Gaming in Class: Schrodinger's Cat

I cannot decide if I think video games should be used in schools. I agree with Mr. Gee that video games cultivate engagement in the game of subject. However, my concern with the incorporation of games in the classroom, or instead of the classroom stems from the non-human interaction games encourage. When I talk with students in the Portland area about their performance in the classroom they use the same language that they use when describing a challenge or enemy in a video game. Although, when you make the correlation between their academic difficulty and their gaming strategy they display confusion and reticence to transfer platforms. I feel that the virtual or simulacral word of video games further divests and distorts the real-world learning platform presented by formal education, which has its own issues as presented by Mr. Gee in the video, but as future teacher and a current student advocate, I believe video games must take a backseat to real-world education.

Admittedly, as I stated above, I agree with Mr. Gee's analysis of video game attributes for education. I think that educational theory could learn a lot from video game's ability to encourage, what Mr. Gee terms "Identity", "Production", and "Risk Taking". As a teacher I aspire to inspire my students to perform their work as the role or identity of the subject. I think that students gain more through experiential education instead of linear education where the content informs the application. The students should imbibe the persona of the information from the narrative perspective of the people involved. As in the gaming format I would support the students through a peformative or mock experience of the content. Therefore, they are able to produce or reproduce the vignette, motives, culture, crisis, and options that brought about the initial outcome. Through this performative method the student then could take risks not thought of by the original characters and produce an outcome from which they could assess the original for its flaws and benefits. This process provides the student with the collaborative passion community aspects the Mr. Gee promotes in the video and his paper. Moreover, where gaming puts the student in a seat and transports them to another world through a limited identity, performative teaching denies the seat and incorporates the extended identity of historical+fantastical identity. The student do not have to deny their limited real capacity or conform to the virtual artificially limited capacity, but embody all aspects of their identity with those of the characters they inhabit. The questions become less about how to advance through the game, and more about how to advance complexity of human intelligence through re-imagined critical situations.

I support the idea that video games are a great way to acquire strategic skills of troubleshooting, but we have to remember that these virtual environments are cognitively rich, but practically and socially irrelevant and scarce if not reiterated in the classroom. Maybe I do believe video games deserve a place in the classroom, but let's look at the creativity and professionalism of teacher before ablate more of their responsibilities with video games.