[Not] Bored Games: The Real Story
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Aside from the part of our story we share in our first blog post Boderton Tales: A Curious Inheritance, our actual real-life story is actually quite unique, too.
We’re a family from Venezuela who, like many, had to leave the country due to economic and political instability. That was like 20 years ago, though. The interesting part of our story starts about 6 years ago.
I had just quit my job as a middle school language arts teacher at an international school after having recently quit my job as a wealth manager at a Swiss Bank. I loved teaching kids, but being employed just wasn’t the right fit for me.
Anyway, I moved to Mexico and got a call from my second cousin, Manuela — which is weird because we were never really that close. But, Manuela heard that I was a retired teacher and that I was passionate about education. That’s when she told me about ALDEA, a regenerative community project that she was conceiving together with other family members and friends. In short, they bought a plot of land in Portugal and wanted to move there to start a [not] hippie commune, but she needed a teacher. She wanted someone who believed that learning never stops, who could flip the script on conventional education and create a program that was more compassionate and that celebrated the joy of learning.
Basically, she told me I could conceive and run an educational program however I wanted.
What do you think I said?
I packed my bags and got ready to move to the Portuguese country-side with my close-but-not-really-that-close cousin, her husband, and their two children. The plot of land which was to be the site of this regenerative utopian community was nowhere near ready to be lived on, so we moved into a little house by a pig-farm, filled the attic with toys and books, and I got to work as the kids’ teacher. We called it The Forest Studio, and we ran it from that little attic for three months.
Manuela and Joaquin, her husband, had different views on education and living in general. They wanted something more free, more autonomous, but at the same time, something paradigm-shifting and exuberant. A feeling of having the comfort and luxury of the most metropolitan city mixed with the satisfaction that you provided it for yourself with your own two hands. Vida no campo, we would cheer, eating sushi made by Manuela and having cocktails made by Joaquin as we watched the sunset behind the pig fields.
Meanwhile, I made an amazing homeschooling program with storytelling, adventures, quests, and point schemes. I wove a narrative of adventure over the curriculum and added strategies from game-based, project-based, and self-directed learning. Basically, we had fun playing pretend and making up games about numbers and letters. The kids were happy and it was the best of times…
… and it was the worst, at times. We learned the hard way that creating a homeschooling program, even for two kids, is a daunting project. Living under the same roof as the children you are educating is very confusing for everyone! Turns out being the source of structure and the defender of boundaries during school hours results in kids resenting you quite a bit when they get home. And if you share the same home.. let’s just say, be prepared to literally lose your shit (one of the kids would steal my stuff aaaall the time).
The amount of planning, crafting, cutting, pasting, and coloring that is involved with being a teacher is staggering. I would stay up late and work through weekends, and I was still, somehow, always behind. I learned a lot and created some wonderful things throughout those three months, but most of all, I learned that teaching is a beautiful nightmare — ask any teacher or homeschooling parent.
Still, whenever we were playing, everything clicked so easily. Letters came alive, numbers added up, and learning became evident everywhere we looked. The kids were learning the content without tests, without lectures, and without me having to say, “Because I said so!”
On to the next problem: we were worried that two kids being homeschooled alone in the middle of the farmland would probably turn out a little weird and socially awkward.
We needed more kids, a bigger space, and that meant more amazing, open-minded, flexible, creative teachers. Those don’t just fall on your lap. And yet, shortly after our arrival to Portugal we met Marina (italian accent).
Marina was teaching at a preschool near Lisbon. She boasted 10 years of experience, formation in the Reggio Emilia school, and she had been looking for a project where she would be free to innovate and experiment. The connection was as instantaneous as it was inevitable. I told her about our program and methodology and we immediately started making plans for opening a space for younger kids and we could each guide a group of different-aged kids.
[This is the point where it got out of hand for us]
Manuela got to work on PR, Joaquin got to work on the business plan and permits, and us teachers got to work on the curriculum for the coming year as the weather got brighter. Our ambitions grew bigger and bigger as we did all we could to attract more families to our project. Towards the beginning of the summer I had five learners in that little attic. All the while we had to conduct open houses for homeschooling families, form the legal entity for the program, secure a bigger space, plan a summer camp, and then start all over again?!
I burnt out. I went back to Mexico for the summer, where I had been making roots for some years. I couldn’t bring myself to leave for an entire school year that I was dreading. Turns out I didn’t looooooove teaching kids; I loved making games! How could I keep doing this and [not] have to spend my entire life with kids? Worse, how could I say that to everyone after all we had built?
The next time I went to Portugal was as program director, not as a full-time instructor. I gathered all my courage and I said “No, I don’t want to plan and run a summer program.” I said “No, I don’t want to guide a group of kids on my own.” I said “No, I don’t want to move to Portugal for the entire school year.” It almost killed me, and it took my therapist holding my hand to finally ask for what I wanted, but I did it!
However, sometimes its too late to ask for what you want. Commitments had been made and we had to do our best to honor them. We had hired a teacher. We had rented a space. We had moved to Portugal! What the f%&$ are we doing in Portugal?! Anyway, we weren´t playing games aymore, we were playing with fire.
