Can you fathom it?

If someone had asked me the question of whether or not games could socially and educationally improve one's life six years ago, I would have had to think of myself at that time coming home from school only to venture to the computer desk with a bag of twizzlers and a six pack of coca-cola to last me far into the evening.  I thought video games then were the beginning of my demise!  The notion of them providing improvement for people would just seem absurb.  Although thinking back, the accounting class I took with upper classmen during that school year when I was hardcore into video games I got nearly a 100 in the class that stunned all the other students, considering I just looked at the Diablo II barter board the whole time in class.  But even before reading any of Jane McGonigal's book my skepticism was high.  I wondered if she was going to be exerting all this energy only to be proved wrong in the end.  Well then I read the first couple chapters.

I agreed with McGonigal from the onset that video games are "fulfilling genuine human needs that the real work is currently unable to satisfy," which I took as true, but just as another escapist route.  However, she addresses this as being exempt from that category, chiefly because escapist routes typically involve extrinsic reward systems such as clothes shopping or trying to change the appearance of one's body, and other reward systems like booze and drugs are not possible long-term solutions - not that I'm suggesting short-term is either.  For video games to release the same endorphins and dopamine aka pleasure system of the brain made me want to put the book down and fire up the game console right then and there.  Amazing.  And yet (so I can keep this concise and brief so you will keep reading it), McGonigal says every game has the four defining traits such as a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.  The trick is, how can this be translated into the context of humans' everyday lives outside of the virtual reality world?  Maybe we shall know by the end of the book, but I believe if this ever pans out, McGonigal or someone else will be a very wealthy person.  I think a hindrance to people having as much dedication and motivation for video games as they do real world activites - their job, school work, etc. - is because they lack a clear-cut goal, or an appropriate feedback system.  There is a fundamental flaw somewhere that is preventing these people from reaping the same benefits from real life as they do video games.  And, as the author mentioned, it's not because people do not want to put forth the hard work and effort and just be "entertained" all day; it's that the hard work is lacking a goal, the rules aren't well devised, or maybe the feedback system isn't appropriate and it feels like there's too much coercion.  Yes, so of course "why should we needlessly spend the majority of our lives in boredom and anxiety, [if] games point to a clear and better alternative?"  Because deep down, we want the intrinsic rewards from it all - forget all the mainstream bs that tries to convince you material wealth will provide the same rewards.  And I think McGonigal makes her most important point of the two chapters when she states,

 "Satisfying work always starts with two things: a clear goal and actionable next steps toward achieving that goal.  Having a clear goal motivates us to act: we know what we're supposed to do."

Can you imagine how much better our school systems and work environments would be if teachers and employers provided constant feedback and insightful ways of helping one improve, and showing that their work is valued?

How do you all feel?  Is McGonigal onto something big with this or do you think it's a fancy pipedream that looks better on paper than in real life?

Graphic Novels as a medium for learning.

As we've discussed the issue in class, I believe everyone agreed graphic novels can be incorporated as an effective medium for learning in the classroom.  And why not?  They are fun to read outside any formal school setting, too.  Yet in school, I could understand a teacher simply not adding graphic novels into their classroom because of a set curriculum or because it's not relevant to the overall subject in the course - but to say they're  not a mature form of literature that can facilitate learning, that's rubbish.  My notion is, far too many critics out there want to hold on to old, stereotypical preconceptions of the graphic novel as simply a comic strip full of irrational and fantastical action scenes coupled with over simplified language.  Even family members of mine can't be excluded from this hysteria.  After looking at the book peculiarly and inquiring why I have it, their consternation only left them irreparably befuddled.  But the problem is: many critics who slander graphic novels never even attempted to read one.  However, my experience is, after reading graphic novels more often my appreciation only grew more for them. It's a captivating experience to have sequential art (thinking in McCloud terms here) provided with the text to make a unified learning experience.  And it's certainly a refreshing break from textual works once in a while - many high school students I'd assume would think the same, and given they can be consumed in much less time yet leave just as meaningful of an impression that literary works can provide too.  But the most significant part of them is the ability they have to communicate meaning through text as well as visuals that expands learning in more faculties than one avenue alone may lend, especially for visual-spatial learners, or students who don't respond to text alone as well.  In fact, Shaun Tan's Arrival is full of metaphorical imagery that shows how paralleling the images with the text provided can create even more meaning as a whole. Lastly, even though graphic novels should never be considered an absolute in an English class, much like the literary canon shouldn't, they no doubt have a place in the classroom to serve as a medium for learning much like its counterparts.

It's hard to believe it's been three months already.

