Two days of football on three levels each ending in defeat for my teams. It was good that I made the Bear’s cross country and volleyball games last week both ending on a more positive note. It doesn’t ease this weekend’s losses, but it does reconfirm that it isn’t my allegiance to the Bears, Huskies, and Seahawks that are causing the defeats.
Here is a video interview of James Paul Gee on Edutopia that I learned about on Daniel Pink’s blog. The title Grading With Games is misleading as he shares in about 12 minutes many more thoughts than just those related to games. His comments on professionalizing teaching and school reform have left me with some dissonance. I have viewed it two times now and it is causing me to reflect on my thinking and on our work.
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Watching the interview causes some dissonance for me as well. He touches on a number of things and my brain tried to race off in a number of directions. The most profound dissonance for me occurs as I compare the work we are doing (really the result we hope to see from the work) with the idea of transforming school into a cool place to be where students can collaborate to solve real problems that to student really do feel real. Will the work we are doing lead to student-centeredness or cement into place the teacher as the source of all direction and "control?"
Watching the interview was both energizing and affirming. I did not interpret his use of the word "game" throughout the segment to mean literally video games. I interpreted his use of the word "game" to mean a problem solving scenario. This was evidenced for me when he referenced the game of chemistry versus the textbook.
I see the later content of the segment as a cautionary tale to a prescribed, scripted curriculum with no flexibility for teacher ingenuity (his comments on professionalism).
When revisiting the posts about implementing the curriculum with fidelity from a year ago and processing the information provided in the video I can see where it may cause some questions not about our curriculum work but about the level of professionalism allowed the teacher in implementing (and being involved in creating) new curricular pieces.
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