Kogon 3.610 Blog
2/10/10
Risk Taking Made Easy
Shuffling together (like cards before they are dealt) Schulman’s piece Taking Learning Seriously and Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, and eloquent comprise between how intellectually understanding and accessible knowledge emerge. Schuman argues that we teach too wide a variety of subjects which disallows the opportunity to go deeply into any one major concept (8). This shocking revelation surfaced during the comparison of results between US and Asian/European AP test scoring. We were woefully behind.
It appears our standards-based learning model goes broad but not deep into subject matter; we try to cover everything but, in essence, giving students a smattering of knowledge misses the mark. A better way to learn is to focus on major, but fewer, bodies of work in each subject area, delving deeply into those pieces for building blocks on which the student can base queries on works yet to be taught. In other words, once taught to fish, the student can then feed himself (or figure things out) in the future.
Pointing out that girls stop playing video games and enjoying math (and I would add, participating in sports) around the time of middle school, Gee indicates concern that they (girls) might be left without not only technological skills, but without the confidence to see and solve problems using visual and multi-modal texts (13, 16).
Maintaining that we are always learning, and that all information is connected, Gee shows how the semiotic, “’an area or set of activities where people think, act, and value in certain ways’ –an area like video gaming…”, areas fit into the semiotic domain, or “practices that recruits one or more modalities…to communicate distinctive types of meanings” (19). Drawing attention to the need for teenagers to practice real world skills, Gee explores the connection to great amount of time well spent on video games with the principle Erik Erikson identified as the crises of psychosocial moratorium (59, 69).
Erikson stresses the adolescent’s need for a “sense of identity through [their] accomplishments (Crain 282). Within the world of video gaming, the student is enticed to try and take real world risks that can and will result in empowerment with no threat to status or embarrassment (Gee 61, 64). This author maintains the ”Psychosocial Moratorium” as Principle #6 in the steps toward efficacious learning with cognitive skills (64). Now we can see a brighter future for the girl who sticks with the 30-100 hours of video play in order to enter and succeed in the world of gaming (Gee 2). We can almost hear her as she stands up indignantly and “demand[s] to know who told [Gee that] girls don’t play video games” (14).
Works Cited
Crain, William. Theories of Development, Concepts and Applications. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2000.