should kids play games in class?

So, it's the second day of our one-to-one pencil to student unit.  I'm teaching a financial planning / economics unit and incorporating all of the subjects into it.  I expected the "honeymoon" period to last longer, but pencils have no become normal.  On some level, I suppose that's what it's all about.  It's about getting beyond the hype and simply using pencils and papers as tools for learning.

Don't get me wrong, I see a need to teach students to criticize all tools, whether they are designed for print culture or oral culture, agrarian or rural culture, local or global.  However, we also need to get to a place where we say, "Pencils are shiny and new, but the real excitement is what students are learning right now."

So, I spend some time developing a program for learning about economics.  It's a market simulation game, where students graph their own investments and interact with one another.  Throughout this process, they write reflections, send messages and join a discussion zone.

Gertrude steps into my room and asks, "Why are they playing a game instead of learning?"

"It's not a game. It's a research-based, student-centered, interactive learning activity constructed to integrate pencils into a core knowledge environment."  I can play the buzzword game, too.

A student walks up to us, "Mr. Johnson, I love this game.  Why can't we play games more often? This is fun!"

Gertrude gives me the death stare.

I explain to her that the students use math, reading and writing.  I hand her a short example of this and say, "They are actually spending more time using their core curriculum skills than they would be if I stood here and lectured them on economic theory."

"You can't be playing games," she reminds me. "School has always been about work, not play. The bottom line isn't fun."

"The purpose of this game is to learn.  If it's fun, so be it. Trust me, I'm not trying to turn this class into a game. It just happens to be what we are doing in the moment."

She settles down after walking around and asking economic questions to students.  "They seem to know what they are learning," she says with a slight smile.

***

For millennia, it was a cultural universal that games existed for learning.  True, children had fun, but the games were designed to teach both social and physical skills.  Children learned to be warriors, how to govern, how to access cultural narratives all through the act of play.  In fact, Plato theorized that one could learn more about a person through an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation.

Even in America, where we have shifted toward a sit-in-your-desk-and-shut-up-and-learn model, our games become methods of accessing these cultural skill sets.  Thus, Simon Says teaches social conformity and prepares small kids for the prison-like environment of factory schools.  Dodge Ball teaches Social Darwinism and Capitalism.  Hide and Go Seek teaches children that transparency is overrated.  Best run and hide from others.  After all, this is the building block of most grown-up relationships.

On the flip side, our games teach the best of American values.  Hide and Go Seek helps teach autonomy and creativity.  Simon Says teaches listening skills and proves to kids that language can be powerful.  Dodge Ball helps with team work and allows kids to see the value of throwing things at people.

People assume that we play games in the class as a review.  It's true that most classroom games tend to be trivial.  That's why we call them trivia.  For what it's worth, I don't want my students learning anything trivial. Having a contest to see who has memorized the most state capitals doesn't exactly inspire deep thinking.

People consider games to be superficial fluff designed as a cognitive escape.  However, a well-constructed interactive game can reveal the opposite.  Games can be authentic and powerful and vital to students developing a deeper understanding of concepts.

***

When the game ends, students debrief the information in their plogs.  After words, we set our pencils down and talk.  On some level, it feels like waking up for a daze.  Students debate the pros and cons of a market system, talk about the risks of speculation and relate this to the economic crash of last year.

The pencil smudge girl from yesterday raises her hand, "I think there is a danger in playing this game, but I'm glad we played it."

"Can you elaborate on that?" I ask.

"I think the people in Wall Street got suckered into the same vortex that we were just in.  They got selfish.  The market is supposed to curb selfishness, but we found out how quickly it was to form oligopolies and attack people.  It became a game to win.  I think that's how it is for some of the people who run Wall Street."

decorating your class

Gertrude the Slate-Enhanced Learning Integrationist Coordinating Specialist asks if she can see the room where I will pilot a three-week unit using a one-to-one pencil to student ratio.

"What is this?" she asks.

"It's a poem."

"I know what a poem is.  I mean, what is this?"

"It's by Whitman."

"Take it down."

"Seriously? Is it because he was gay?  Because we're still using peanut butter even though George Washington Carver was gay, too."

"It's not that at all.  The issue is this: your classroom is a learning environment."

"Exactly, that's why I put up some photographs and poems and . . . "

She cuts me off, "Don't forget word walls.  Where are your word walls?"

"They're back in my old classroom.  I thought kids could keep track of vocabulary in their portable notebooks so that they could access the words at home."

"Everyone must have word walls.  And where are your anti-bullying posters?"

"I put up one of them.  It's just that they were so cheesy that I thought most of the posters would actually make kids want to start bullying."

"Where are the charts about academic achievement.  How will we Caravan to the Top without graphs?"

"I actually thought kids could graph out their own scores on paper and pencil."

"Where is your periodic table of elements?"

"Is that really necessary in the sixth grade? We're not in chemistry. Besides, they're still finding new elements.  They just discovered krypton."

