Rocks, Papers, and Scissors

How old were you the last time you played "rock, paper, scissors" to make a decision? What's the largest group you've played it in. I think most people will say something like "10 years old and only with two people."

I think Japanese people will say something different as this country is a well oiled Rock-paper-scissors Machine, or as they call it "Janken" or "Jan-ken-pon." This game is used at schools by kids all the way up to adults to decide any number of things. I've seen students play it in groups of 10 people at a time.

It took me quite some time to figure out how they do it with more than two people, though it isn't so complicated. They basically just keep throwing hands on beat until each person is only displaying two of the three options. Then the losers of those are out. Then the winners battle each other. They can do this at unbelievable speeds. Though, it does mean that if you ask people to choose and order that it qill require at least one game of this.

A few days ago in my class we had group presentations. There were 4 groups with 4 people each. Students would make a presentation about a dream city which they invented and had to persuade myself and the Japanese teacher to move there. Each student had to speak in the presentation.

After the students had completed their sheet of notes for the presentation. They each played rock-paper-scissors to decide what order they'd speak. The winner got to say the least, the loser had to say the most.

When presentations had to start, "Who wants to go first?" I'd say. No one has ever responded to this ever, I don't know why I even ask it. No one even says "I want to go last." The students just stare directly at their desks praying I don't call on them to go. "I'll choose the order if you don't" is my usual tactic. Today I decided to go a different way. "Ok, you must choose the order." This resulted in what might be greatest succession of rock paper scissors ever.

First in their groups the students played rock paper scissors to decide who would play rock paper scissors. Then they played rock paper scissors to decide the order of which group would go first or last.

Just to clarify, this meant that in each group students had to play rock paper scissors until one person was remaining as the "loser" who would represent the team in the next game of rock paper scissors. Then the four students who represented the teams stood up and played each other to choose the order. First three students put down rocks and one student put down paper. That student's team go to go last. Then the three remaining had to play again. They played and one person was out, their team would go third. The last two played to battle for which would go first and which would go second. This seems like a lot of work for deciding the order of a presentation that they would have to give eventually anyway...