I chose the title of my blog because it feels like such a short period of time ago that I was reading and discussing Wilhelm's strategies in _You Gotta Be the Book_, and now it's almost over.  I think it feels like such a short time ago because every week, whether it was the articles or books assigned for reading, they're fresh in my head.  I attribute all this to how much of the learning and reading I have internalized in this journey so far.  If I had to guess how this class would be without taking it, I never would have guessed I would learn so many diverse perspectives to take when teaching literature.  So much material of importance has been breeched in this classroom that I feel that I would never run out of possibilities in how to differentiate my classroom to initiate learning - and if I do exhaust all the materials discussed, I would learn to always try out a new piece of technology or form of literature in the classroom.  I think this class definitely helped broaden my horizon on how to teach outside of the box in the classroom so certain methods don't become redundant over time, and moreover, that we are willing to take a sometimes unorthodox approach to teaching, because it just may be the hidden key we needed all along but couldn't step outside of our comfort zone.

When I reflect back on Wilhelm's writings, to  the mangas, to articles about activism in the classrooms, and every other reading I had, they all hold a lot of merit to me.  Each piece of literature examined, I thought it held a very important theme that could be adopted in the classroom.  For example, like Wilhelm and countless other educators preach, we need to present our students with material that is relevant to the world in which they live in currently.   Every text we used bared significance on our adolescents - from multiculturalism, to adolescent's identity and conflict, to current trends, and even Shakespeare.  What depends on us bridging that gap between these themes and our students ability to understand and identify their concepts, well, that relies on us, the teachers: the facilitators of knowledge.  We should never give up trying to find ways to help a student make connections and understand a text.  We've read examples of how teachers had classrooms full of low level students and students with English as a second language, and they still dramatically improved their writing and reading abilities by always trying a new approach when something is not working.  That's one of the key elements to me as a teacher, to have my students walk out of the classroom at the end of the day understanding the concept.  If they walk out scatter-brained from the lesson, they that's my fault - I need to look at how I'm teaching the material and find ways to better transfer that knowledge to my students.

Graphic novels, literature circles, texts that can be applied to practical use (which can be any, in my opinion!), I want to implement them all!  If one class could show me how to keep learning consistently flowing while maintaining a high level of fun, it would be this one.  So many strategies to take on when in the classroom and with themes, if taught right, can have a very relevant impact on the student who is reading it.  And lastly, and I'll say it again, if my students are not comprehending a part of what I'm trying to teach, then the fault is on myself.  It only means I must try harder in order for them to succeed.   And speaking from experience as a former student, teachers that always developed close relationships with their students, those were the ones that had the most successful students.  I will always take that into consideration.

My first encounter with Shakespeare.

            How I managed to bypass all of high school and three years of college without having a single piece of Shakespeare’s works is beyond me.  So here begins my delayed introduction.  I first thought I should get some background knowledge of Romeo and Juliet in its original form, rather than just taking my first interpretation from the magna version only, so I checked out a version from the library.  When I started reading the original, I quickly noticed I had to substitute a lot of the “F’s” for “S’s, and “V’s” with “U’s” and so forth.  So stuck, unknowingly, with the most primitive version of the play out there, it made for a very long read, and I often had a vague idea of what was going on.  I thank the magna version for clearing all of those ambiguities up.  And I cannot say much about the magna other than the fact that I really enjoyed it for the effects the illustrations played in supplementing the emotion and pace of the reading.  I thought how useful this would be in the classroom for getting the students acquainted with Shakespeare’s work in the sense that they would be familiar with the characters, plot and so on, and most importantly, having a fun time with Shakespeare.  From there, we could then transition into picking out some passages from the original play for analysis, or if time permits, read the play in its entirety. 

            Given I have so little background about Shakespeare and his works in general, I chose the article, “Goals and Limits in Student Performance of Shakespeare” by Charles Frey, wherein he discusses approaches he found most appropriate for students’ involvement with Shakespeare.  He specifies that conventional methods in teaching Shakespeare only orient students with the task interpreting the work the way the teacher wants them to, or a certain critic.  Rather than letting the students be the recipients of instruction, he structures his semester around having students first learn the bare essentials of the plot, characters, “unusual syntactical groupings . . . complexity of sentence[s]”, and so forth.  From there, Frey then breaks down his class into small groups where each group is designated a particular passage they would prepare to act out.  He finds collaborative efforts make for the best learning, and when students are asked to act out a scene, he finds they are usually passionate about making a genuine performance.  What can I conclude from his approach?  I like it.  I like that he is concerned about a taking the time to have students fully comprehend the grammar and unfamiliar syntactical patterns of words before moving on to a group based project.  And from the small scenes that are acted out, students are taught how tone, emotion and other theatrical conventions are employed to gain a better appreciation and understanding of Shakespeare’s work.   

