Trace
TRY IT FROM ANOTHER SIDE - *when a path seems blocked, follow it again from a different starting point, like from the end backwards.*
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Trace is a boy with short brown hair and a warm orange jumper, and in his hand he holds an old brass compass. Trace loves mazes. And he has a special trick for the ones that seem to have no way through.
"Every path dead-ends," groans his friend Omar, staring at the page. "I've tried them all. Give up?"
"Not yet," says Trace, and he holds up his compass. "When you're lost going one way, try going the other way."
"What do you mean?"
"You've been starting at the start," says Trace. "Everyone does. But mazes can trick you from the start. So let's start at the end. Put your finger on the finish, and walk backwards."
Omar puts his finger on the little flag at the end of the maze. He moves it backwards along the path. Left. Down. Around a bend. And then, surprise, the path he is following leads right back to a gap near the start that he'd skipped, because it looked too narrow to be real.
"It goes through!" Omar laughs. "That skinny bit! I thought it was a wall!"
"The first time you look, a skinny gap looks like a wall," Trace nods. "When you come at it from the other side, you can see it's really a door."
Omar tries another maze, and this time when he gets stuck, he doesn't moan. He just flips his finger to the end and starts again, backwards.
That's Trace's clever idea.
Follow the maze once more - start from the end and you might find the door.
A grown-up can play too! Draw a simple maze together. Solve it once from the start, then again from the finish backwards. Which way was easier? Now try a tricky one and see if backwards helps.
When Omar finishes, Trace hands him the compass to hold for a moment. "You found it yourself," says Trace. And Omar feels a bright, tingly pride. Not because the maze was easy, but because he found a new way to look at it.
The SecondLookForge ensemble
Trace is part of SecondLookForge's distributed-narrative cast. Each character embodies a different curricular primitive; together they teach the full subject.
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Twice
(Guide) never says "impossible" until she has looked twice — the look-again reflex itself
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Tally
Finds a second way to make a number when everyone thought there was only one (a second look at a number)
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Peek
Looks again at the board and spots the one safe square the king can escape to (a second look at a position)
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Yield
Gives up a little too soon — so the child learns to catch it; never teased, always cheered when he looks again (the too-early-quitter, anti-shame)
