Come on Baby, Light My Fire: Lessons From Guitar Hero

Like most Americans who have any contact with videogames, I have played Guitar Hero, badly.  And not too long ago, after an evening out with some of my teacher friends, I was invited back to their house to play Halo.  I did that badly, too.  I think I just don't have enough hatred brewing in my blood to want to kill animated little warriors on a TV screen.  But as I sat there watching my friends communicate with people from all over the world while teaming up to decimate both man and machine, I began to think that there was quite a bit we could learn from videogames that are relevant and applicable to our classrooms. 

Like my friends, the teenagers I teach love videogames.  Bring up any current videogame, and they are qualified to offer an opinion on its virtues and vices.  As a teacher, I have long thought videogames have little to offer me in regard to my teaching.  But that night with my friends, I began to think about what was happening they played their electronic game.  There were a number of valuable skills that were being developed in the course of play and I believe, granted wtih a little creativity, we can utilize the skills required for successful videogame play into our classrooms.  Here's a list of videogame skills that I think teachers might think about incorporating into their classrooms:

1.  Videogames require varied skills.  You cannot be successful in any videogame without mastering a number of different skills.  The ability to climb imaginary mountains, annihilate the enemy, and communicate with someome living in Scotland are all required for Halo.  This is something we should think about when we are teaching. Do the activities that we require of our students demand varied skills?  As teachers of language arts, do most assignments challenge our students to communicate with others, pre-write, revise and edit?  Is a task completed with one simple skill?  If so, we might take a hint from our videogame counterparts and think about how we can integrate various skills into many of our lessons.

2. Videogames require repetition until a skill is mastered.  How many times have you given an assignment, waited for the student to complete it, collected it, graded it, handed it back, and then moved on to the next assignment?  Task done, you think, let's move on.   We all know that some of our students are completely capable of mastering a task the first time.  But like most videogames, many of our assignments require some students to try it multiple times.  And that's not a bad thing.  Slow down, provide advanced practice for those who finish a task after one shot at it, and allow those who need more practice the opportunity to repeat their efforts until they have mastered the task.

3.  Videogames involve music, visual stimulation, and, sometimes, kinesthetic ability (think Wii).  Utilizing differentiated instruction well and allowing students to learn in a variety of ways takes a great amount of work.  But, if done correctly, the effort will yield a great payoff.  There is a reason kids enjoy videogames and you would be wise to question what makes it enjoyable.  Can you integrate music into your lesson?  What about movement?  Is there a video clip you can show to reinforce the concept you are teaching?  Be creative, have fun, and challenge yourself to go far beyond paper and pencil!

There are myriad elements of videogames that can be applied to our classrooms.  Think about the competition involved, and the scaffolding of skills and knowledge necessary to master level after level of a game.  The feeling of accomplishment a child has when doing well might also be taken into consideration.  It would sadden me to believe that someday children will learn all they need to know through educational videogames.  I will always cherish the value of relationships--both between teacher and child and child and peer.  I am hopeful that what we as teachers have to offer will always trump a joystick and large screen TV.  But videogames are not an educator's nemesis, either.  With a little creative and a willing spirit, we can learn much from videogames.  It just might be fun to see how we can incorporate that newfound knowledge into our classrooms!

It's Not About the Simpsons

So, I eat lunch with a group of my fellow teachers.   Most of them range in age from their early to late twenties.  I'm not anywhere near my twenties.  Let's just leave it at that.  Today, as we were enjoying our bologna sandwiches, Dan (a twenty something history teacher), made a reference to the movie Goodfellows.  I said I remembered watching that.  "Seriously," he said in disbelief, "you finally recognize one of our media references?"  "What do you mean?" I asked.  "Well," he explained, "you never recognize our references to the Simpsons or Family Guy or Supertroopers. I'm surprised you finally know what we are talking about."

 Well, needless to say, they seldom reference the most compelling of theatrical releases, but Dan was right.  I most often don't watch the same things as my young friends. Nor do I watch the same shows or movies as my students.  This, of course, could result in a great disconnect between us.  Instead, it just creates a challenge for me to stay abreast of the latest media in order to communicate with my students.  In essence, the gauntlet has been thrown down for me to know what's goin' on.

