Tom Ross on games
Monday, March 3, 2008 at 03:03PM Our state listserve has been having an ongoing discussion about the use of computer games in school.
Being the agitator that I am, I posted my lists of reason for and against games. Ending with:
THREE REASONS FOR BANNING GAMES
- Kids playing games might be using resources (computers, bandwidth, chairs, oxygen) that other kids might need to do "real" school work.
- Kids playing games find school fun and we all know life isn't about fun.
- Playing games is against school rules
My friend Tom Ross, library media specialist for Robbinsdale (MN), sent me a reply which he kindly gave permission to share here. Tom is one of those wonderful writers who grows more eloquent as he grows more passionate about his topic!
One more very valid reason for banning games...
Because we choose not to adapt, "and those who do not adapt..." Well you know the rest of the quote.
Our educational community is choosing to live lin the 19th century and cannot adapt to the world our students live in. We choose not to walk beside them, coach them and transform them into responsible users of all media. We are too busy with our own world to think about theirs. Let's face it, our educational community is uncomfortable with their world. Overhead projectors are still one of the most important purchases by media specialists, but only so because our teachers demand them. In this we fail. We fail to text, we fail to blog, we fail to WOW and many of us don't have a clue about what I just said.
Therefore, 1. We will be replaced the first chance they get, and 2. We will continue to lose the ability to influence the decision making process and ensure a safer, more sane world than we have now.
... I would put as Number 1 at the top of the "Reasons for Games," the following: 1. Influence the values of this generation for the future and 2. Remain relevant in the lives of our students. We are becoming irrelevant ar the speed of 
a duo quad four Pentium. Let me say that word again: irrelevant. Students are moving beyond us as if we did not exist. Our grammar, our word choice, our polite culture, how we spell our words, our attitudes, our culture, our world, our values are being left discarded like a used tissue. Complain about it as we will, it will not matter, because we will be replaced and like some forgotten massacre of the Second Boer War, No one will even know we were here. It will be the sound of a tree falling in a far off Siberian forest.
Realizing that we as educational communities cannot make this and several other adaptions, (cell phones, hand held internet access and retrieval systems, I will predict that schools as we know them will continue to shrink and be replaced by other formats of education until they are things of curiosity of the 18th-20th centuries. This is just a reality, not an emotional response. We won't be the first dinosaur that failed to make the adaptation. The question for us individually is whether or not we will allow ourselves to morph with the new world realities around us --- or simply retire?
As for myself, I am not going softly into that good night.
Tom Ross,
Plymouth Middle School
How does the now over-used quote by General Eric Shinseki go? “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Thanks, Tom, for the passionate reminder.
Reader Comments (6)
Doug - I am planning on requesting a Smart Board for the start of 2008 school year in the fall. Not sure if this "radical" idea will work, but I am going to give it a try. I am also planning on ending all paper in my class and giving / getting all information and assignments electronically.
Sorry if that knocked you out of your chair, but gosh darn it I am a rebel.
(...BTW...I am today allowing a student to bring his 9 inch color TV into my room to play video games during Tech Club. Whoa...)
Hi Kenn,
I like the goal of the paperless classroom. Let us know how it goes.
Games in tech club - you ARE the wild man!
Doug
Thanks for sharing this Doug. Most librarians in my district are starting to learn about web 2.0 applications and are loving it. Through our 23 Things program, they even ventured into social networking and found that it isn't as scary as they thought. They are now using wikis and blogs with student research projects and reading clubs and I am so proud of all they have learned and done this year. Although there are a few holdouts, most of us are with Tom - fighting to stay relevant. We're not going gently into that good night either!
Hi Mary,
Your learning20thuplay is much like our MN 23thingsonastick. Our librarians here seem to be enjoying that as well.
Thanks for sharing your successes. It's important we "reinforce" and encourage each other with stories like this.
All the very best,
Doug
Banning games? Anyone ever read "Why Gender Matters" and "Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax. He argues that boys more than anyone benefit from using games and competitive team situations to help with learning. I doubted these theories at first but turned a few assessments into games with competition for modest prizes - twinkies - soda. (woops! the state banned sugar in classrooms) and found much to my surprise that the unmotivated became the motivated. Higher grades ensued. Banning games, they might as well ban fun or noise. That's it! Silence the sound of learning.
Hi Charlie,
As an old "Punished by Rewards" fan, I am not sure about the prize aspect of this. But if it works, it works. I appreciate your endorsement of gaming in the classroom. Your experience has been similar to my own.
All the best,
Doug