My timely crisis ended up being a wake up call that let us avoid biting more than we could chew. Joaquin, Manuela and I agreed that none of us were in this for the money. Our priority was finding peers for our kids to socialize. Somehow we ended up trying to make a business for an age group that had nothing to do with our own kids’ needs. So sadly, we had to turn away some heartbroken parents, and those that remained would have to split the costs. We adopted the mantra: work with what you have. But also wait for 48 hours before making any important/financial decisions mantra.
There was enough money to sustain the studio for a year. After that, we would need more families or another source of income and financing. So, Joaquin and I got to work on how we could turn Forest Studio into a self-sustaining program, able to cover the kids’ educations, our salaries, materials, and rent. It sounds naïve when you see it written down, but actually… end of sentence.
We thought we could make workbooks and activities, or children’s stories. Maybe selling lesson plans or turning our adventure narratives into an app? No. We explored many avenues but they were all dead ends. In the end, I had to steal the dream of a single mother whose son went to Forest Studio in order to realize my own ambition *evil laugh*. Just kidding, she’s a dear friend and an amazing illustrator, and she did incept me with the idea to make educational games. It struck a chord in me and I couldn’t unhear it.
By now I had experimented with a few games that had been successful in the studio, but I was obsessed with one that had the least to do with the curriculum. We played it with the kids and they… well anyway, they liked the pictures at least. Gameplay was seriously clunky, and I had way easier and more popular games in my toy chest, but this game was my way out of an emotionally impossible situation: how to tell Joaquin and Manuela that I didn’t want to dedicate myself to Forest Studio anymore.
The game’s tentative name was Frango-Morango (Chicken-Strawberry in Portuguese), and for some strange reason, that became the real name. It’s a wacky game of farming and negotiation, and to make a long story short, the most powerful card gives you the power to say, “No!” Another card lets you ask for “More” when you’re getting too little, and another gives you the power to “Think” before saying “yes.” It spoke to Joaquin and me in a language that only a wound-up type-A people-pleaser could understand — the kind of person who loves spreadsheets and lectures you for eating fish with a butter knife.
When the time came to talk about splitting up from the Studio, I was sweating. I kept thinking they would hate me for leaving, and they would say I shouldn’t and that I owed them. Guilt was doing somersaults in my stomach. Finally, I took out my cards (literally) and laid them all out on the table; on one side, what I wanted, and on the other side, what I thought they wanted. Which of these things could we exchange? They asked for more, I asked for less, then they refused, so I took time to think. I changed the deal, they changed their minds, then I convinced them and somehow the deal was closed! Everyone got some of what they wanted.
We solved a conflict by playing with cards, and we did so without judging or blaming or attacking (a lot of yelling, but that’s normal). It was a new feeling for all of us. Suddenly, I was free to make games! And Joaquin, Manuela, and the kids were gonna help me do it. Manuela was so excited she wanted Joaquin and I to immediately become 50–50 partners, and Joaquin promptly handed us a THINK card.
As the year went by, Joaquin kept helping me develop the business plan and in exchange I kept tabs on the studio from Mexico. We settled on becoming an “educational” board game company. We believe that all games teach you something, and when designed a certain way, they can even be used as instructional props in the classroom. We wanted to make games out of cardboard that could pull kids away from screens, games that weren’t just board games, and definitely not “bored games”… *gasp*… that was it. We played with that inane and uninspired pun for weeks (“we make BOARD games not BORED games” *gigle giggle*), and we looked very not-cool doing it.
It was silly and everyone told us NOT to name our company with a negative, but we were having fun with it and that’s what it was all about: just having fun. We didn’t want to take ourselves too seriously and we didn’t want to join the ranks of other education companies. Rather than making learning fun, we figured: if there was fun, there would be learning. Our kids were real-life proof.
I originally set out on my journey wanting to change education, not just for kids, but for everyone. Learning is a lifelong process that empowers but also humbles us. The moment we stop learning is when everything becomes comfortable and boring. Along the road it seemed like my goal changed many times, but really, I was just exploring different roads that led to the same place: playing is a compassionate and effective way of learning. The only reason we’ve gotten this far is by playing! We’ve had to be plenty serious too, but the tools gained through playing helped us out in times of crisis.
By the end of the school year [Not] Bored Games had around four “educational” games in the pipeline, including of course, Frango Morango. Eventually, Joaquin consented to officially becoming co-founders, and yes, the moment was as underwhelming as I wrote it. Joaquin was annoyingly emotionless while Manuela and I cheered.
And suddenly, this is where our real story comes to a close… and the Boderton Tales begin.
We’ve gone down a curious well and come out the other end altogether different. As we fell, we lost our names and found new ones, we saw a glimpse of a wacky future, and landed in a place where we’re not. We’re not working, we’re playing; not winning, but learning; and we’re not playing, we’re serious! We’ll be here from now on, talking to you with new names and new stories and inviting you to join us on the other side.
“B-But what will become of our heroes?” you ask. Well, you’ll just have to tune in the following weeks for the next issue of The Boderton Tales, where the story sort of continues, but not really!
Stay tuned for more updates on the Real Story of [Not] Bored Games and the thrilling journey behind our project. Don’t forget to follow us to uncover all the mysteries that await and the surprises to come.
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