Fiercely educational, harmless fun or the Digital Menace, computer gaming is likely all of these things, each for it's own reasons as much as we all know there are some teachers who are worth their weight in tenure gold and others a veritable pox that could extinguish the inquisitive spark in just about anyone; what we do know is there's something about the top video games that is escaping educators, both in their competition for the minds and imaginations of students, and in their own craft of carving digital experiences that can draw them in, and it's to that end the latest wwwtools newsletter has assembled a long and thoughtful list of debate, debunk and best-practices on Gaming in the Classroom:

on the one hand, some educators will point out that apart from their undeniable power to motivate, games are capable of fostering the development of valuable skills in areas such as strategic thinking, communication and collaboration, group decision-making and negotiation, literacy and numeracy; on the other hand, others (perhaps less willing to accept the role of fun in education) see games as wasting valuable time, irrelevant to set curricula, and incapable of helping students to achieve mandated high-stakes outcomes.
[ wwwtools for teachers ]

As with so much in education, I'm not of the mind to say the games are good or bad unless we're willing to admit and confess that the entire opus of educational games committed to classrooms thus far are vacuous loads of thoughtless crap, which is maybe going a little too far (since I couldn't have possibly previewed them all) but you get my drift.

Also on the embers while the fire is hot, I'd like to stoke the observation of how the mantle of Exclusive Supplier for all K-12 curriculum edu-tainment wares for the Province of British Columbia was (c.1999) awarded to Disney, not because the games were compelling, not because the kids demanded them, not because the parents threatened legal action if their children were denied Math With Pooh, but because buying in bulk from one mega-corp media giant was more convenient, and that is an issue I notice sadly missing in the otherwise very thoughtful wwwtools list.

Beyond the Classroom

There's another frontier I notice absent in the debate: What freakin' emperor of where ever decreed that educators have exclusive provider rights? Is this a Union thing? Copyright rules? What is it exactly, and why do we follow such an absurd rule that says virtually all entertainment must needs be completely devoid of even the barest hint of a cultural communications for purposes of teaching.

Had this discussion with my daughter, currently reading that Brit billionaire housewife's book on 'sorcerer' apprentises, and no, I didn't blurt out the spoiler, I prefer to let my kids find their own way just so long as they are perfectly clear on the exact way ol' Dad would take in their shoes -- it's the perogative of being an ol' Dad, and you'll understand when you get there, but I digress -- the point being, there is a very large and rich and culturally significant body of material on this subject of magick and magi, and old billionaire whatshername is sitting there in the land of great hulking libraries of oodles of it, yet did she even take the tour of Crowley's mansion? Frankly, I don't know, but based on what I do know, I can guess.

Guessing in the absense of facts is the perogative of the ol' Blogger -- you'll understand when you get there, but I digress again

I don't fault old HP for being a non-wiz in the land of Oz, a fraud and a shambles of a joke of a magus, he's just a kiddie story, a midway ploy to part rubes from their pennies

literary junk food.

Trouble is, that's all we can buy. A good one-half of our local bookstore was hopelessly devoted to that latest book, even my boss is proud to say he's reading it, and for what? So they can solve the riddle of the two word highway banner? When I was her age, I read Tom Robbins, and maybe it wasn't any great grammarian's delight, but I learned of the plight of the cranes, I learned tolerance for people of different ideas, and I learned how to make a bomb with a coke bottle and a drop of petrol. Thing is, it was escape and education, but Tom had an ulterior purpose in wanting to tell me something he thought it very important I know. The books had a point.

I expect there are still books with points. And I mean points beyond the plastic faux moralities we litter through what passes for children's literature - it's no wonder, none at all when I see what comes home in the backpacks, that the kids prefer anime and comic books; ironically, those once-maligned literary forms are today the best place to get information you can use, cognitive tools to help you unravel that labyrinth called life.

We can be heroes

So, to get to a point, here's what else I don't see: EA Games probably hires the best techies and ad-execs they can find, they'll hire the best session musicians and rap poets, so why don't they feel compelled to also hire the best librarians, best historians, best anthropologists and try to give their games a point. Not a moral, not a gushy what mom would-a tol' you afterthought, but a point to their story, a reason for telling it, a reason with more reason behind it than simply to capture mindshare and marketshare and shareholdershare.

There's a scene in My Neighbours the Yamadas where a gang of motorcycled hoodlums have invaded the neighbourhood parkette, revving motors all night, tossing beer cans; grandma sends The Man of the House out to deal with them, and he sets out sheepishly with a construction helmet and a baseball bat -- he never gets there, stopped in his tracks by a "What do you want, old man?"

Grandma overtakes him, singles out the toughest biggest meanest of the bunch and verifies that he's the leader, people do what he says when he shouts, people are afraid to disobey him ... like he was a god ... so ... would he agree to use his godlike power over people to command them to become better than they are? ...

So why aren't the educators out there, why aren't the parents out there, why aren't the so high-and-mighty IQ biggern' yours ubergeeks and MBA's clicking to this and pounding on the wal*mart checkout counters to demand EA be better than they are? Why don't the alpha-male game vendors demand it of their competition, challenge their fans with their big booming voice.

Sure, junk food is tasty, but you don't have to be fed it for fifty years to know there's more to life than fries.