This has always fascinated me.
One of the big rationales I hear about school sports is that “it teaches the kids so many great lessons like teamwork, and discipline, and dedication.”
Yea, ok. And I’m not interested in buying that particular bridge. I’ve seen the real one in Brooklyn and I’m pretty sure it’s not for sale.
But if we REALLY believe that sports teach, then what about games? Chess? Sodoku? Crossword puzzles?
I’m not talking about the lame “educational crossword puzzles” here with the 25 vocabulary words floating in a sea of black. I’m talking real crossword puzzles with words like “alae” and “engender” … but we don’t use those. And there’s a reason.
Education gets in the way.
As a teacher you have a curriculum to cover. You need to teach the kids THOSE words. It’s not important that the kids learn MORE words, because as a teacher, you’re responsible for teaching a specific set. They’re the words they’ll be tested on. That’s what you’re supposed to teach. I understand.
But that’s also why most “educational games” suck.
Sports — if they can be said to teach lessons — teach big lessons. Kids don’t learn how to play basketball there. They have to KNOW basketball before they can get on the team. They learn teamwork, not traveling. They learn discipline, not dribbling. They learn lessons that aren’t spelled out in detail in a syllabus approved by a certified blue ribbon panel of educators. Kids learn these lessons through engagement, sweat, performance, and repetition. They see the people who have the teamwork, the discipline, and the dedication and they see what those lessons mean — how they get played out in real life. They’re relevant. They’re meaningful. To the kids.
They’re not isolated words, stripped of context, artificially constructed to be a “fun activity to achieve a meaningful educational end.”
Over the course of this semester, I’d like to explore some of these ideas:
- Why educational games suck
- How to get education out of the way so learning can happen
- What is it about “fun games” that makes them fun
- Would it be possible to use a “fun game” to teach a lesson when the game isn’t based on the content of that lesson
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
I hope I’m not taking up space here…just having fun.
I recently was in a conversation with a sophomore student who was having trouble adding negeatives because the calculator was not the TI-83 she was used to and she was at a loss as to how to go about the procedure.
Since I am 43 and I had to learn my multiplication tables with flashcards and there were no calculators and no CATS testing then, I am falling into Dr. Lowells ideas about the environemnt of a regular classroom limiting the abilities of the students. The test seems to me to be what is taught and yes the educational games that I am aware of in the classrooms where I live are BORING—as opposed to what the kids do when they come home. MySpace and YouTube are fun and I can’t wait to find out some fun eductaional games that Dr. Lowell will throw our way so I can mention them to other poeple—and them look at me like “what planet did you come from”. Then I would tell them, the one where we are headed>
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
As a young educator, I already feel the pressure to teach the content (regardless of learning experiences). From this course (EDUC 685) I’ve already learned how important it is to explore your options and learn through discovery. In my own classroom I try to provide opportunities for inquiry learning. I don’t want them to leave my class more confused than when they began. I want to give them concrete knowledge/ opportunities. To be completely honest…research shows that teaching content only (as we have done over the past few years) has left more students behind (fallen within the cracks). Our goal is not “No Child Left Behind” rather a more selfish goal to make scores look pretty on paper. It’s not the scores we should worry about, it’s the students and knowledge they have truly gained (not momentary learning).
September 7th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I am really enjoying the readings about gaming and education. This class really gets you thinking about different instruction. I think we get so caught up in covering everything for the test that we sometimes miss out on “teaching”. Just think of what we could get accomplished if we found ways of making learning more fun for the students.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I so agree if students learned so much from being on sports teams why aren’t those students ALWAYS Honor students? Why do athletics often expect special treatment by the time they make high school, because that is what they are trained to. Learning is for everyone, yes we all learn in different ways and different speeds, but we all learn. Games are something we can all learn from, not everyone can learn the game of Cricket, tennis etc, whether it’s the rules, or physical disadvantage. But games can be adapted for eveyone to learn to play and feel like they are as much a part of it as anyone else playing it.
I enjoy the readings on gaming when I can find time to read them, they support a believe I’ve had for several years, but getting others to follow suit has not always been easy.