Hawaiʻi nonprofit · Honolulu, Oʻahu
The LeaderPlay Institute is a new nonprofit on Oʻahu. We run game-based sessions for kids and adults on cooperation, managing emotions, leadership and game design. Each session has a clear goal, a trained facilitator, and a short discussion at the end about what happened at the table. We work through schools, libraries, churches and community centers, and we're looking for our first host sites now.
Mission
To build leaders and community through experiential learning and play.
Vision
Every community in Hawaiʻi has a regular place where kids and adults practice leading, teaching and solving problems together.
The material draws on developmental psychology, education and game design. In practice it comes down to five topics, and every program uses them.
How a session works
Before a session, the facilitator picks a goal and a game that fits it. Say the goal is making decisions as a group. We might pick a cooperative game where the whole table has to agree on every move. The debrief at the end is where people connect what happened in the game to the goal.
The facilitator explains what the session is for and what to watch for. For example: how does the group make decisions, who ends up explaining the rules, and what happens when someone falls behind?
Participants play a game, or build one. The facilitator watches, moves people between tables if needed, and mostly stays out of the way.
We talk through what happened. What worked? What would you change? Where else in your life have you seen the same thing happen?
“In play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.”Lev Vygotsky
Three roles people practice
Explaining a game to people who have never seen it, and checking that they actually understood.
Keeping a table going when someone is frustrated, losing or feeling left out.
Planning with limited options, committing to a decision, and recovering from a bad turn.
Programs
Both use the same topics and the same method. The difference is who attends and where we meet. Neither is running yet. We're looking for partner sites to host the first sessions.
Community programs
These are open to anyone, including adults and families. A workshop is a single session. A series runs three to five sessions on one topic, such as cooperation or working through conflict.
Youth programs
Courses for students ages 5 to 18, grouped by age. The game design course below gives a good idea of what one looks like.
Example youth course
This is a game design course Scott has been teaching to students ages 10 to 15. Students play real games, take them apart to see how they work, and then design their own.
We start by playing. Then we name the parts every game has: actions, goals, rules, objects, the play space and the players.
Students go back to a game they know, change one rule, and predict what will happen. Then they play it again and write one sentence: what did that change do to how the game felt? It's a small experiment, and it teaches students to notice how rules shape an experience.
Groups build a puzzle from a lock and a handful of random objects. Then they watch another group try to solve it without saying a word. Watching someone miss a clue you were sure was obvious teaches more than a lecture on the subject would.
Students play three push-your-luck dice games. Before playing, each group guesses how often a turn will bust. Then they count what actually happens and compare the two numbers. After that, they build a dice game of their own with one deliberate source of tension.
Teams pick a theme and describe the experience they want a player to have. Then they build toward it with paper, index cards, dice and cubes. The first playtest happens the same day.
Each group writes rules that another group can follow without help, then fixes the spots where players got stuck. At the end, each group presents what they wanted players to feel, what actually happened, and what they changed.
We name the parts of a game. Then students change exactly one rule, predict the result, play again, and write down how the change affected the game.
Groups build a puzzle from a lock and some unrelated objects, then watch another group try to solve it without speaking.
Groups rework their puzzle into a game that plays out differently each time. They test it with another group, revise it, and write the rules down.
By the end, every student has designed a game, watched someone else play it, and revised it twice.
What people practice
People usually sit down to a game because they want to play it. The skills below get practiced along the way, and the debrief helps people notice them.
A good game keeps a player right at the edge of what they can handle, often for an hour or more.
Everyone is at the same table, off their phones, and paying attention to each other.
Building something over the course of a game, like an engine, a route or a set, shows players that they're getting better.
Every table has to settle what a rule means and who decides when it's unclear. It's a small version of how any group governs itself.
Teaching a game, running a table and keeping a frustrated player involved are everyday leadership. Players do them over and over.
A game is a cheap place to be wrong. You can try an idea, watch it fail, and try something else the same afternoon.
Founder
Scott has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University at Buffalo. He has worked with young people for more than twenty years, in summer camps, schools and classrooms. He also designs board games, has printed and sold two of them, and has run a weekly game night on Oʻahu since 2022.
Board of Directors
Partner with us
If you run a school, library, church or community center, here's how it would work. You provide a room, tables and a time slot. We bring the facilitator, the games and the materials.
How many people, what ages, which days and times work, and what you'd like them to get out of it.
If it helps, we can run one session first so your staff can see how it works before you commit to anything.
If it's a good fit, we'll schedule the rest of the sessions and agree on any fee. Our fees only cover our costs.
Contact
Scott Kabel, Founder · Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Who we'd like to work with
Working with different ages, a different group size or an odd schedule? Let me know what you have in mind, and I'll tell you straight whether we can do it.