"Just because you have pencils doesn't mean you don't have to play by the rules."  The term "play" is exactly it. I spend an entire week after school and cancel my community service club so that I can make charts and graphs and word walls.  But I have fun with it.  Our word wall includes the words "hypocrisy" and "asinine" and I have a graph up demonstrating how seldom students bother to read graphs when they are posted on the wall. At one point, I create a comical lazy cat named Gertude imploring students to work hard.

When I'm done, the principal walks in and says, "Oh, Techno-Tommy, the Fire Marshall was in.  Didn't you read the staff handbook?  You're supposed to have only half of your walls covered and you have three quarters.  Very dangerous stuff, I tell you. You'll need to take down some of these charts."

He glances around and smiles at the word wall. "As long as I'm in here, where are your posters that explain each of the Six Ways To Be a Good Writer? You know what? Why don't you just have the kids write down the Six Ways in their notebooks instead?"

"Yeah, so they can access it at home?"

"Exactly.  See, Tom, I can figure out this pencil and binder and paper world. I'm not as much of an old fogey as you might think."

Pencil Island - Part Two

My principal pulls me aside on Tuesday afternoon.  "Techno-Tommy, we need to talk."  I appreciate the subtle warning.  Any time the word "need" is used, it means I'm in trouble.  Oddly enough, on really difficult days, when I feel the crushing blow of a broken world, I sometimes "need to talk" but I keep it to myself.  It might seem that a principal feels the same way, as if "we need to talk" could be a way of saying, "Tom, leadership is painful and lonely and I just need someone to tell me I'm doing okay."  But alas, "need to talk" is a code word for, "need to shame you in a subtle way."

"Tom, I don't like the way you talked to the consultant from Pencil Island," he says squinting through his dated monocle.

"The man's a snake oil salesman, not a consultant." I explain.

"Look, I know you don't trust businessmen, but this isn't time to pull a Coxey's Army stunt. Not all business is bad.  I don't mind if you're a Populist, but education is a business and we need to recognize it as such."

"It's not a business and I'm not an executive.  This is called public education for a reason.  I serve, because I care about my students.  I am a civil servant representing my community and I don't think my community wants to sell a child's mind to a wolf in professional clothing."

"All curriculum costs money."

"That's not the issue.  Yes, books cost money.  But this man has a whole system set up designed to teach rote skills and make him a fortune."

"Pencil Island is amazing, Tom.  Information is broken down into consumable parts for children."

"Consumable.  That's the problem.  Children should be thinking, not consuming."

"This is the Age of Industry.  We need to prepare future factory workers.  Back when we had farmers, well, it made sense to teach holistically.  But we can't.  We need compliant workers. We're pulling out of an economic panic and we have to educate our way into becoming an industrial nation."

"If that's the case, why bother with school?  I hear most factories will hire kids as young as five or six.  We won't even need to turn the school into a factory.  I think Rockefeller could hook them up with a job. Might as well start them early when their hands are nimble."

"Do you suggest that we give them an archaic education?  Set them up to be liberal arts majors.  How many jobs these days are asking for philosophy majors?"

"No, the challenge we face is giving kids a classic, holistic education within the context of our industrial age.  Setting kids down in isolation to fill out worksheet packets seems like a step in the wrong direction."

I leave the meeting wanting to slam a door, but the principal has taken the door off the hinge in an effort to create an open atmosphere.  So, I end up storming off in anger and then I feel horrible about getting so passionate about something I can't control.
 

should students bring their own pencils?

not my style, but if it works . . . 

Apparently, there are new, ultra-portable mechanical pencils that do not even require a sharpener.  I've never heard of that, but my God, the ingenious methods of industrialization?  Will the progress ever stop?  We very well might be at the pinnacle of technological development as a society.

Should students be able to bring mechanical pencils into a pencil-integrated classroom?  Can we handle the diversity of both various paper types and pencil types?  Should we have a uniform set of learning tools or should we allow for customization based upon personality and preference?

I brought this topic up to Mr. Jackson, the Language Arts (which incidentally is less about the art of language as much as the science of grammar and syntax) department chair (which incidentally does not have anything to do with chairs, but is more about managing a committee).

"I think we should let kids bring in whatever pencils they want," I explained.

"But won't that be unfair to students?  What if one student comes to school with one of those fancy glittery pencils that shines when the light hits it? You know what I'm talking about right?"

"Uh huh, go on."

"So, you supply your students with those bland yellow pencils.  It just doesn't seem equitable."

"I see your point.  However, students come to school with different clothes and with different books and no one is complaining about that.  Yes, I'd love for every student to have something fancy.  However, it's not about the glitz.  It's about learning."

Mr. Brown cuts in, "Plus, it will be chaotic and disorganized.  How are you supposed to problem solve when I have multiple pencil types.  I'll have one kid asking for help in sharpening his pencil while another student asks me to help her refill her pencil lead. I can't do that."

"Why don't you teach kids to problem-solve their pencil issues? I have a hunch they have been doing some of that on their own at home."

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