Promoting technology in a suitable manner in the classrooms, but are there consequences?

When I read the article by Mark Bauerlein, “Decline of a Literate Culture,” it shows the statistic of our nation’s literary reading dropping almost twenty percent in young adults over the short span of two decades. And I felt that I instantly knew the answer as to why, which is a marked increase in technology – computers, cell phones, gaming consoles, and the internet.  All of these things have become more prevalent and more convenient to use as we move forward.  So when I read Tracy Tarasiuk’s article about moving the English class towards a more technological standpoint in order to be up-to-date, I began to understand that although the Internet is one of our ambivalences, insofar that it consumes much of our students time which may account for them not getting homework/projects done; but it can also serve as a great “medium,” like Tarasiuk explains, in getting our students to learn/connect to literature.  The part I respect most about Tarasiuk is that she was willing to take a chance with something she was uneasy at first about, but she was willing to let her students speak to her, in the sense that she observed what their hobbies were and asked what interested them.  So although we may sometimes feel that we are compromising a bit too much for our students because of what had worked for us learning in school should also work for the next generation, which isn’t necessarily true.  Tarasiuk knew how to differentiate her teaching strategies and made it effective, and I think that can only be done successfully if we’re willing to listen to our students and identify what works for THEM, and that involves supplying the right stimulus to have learning occur.

In addition to adapting her teaching strategies, she also found a way for each student to voice their opinion in a way that mattered, such as the wikis where each definition of a word had to incorporate some element of a student’s own interpretation.  So I think this collectivist approach the author takes is really useful, and could be effective in our classroom setting as well.  Furthermore, by knowing how much her students emphasized in putting quality work on the internet (YouTube videos, etc.) that if they work they published would be viewable by a large audience, then the effort put in their work would be more developed.   Overall, she knew how to make the classroom a fun and interactive place where learning was mediated by technology that the students were well acquainted with.  And from this article, we witness again how much it pays off if we’re willing to understand what interests our students and devise a learning approach that works for them (Wilhelm dwelled on this a lot), even if it does seem unorthodox to how we may have come up and been taught in the classroom.

However, it seems to me there is always going to be a pressure for us to keep on top of our students with the use of technology in our classrooms.  It’s just scary for some us to think how domineering all of its use really can be.  I had already been in a classroom that was taught by a professor on a TV screen, teaching to three different locations live.  It’s convenient, of course, but is the direction we’re heading in going to make our jobs obsolete someday, where thousands if not more can be taught by televisions and the like?  It’s easy to make connections to Feed and 1984 where technology had directed the peoples’ lives without the need of any human interaction, and unfortunately, it was for the worse.  Whether it was a capitalist or communist society the aforementioned books presented, it seemed irrelevant because technology was the main culprit for dictating/censoring the people.  What are your thoughts? 

Censorship could be leading us to a sterile society.

                Ok, so censorship is obviously bad from what our preconceived knowledge tells us, plus from our readings this week.  An ironic thing I found is the book we had read, Feed, is a likely candidate for being controversial (due to offensive language, drug discussion, and sexual themes) and thus being censored in the classroom, when one of the largest themes surrounding the book is the detrimental effects of censorship- but a disgruntled parent or a fearful school board member would look past the big picture of the book and only focus on the minute details that support their personal ideology or social standing. 

                Do you think Feed gives us insight of how our society is slowly transitioning into a state of censored citizens, contented with trivial activities as a way to occupy ourselves from larger issues surrounding us?  How much did technology and marketing divert the characters of the novel that they never looked outward to see the deterioration of their state?  Through the instilment of fear and diversion the head haunchos, those that ran all the ads and regulated the “feeds,” were the ones profiting off everyone else.  They accomplished their goal – which was to censor and push their products so that the average joe was a mindless occupant that cared for nothing but the latest fad, device or “hip” party upcoming.  They played the part for their destructive ideology so well.  What was the use of education?  Their feed could give them any facts they wanted to know right then and there.  So what was the use of the teacher, right?  A teacher would’ve been a counterintuitive model to the working of their society.  No, the good morale and knowledge of language and history that a teacher can provide would not jive with the ignorance these people relish in.  For instance, the Watts Riot in the 60’s widely known for police brutality and racism is shed light upon in the novel, because if someone can replicate a top and call it the “Watts Riot Top” and market it to a bunch of white suburban teenagers for a quick buck, they’ll do it.  Ignorance is bliss, though, right?  Not really. 

