Awake & Curious

I am not a gamer at all. I don’t like video games. I could make a sarcastic comment here about how I always found my real life challenging (engaging) enough with unconquerable problems. I did not need simulated problems, that in truth, are easily conquerable. I am not a gamer. That said this is definitely an untapped avenue of learning I need to look at more closely.

Watch the video, I particularly like Henry Jenkins assertion that students” will go to bed not completing there homework because it is “too hard” , but stay up all night if they can’t get past a level on a game platform.” He asserts this is total ‘engagement”. I agree.

But this makes me think of something else we identify as a 21st century skill ’self directed behaviour”. We want self directed learners, citizens, (as we should always remember the real goal of education is to prepare students for citizenship in a democracy, not make a lot of money in a capitalist dictatorship, more sarcasm!!!). Anyway we to develop the trait of self-direction in our kids, who think for themselves, creatively, outside the box and all that nonsense.

But that is not the reality in my school and most schools. The number one trait we encourage for administrators, teachers, and of course students is blind obedience. I know why kids like games past the sexy graphics, lights, bells, whistles and the need for speed. Here what they do finally has power. They are powerful relevant beings in Sim City, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, etc….For a little while they are not kept in the claustrophobic and intellectual sterile confines of classrooms and homework. They get to have power and it might be messy and not be politically correct. What Fun!!

Never forget childhood was an 19th century invention, that protected children from unmentionable horrors , but rendered them completely impotent until they reach legal age. Kids like videogames certainly for the elegants designs filled with violence and speed, but also because there they finally have some power, what they do matters. In real life what kids do has little or no impact on the family survival, or classroom life except when they refuse to play by the rules and remain, obedient and impotent until adulthood sets in. There job is to wait like an indentured servant or apprentice before they can feel like relevant powerful beings. Before they can feel the fire in their belly. Video games make them feel like they and their actions are important.

Reminds me of when a friend of mine became an assistant principal in my school, this was maybe a month later after he started the job. It was cold and we were at dismissal in front of the school. He had I think begun to realize that the “blind obedience” rule applied not only to students and teachers but in many ways mainly to administration. We smiled and he whispered “I can’t wait to get home and play such and such a game”, with a rueful pirate smile. I think it was Grand theft Auto. He wanted power on that chilly day he had spent being a dutiful AP. Aand that is one thing video games give kids’ power’.

In conclusion I am still not a gamer but maybe what I take from this is  I should look at my own classroom, and design my assignments and classroom more like a video game, where students get to have some power, to make choices that have real consequences, maybe a little messy,  and a little less politcally correct.

I am still working my way through k-12 on -line presentations, and I am still impressed by and large. Now to the title of this piece. So just who owns this stuff? There is this guy I read regularly Stephen Downes( me and thousands of other educators) and his take on the K-12 on line conference which was a bit of a dissent from the rave reviews I read everywhere else but his point stated in a piece entitled Selling an idea was interesting. Interesting to me because on a smaller level in my own little special education school I can see this brewing. Who do these ideas belong to? The people who are exposed to them first? The innovators that change them and apply them in creative and imaginative ways? Anyone who lays claim ?

So just who owns this stuff? What stuff? well I guess the all the neat and by and large free tools and applications and the power they make available to teachers and students courtesy of Web 2.0.

By the way this is an old story. This is nothing new people love to be in the “included” in the “in” group, well maybe not Stephen Downes, but most of us. He points out in his article that it is the same group of people laying claim to “ownership” of something that can not be owned or sold. I actually found what he said about the Web 2.0. crowd rather refreshing . Though I am a late comer and can’t claim to own anything I admit I was getting a little tired of all this “positivity” I mean we are teachers, and you know what they can be like.

So who owns this stuff? To me the answer is simple, none of us. No one. It is like trying to own bodhichita or enlightenment. You may be driven by it, identify yourself with it, be part of it, you may even help spread it but you do not own it. The Dalia Lama does not own Buddhism just as the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler does not own The Friendly order of the Raccoons.

I think that is what being connected may mean for education. No one gets to be “the expert” not even the teacher. That is the point it is shared knowledge. Teachers are so dis-empowered and live in such an “economy of poverty ” when it come to feeling their own power in most school environments.(school administrators for that matter too)that i am not suprised that ownership or rather identification with the idea that ownership is implicit, becomes a question.

And this stuff, as the world gets flatter, and smaller through connection, Well this stuff
It is just not top down . It similar to the Socratic in method, Socrates,( really a hero of mine,
taking poison and all on principle), the best thinker in the bunch posed questions to lesser thinkers and then let them become better thinkers by listening to each other. He was the best listener of all. He knew shared collective knowledge was more important than “an autocratic approach that says I “know” am not I great” bow down to me. He knew that cheerful back slapping had nothing to do with learning or real accomplishment. Maybe the question isn’t if you can sell an idea or who owns it ,but what does this mean for me, my kids, the next generation. I really don’t see anyone who has the answer perfectly worked out to that one just yet, ( though if this were a horse race I would bet Stephen Downes would be one of the front runners) but I am going to keep “listening” and see what comes.

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