みんなそうした生活をしていました。私が小学校に上がる時に熊本県庁衛生部へ父の転勤で熊本に来ましたが、テレビが我が家に来たのは小学校４年生の頃だったと思います。そういう生活の中で当時の子供達の遊びといえば竹山で竹を切り水鉄砲を作ったり、竹馬を作ったり、木の枝を切りゴム銃を作ったり、紙ヒコーキを飛ばしたり、、正月には駒やたこ揚げをしたり、ビー玉やメンコをしたり、陣取り合戦やかくれんぼをしたりで結構そうした遊びを通して子供同士のコミニュケーションがあり、楽しい生活を送っていたように思います。そうした子供の頃の遊びを振り返ってみますと、当時はちょっとしたおもちゃ以外は、何もないわけですから、まず遊ぶ為に遊ぶ為の『ものづくり』からしていたように思います。現在は遊ぶ為のものが氾濫し、疑似体験出来るゲーム機等が人気があり、ソフトを購入すれば誰もが簡単に操作でき遊べ、大人も子供もそうしたゲームにはまり込む傾向があると云われています。しかし楽しい反面、現実と仮想の区別がつかなくなり、現実から逃避し、仮想の中で自分の自己を作り上げていくというゲームお宅を造りだしている現実もあるように思われます。確かに都市開発によって身近に竹林や遊ぶ空き地はなくなり、生活条件や環境が変化した現実はあります。そうした現代社会の中でもう一度昔のように『遊ぶ前に遊ぶ為のものづくり』ということを子供達に伝えたいという思いがあります。昔は竹林や空き地にある木は子供達が遊ぶ為に切り取っても咎められませんでした。要するにほとんど無料で材料を調達し、それを加工して友達に自慢して遊んでいた記憶があります。一番得意な作品は榎木の実を弾にした竹筒鉄砲でした。榎木の小さい実を先端に積めて空気圧でポンッと撃ち込む、友達のほっぺたに向けて撃つと結構痛くて、撃った後は掛け回って逃げた覚えがあります。
このようなことは現代子には想像も付かないかも知れません。そうした竹や木のような素材を調達しにくくなった現在、１００円ショップが現れ、暇つぶしに通うようになりました。高額なゲーム機やソフトに比べ、１００円製品は思う存分の改良失敗を繰り返しても浪費にはなりません。ちょっとした加工をして実用でき、遊べ、子供達の想像力や工夫加工、そして楽しい時が過ごせるならば、そこは昔の竹山といえるのかも知れません。子供達の作る楽しさ、遊ぶ楽しさ、そして空想や想像や発見が、次の次元を生み出し、新たな創造へと繋がるのではないかと思い取り組んでいます。
これからも身近なものを工夫し『遊ぶ為のものづくり』の提案をしていきたいと思います。
I was birth of the (a lump of earth generation) after the war, but there were not the game consoles almost the present even if I said that I played in the days of a ... child if there was not the PC. I listened to the radio without television, and the electricity was a naked bulb, and the desk was life of one low dining table in a mandarin orange box, the middle of the room. The bath was a public bath commute. Because father was an administrative official of Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, it was not the life of a poor house by any means, and everybody lived such a life. Came to Kumamoto by a transfer of father to the Kumamoto prefectural office hygiene department when I entered the elementary school, but television having come to my home of the fourth grader think that it was about time when it. It cuts bamboo, and play of then children makes a water gun with Takeyama in such a life and makes bamboo stilts and it cuts the branch of the tree and makes a rubber gun and transfers a paper airplane and does a piece and a kite-flier for New Year holidays and does a glass marble and a menko, and I place myself and do a battle and hide-and-seek, and there is an acquaintance between children through such a play quite and thinks that I lived a happy life. I think that I was judging from "manufacturing" to play at first to play other than a pretty good toy in those days when I look back toward the play of such a childhood because anything is the reason that there is not. A thing to play overflows, and game consoles having simulated experience are popular, and anyone can easily operate it if I purchase software, and play, and it is said now when both an adult and the child tend to fall into such a game. However, I am happy, but on the other hand cannot tell the difference between reality and the imagination and escape from reality, and there seems to be the reality creating game homes to finish one's self in imagination. Takebayashi and the idle vacant land disappear by urban development close, and there is surely the reality that a medium and environment changed. There is thought to want to convey a thing called "the manufacturing to play before playing" to children as in the past once again in such modern society. I was not blamed in old days even if I cut Takebayashi and the tree in the vacant land so that children played. In brief, I supply materials almost free and remember that I process it and am proud to a friend and played. The most proud work was the bamboo tube gun which made Enoki nut a bullet. When I can pile up small fruits of Enoki on the tip and I can turn to the cheeks of the friend to fire pop and shoot it with air pressure, I have a pain in it quite and remember that I hang it after having shot it and turn around and escaped.
As for such thing, a modern child may not get the imagination, too. At the present when I am hard to have come to supply material such as such a bamboo and the tree, 100 yen shop appeared and came to go to the time killing. Even if the 100 yen product repeats the improvement failure of the heart's content to think of, in comparison with the large game console and software, it is not wasted. If I do slight processing and come by practical use and I play and can spend imagination and device processing of children and happy time, it may be said that there is old Takeyama. Children and pleasure to make, idle pleasure and imagination and imagination and discovery bring about the next dimension and think that I may be connected to new creation.
I devise an imminent thing and want to suggest "the manufacturing to play" from now on.
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I have you read till the last, and thank you.