                One of the most astounding aspects of the novel I found was, which correlates to a large percentage of our society today, is how the consumer views everything on a product basis, even people.  Many people I believe could care less about the events unfolding in Libya right now, except for when they starting bombing the oil lines over there that we see an increase in our gas prices – yeah then we’ll start caring!  “Hey guys, cut the crap over there so speculators don’t have a reason to raise our gas prices!”  Only when issues hit near home will people generally start caring. When the Narrator is viewing Violet on her deathbed, he mentions “it was like being in the room with her if she was wood . . . [and] I had thought it would feel like a tragedy, but it didn’t feel like anything at all.” Don’t you think this is in large how a lot of our society is today?  Apathetic, like Wink, from one of the earlier articles we read, would describe it.  It’s becoming widespread that people view others as they would their consumer goods, a disposable and replaceable device.  So what if Violet died?  He would have a new girlfriend shortly to easily take her spot.  So what if his “up-car” got destroyed?  He would have Daddy buy him a new one.  That’s the overall mood taken on.  In addition to this apathetic point of view on humanity, people are also too much inclined to be a passive participant in a lot of areas.  It’s safer and easier to follow the status quo for fear of capitulating our social standing or possible monetary losses.  Think about it.  Wouldn’t it be playing it safe if we listen to the Principal to not attempt to teach a particular book for fear of parents’ outcry?  In doing so comes the possibility of us jeopardizing our job (like Marlowe being forced to resign).  Would it have been worth it to put all our investments in our education if we take the risk of losing the career choice we pursued initially, all because we had an active voice standing up for the students right to learn?  If not, a censored teacher plus a censored lesson plan for his/her students equals an overall huge deficit in their education. 

Just like our writing, active voice should be employed more than passive voice.

What is the biggest thing the authors from the articles we read want us as future teachers to do and instruct?  -  To have a voice.  Although it’s not that easy to accomplish, as we probably know.  I think there is a big conflict, like we read in Karen Wink’s article with teaching in a Military school, when the men and women are told to cooperate as a group and abide by order – as they have done from boot camp onwards.  And then in a classroom setting, Professor Wink wants her students to have an active voice rather than being passive.  Going off Pavlov’s theories, these students were conditioned to be the recipients of orders from months on end, and now they are told to have an individual voice – can you imagine the conflict occurring in these students’ minds? 

Like Wink referenced to in her article, these students don’t want to speak up for fear of compromising the group – whatever that may be, I don’t know.  But if we apply this to a broader scale, people’s social stigma can easily influence how we are going to act in certain situations, whether they are active or passive.  For example: You witness police brutality of an innocent man, and the cops know you saw the incident and they say, “If you report any of this, you better get used to living the rest of your life in a wheelchair.”  So what would you do?  Speak up and risk your physical well-being even though injustice will stand uncontested?  I use an extreme example because these situations do arise, obviously.  “’First, they came for the Jews / and I did not speak out / because I was not a Jew. . . . Then they came for me / and there was no one left / to speak out for me,’” and here we discover why being a passive participant can have implications, too (85).  Would we rather die having a voice possibly making an influence, or die for the same reason, anyway, without one?  Change will never occur if these systems aren’t challenged.  Back to Wink’s classroom when the one student, Derek, spoke out on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” essay about promoting individualism when he was taught to perform collectively for the past however many months.  Derek was simply “generalizing” that because he obeyed orders in boot camp and held the belief the group dictates the response given, then, he could not have an individual voice of his own, now.  A lot of people apply this concept today based off past experiences.  Since I did so-and-so and was passive then, I may as well continue that pattern now because I got by that way before.   Hopefully we can encourage students to realize they have a voice of their own and that it matters, without having the fear of compromising their social standing in whatever little “clique” they are in at the time.

I thought about how we could apply a lot of what was detailed in these articles, and I was especially fond of Raquel Cook’s idea of having a bunch of posters on the walls that can get students thinking.  When our words drop on deaf ears, these posters will always be where the students can see them day-to-day and sit there and contemplate their meanings.  Cook also made herself available as a great facilitator of knowledge as well.  Rather than telling her students what they should believe, she would provide impartial material such as photographs or stories that the students could then ponder over and develop their own interpretations.  Was the American media feeding us lies about the events that occurred? - “’I don’t know . . . I wasn’t there,’” Mrs. Cook would state (20).  I like this way of teaching, because we are never imposing information on our students, but instead letting them construe their own meaning from the text or photographs.  Also, her promotion of having an active voice, like Wink argued for, is important because this knowledge is too important to keep silenced and must be transmitted to others, or else they fall in the same trap of inaccuracies, contradictions, and stereotypes like some of Cook’s students were exposed to before taking her class.