Newbie

After the last posting, I got to thinking more about learning in front of an audience. And it occurred to me that that’s how kids learn in school. YIKES!!! I don’t even know how we survive this stuff.Now why should I even continue on with this “game” experiment??? The masthead says that I’m 46 years old and I’m trying “to get my game on,” right??? Well, for one thing it is part of my work. I’m exploring all of this as part of the Learning Games to Go project. But there’s something more. And I think it goes deeper than the motivational value that games provide (although I do think that’s there, too).

So my daughter Grace is amazingly gifted as an artist. It’s been in her from the start – and it seems to be relatively easy for her. It’s harder for my daughter Nellie. She’s younger and to some extent, has had to live in her big sister’s shadow (just as every younger sibling does). And Nellie usually says that she’s not a good artist, mostly because I think she’s comparing herself to Grace. Of course, my wife and I try to bolster her and tell her that she’s a really great artist, too. And she is. But the thing is that it’s not easy for her.

Yet she still does it. I can always tell when she’s especially motivated while doing artwork – she bites her lip. And she just seems like she’s in a zone, unaware of anyone else in the room (and she’s typically very aware of everyone else in the room). And while there might be many reasons why Nellie will work so hard at a drawing, it feels like it’s mostly about her wanting to do a good job. It feels good to be good at stuff, so she works hard even at the things that don’t come totally easily to her.

I know that this is purely anecdotal evidence (and that this blog now looks like the front of my refrigerator…), but I do think that we all want to be good at stuff. And if we can cultivate that in one another (and in ourselves), it’s just about the best motivation in the world.

Back to the games tomorrow.

All right, I’ve decided that the kids aren’t totally fearless. And thinking about it has led me to this….

The important piece is that the situation can really dictate whether we’re fearful of something or not. So if a kid is learning a new game by herself in her bedroom… I bet that she is pretty close to fearless. But if she’s learning that same game in front of a group of her friends who already know the game… then I’m thinking she’s going to be at least a little fearful.

So think about skiing. If you and your friends are all novices, you’ll laugh and scream and fall a lot and have a warm beverage in the lodge afterwards. Everyone has a good time. But if you are the only novice and everyone else is an expert, well, then it’s a totally different experience.

And it’s even worse if you’re the one who’s supposed to be the expert.

Pam Howell brought the digital learning game “Zoombinis” to the Concord, Massachusetts school system (you can hear the podcast I did with her here). One of her comments has a lot of relevance to all of this:

“So one thing I noticed about “Zoombinis” is that you really needed to have the teachers feel comfortable with the program. Teachers don’t like putting something in their classrooms that they – when a kid asks them a question, they have no idea [of the answer]. They can’t help them. They’re not speaking that language at all.”

It’s hard enough being me. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be a teacher.

But they have to take on new things all the time. I mean at some point there was no such thing as a graphing calculator. Everyone had to learn how to use them. Surely, we adults are capable of growth (and not just horizontally…). It’s just hard to do it when everyone’s looking.

So my kids think that I should make another Sims person ASAP. They (both girls) also think that this time I should be a girl! A new avatar of either gender certainly couldn’t hurt. It’s hard to imagine how my performance could be any worse than it was during my first effort….

And yet, as I type those words, I’m reminded of these words:

“I mean if I played a game and I never crashed, burned and died, I’d think it wasn’t a very interesting or challenging game. The whole point of the game is that you learn by making mistakes. And you’re fearless about making mistakes because the price is just ‘start over.’ No one’s putting it on your permanent record. No one’s stigmatizing you. No one’s keeping you after school. No one’s punishing you because you made a bad grade.”

So said MIT professor Henry Jenkins during the interview I did with him for this podcast.

And I think that I am worried about this staying on my permanent record.

It’s hard to adjust to not being good at things. And why should I have to? I’m a grown-up. My kids are young and don’t think I’m an imbecile yet. Still, messing up at “The Sims 2” feels kind of shameful, like the one Algebra test that I failed in my life – it was ninth grade and I knew the stuff, but my brain just froze.

And now we come back to that word “fearless.” I am not fearless. I do worry about the implications of what I do. And I do worry about looking badly, particularly in front of other people.

So are the young people who play these games really fearless???