Okay, this post will officially establish me as a “dork.” You know, one of those people who “speak” gaming. In fact, as I write this, I currently have another screen going on with an MMORTS (massive multiplayer online realtime strategy), in which I am allied with other players from around the world, building up cities, and trying to destroy other alliances in an attempt at global domination. All before dinner. I also play a lot of RPG games that are Dungeons and Dragons based. Which is why I found Gee’s chapter on Arcanum so intriguing.

I’ve played Arcanum and many, many games like it. Someone mentioned games are used as escape mechanisms (I don’t disagree), and RPG games are, in a way, the ultimate escapes. You create someone entirely outside the realm of your own being, and you develop them the way you want to develop them. People tackle this in different ways. My dad is the one who got me hooked on PC RPG games. He ALWAYS builds his character according to how he feels he can best win the game. He looks at the stats: someone with this much strenghth can have x, y, and z attributes, and therefore, I can take down opponents more easily (in fact, the easiest way to win most RPGs is to start with a human fighter). I, on the other hand, always take a more whimsical approach that tends to make some games excrutiatingly more difficult because I don’t build my character based on what will win. I create a character, not a machine. I imagine this person’s background–where did they come from? A debutante background? Then she must have pretty high charisma. She had a tutor, so let’s give her high intelligence. So forth and so on. As I travel the game, I develop my character according to his/her background (which I created) and what I feel his/her reactions are to what has occured thus far in the game.

In this way, I completely understand Gee’s assertion about the three identities at stake. In the first place, my character is its own person–albeit a person I have developed. In the second, I am that person for the time I am playing that game. But I am a great many other things, too. When Gee mentions being joyful at Bead Bead picking pockets (pg. 50), I had a minor shock of revelation, as games, though not real, do play off of real emotion. This is often a source of contention between my dad and me. Because we do play the same games, often, we’ll talk about them. I almost always start off with “good characters.” One time I tried to play a “neutral” character, but she ended up being good because I kept doing “good” deeds. I feel immensly guilty everytime I stole from someone, or killed someone, or said something mean. My dad rationalized, “They’re not real people!” And rationally, I know this, but for some reason, the emotion is real. As Gee mentions, the player takes on the role of the character, which is both “active and reflexive” (54).

I’ve often felt that these sorts of games are good learning tools (in moderation, of course) because they teach excellent creative problem solving skills, almost in a MacGuyver sort of way. You have to try and fail and try again to put things in just the right order to get something to work. Translate that to real-world problem solving, and video games are good learning tools. What I had failed to consider before was the fact that the RPG identity can be translated to classroom identity. Gee mentions treating students as scientists, despite the fact that are not literally scientists (6). It’s a virtual identity.  I often refer to my students as writers, despite the fact that only two actually have any ambition to become what we would call writers. But by applying the virtual reality to them, it allows the student to identify with that virtual reality, and apply themselves to learning how to move within that identity, similar to the emotional connection one feels with a virtual RPG character; when spoken to as that character (as one is in such games; no one calls me “Beth,” but rather, I am called by my character’s name), it makes the identity that much more real. Learning to identify oneself as a learner is a powerful step in owning one’s own academic identity.

Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical about this book. Though a gamer who believes one can learn from games, I wasn’t sure what it had to do with education, per se. And while I don’t agree with 100% of Gee’s assertions, I’d say a good 98% are very applicable to the classroom and to teachers. Not that classrooms should go to virtual RPG learning systems anytime soon…