Mini-Essay Four

I found that chapter seven of Gee’s book, entitled “The Social Mind: How Do You Get Your Corpse Back After You’ve Died,” was a perfect culmination of the information that Gee has presented thus far. (The conclusion, of course, really ties together all the information in the book, but it was written for the second edition and not originally included in the book.) Gee begins this chapter by explaining that, despite popular belief, learning does not take place primarily in the individual mind and body (nor does knowledge necessarily have to reside within the individual). Of course, learning can and does take place within an individual, but, Gee argues, “learning, even in these individualistic terms, is very much a matter of being situated in a material, social, and cultural world” (179). This idea is evident in many of Gee’s 36 Learning Principles, including, for example the Semiotic and Semiotic Domains Principles and the “Material Intelligence” Principle. (In fact, semiotics and semiotic domains couldn’t exist without a social aspect, and the cultural models they form are obviously social.)

Within his discussion of the Social Mind, Gee returns to his idea of material intelligence, which he defines in his 36 Principles: “thinking, problem solving, and knowledge are ‘stored’ in tools, technologies, material objects, and the environment” (224). He further explores the idea of material intelligence, expanding the storage of knowledge to include other people. In his discussion of the 15-year-old EverQuest player, he explains that the knowledge the young man has of the game is distributed. He writes that the knowledge “exists in [the boy’s] own head and body . . . but some of it exists in other people on whom he can call for help” (187). Gee’s example includes the boy’s avatar dying and being resurrected and the boy telling his father to “get the hell off the phone” (184). (On a side note, this action reminds me of Gee’s discussion of Cultural Models in chapter six, in which he discusses the rude teenager and the cultural model that is applied to that teenager: is the teenager normal or abnormal according to your cultural model?) I discussed briefly in a previous blog this material intelligence and it’s effects on our idea of cheating, and we talked about it in terms of plagiarism in class. Gee brings up an interesting point in this chapter, which I believe related directly to that discussion. He writes that “schools still isolate children from such powerful [material intelligence] networks—for example, a network built around some branch of science—and test and assess them as isolated individuals, apart from other people and apart from tools and technologies that they could leverage to powerful ends” (188). The fact that schools operate this way goes directly against the idea of the Social Mind and socially situated cognition, which cognitive psychology is finding to be particularly important in today’s society.

One of the most interesting aspects of chapter seven was the discussion of patterned thinking. I found this to be interesting because it seems that humans are innate stereotype-ers. Gee explains that our use of patterned thinking has a two-fold effect. On the one hand, he explains, “we could not survive and function if we did not engage in such pattern thinking” (191). Then, back to the idea of stereotypes, he writes that “such pattern thinking can lead not only to good predictions in many cases but to prejudices or stereotypes in other situations” (191). I found his example of the Black female physics teacher to be especially helpful. Though we have these stereotypes, it appears that games (or learning situations similar to games) would be the best tools in which to break this habit because we are able to play as both sides, exploring different cultural models and the stereotypes that particular model ascribes to. Then players are able to reassess their previous beliefs and adjust them accordingly—hopefully moving beyond the stereotypes of each group. Gee, of course, then returns to the idea of the social mind: “patterns are in our heads, but they become meaningful (‘right’ or ‘wrong’) only from the perspective of the workings of social groups that ‘enforce’ certain patterns as ideal norms . . .” (196).

The conclusion of the book was particularly interesting to me, if only because many readers apparently have gotten a completely different sense of the book than I have. Gee says that he knows “that many people who have read this book take it to be an argument for using games in schools or other educational settings” (216). Following his own model, Gee has included a conclusion to explain why this isn’t the case. Readers have been given time to read the book and form their own opinions—now Gee is providing an extra piece of information at the perfect time. It’s up to readers to decide what value the book has for them. Personally, I think this book will be a great addition to the formation of my teaching philosophy.

Questions:

1. On page 204, Gee explains that in Brown and Campione’s teaching models, “each member plays the role of researcher, student, and teacher in different configurations and contexts.” Could this work in an English 103 classroom?

2. Agency, ownership, and control are particularly important to gamers. Which of the 36 Principles directly relates to these three aspects of gaming?

3. Gee describes games as pleasantly frustrating. In what way is this true for you?