I heard of youtube long before I ever even considered integrating it into my daily lessons.  What, I wondered, could youtube possibly offer an English teacher who loves Chaucer and Bronte more than any modern day TV show?  The answer: a lot.  Several years ago I was once again at the threshold of teaching poetry.  A subject that often elicited sighs of contempt from my students.  I had been quite intrigued of late with slam poetry and wanted to expose my students to it. But how to do it?  There are not many books of slam poetry as it is a performance art.  So, off to youtube I went.  There I found Sarah Kay performing a remarkable rendition of "Hands" and another poet offering "Monsters in my Stomach."  The performances were stunning and offered the perfect way to introduce slam poetry to my students.

The next day my students and I watched myriad performances of slam poetry.  I watched as my students laughed heartily and sighed deeply.  I was taken aback when they suggested we watch a favorite performance yet again.  Students turned to one another and critiqued the poems they just viewed.  And I had an epiphany.  Youtube had offered me a way to not only expose my students to slam poetry, but to prepare them for the study of works from Dickenson, Browning, Shakespeare and Frost.  Not surprisingly, our study of poetry took on a different look that year.  Students were interested in what poets had to say.  They wondered what Frost might have look like if he were given the opportunity to slam "Two Roads."  They suggested we try it, and we did.  And it was magnificent.

So, yes.  I do not watch the Simpsons or Family Guy. I will never state that Supertroopers is one of the best films ever made, but I do make an effort to look at what my students are looking at, to surf the sites they surf, and to challenge myself to integrate what speaks to them into my classroom.  It's a challenge that keeps my teaching alive and allows my students to recognize that I know who they are and I care about the world that they navigate each day.  It will never make me "cool", but it will allow me to be a relevant teacher who might be worth listening to.  And I'm down with that, sister.

Dont Be Care Less

As a high school English teacher, I work mainly with seniors.  Many of these young folks are in danger of not graduating, so I often find reason to sit down and speak with them about their grades. Today I was counseling a young woman who is currently failing four of her classes.  I asked her why she felt she was failing so many classes.  "I think it is because I am careless," she told me.  "Hmm," I replied, "that's an interesting comment.  What do you mean by that?"  "Well," she said, "I could really care less."  Needless to say, it immediately became evident why she was doing so poorly in her classes.

Her attitude, however, made me consider the fact that many of my colleagues have a "care less" attitude about the new literacies that our children are exposed to and they refuse to integrate any kind of technology into their classrooms.  I have often heard the old refrain, "This is how I learned, so it's fine for today's kids."  Hence, the old lecture and take notes routine continues in countless classrooms.  The difference, one may quickly note, is that today's students do not live in the same world we lived in ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.  Today's student is exposed to an ever increasing number of visual images, electronic data, and opportunities to communicate via technology.  They are inundated with so many forms of visual communique that to ignore their need to navigate in such a world is,at worst, harmful and at best, negligent.

Perhaps the reason so many of today's teachers are so unwilling to integrate technology into their classrooms is that we are "digital immigrants" rather than "digital natives."  The children of today are born with one thumb in their mouth and the other typing on a keyboard.  It is impossible to even begin to catch up to the information they already have in regard to technology.  The minute these young houligans step foot in our classroom they are eons ahead of us in technological knowledge.  Many of us are new to this land of technology and, like any immigrant, we have much to learn before we can comfortably navigate our new world.

So, what's an oldtimer to do?  Well, interestingly, this dilemma provides a most amazing opportunity.  We are to be brave enough to learn from our students.  Ask them to show you their iPod and then go out and get one of your own and download the latest Lady Gaga song.  Challenge them to show you a new way to do a book report using only technology and they will astound you.  Take a class on utilizing Smartboards or ask a computer nerd to show you how to incorporate digital storytelling into your classroom.  Granted, there may be a very large learning curve, but isn't it exciting to consider the prospect of learning right along side of our students?  No need to worry, you can still be the "sage on the stage" because you will always have information to share with these enthusiastic young minds.  But consider the possibilitites if we invite our students to teach us and we respond as the enthusiastic learner we hope they will be. 

It is easy to opt for an attitude of care-less-ness, but such an attitude does not benefit us or our students.  We must care, always, about the needs of our students, and we must rise to the challenge of educating ourselves in a world that offers technological opportunities not only to our students, but to us as well.