Gee begins his discussion in chapter five, “Telling and Doing: Why Doesn’t Lara Croft Obey Professor Von Croy?” with a section called “Overt Information and Immersion In Practice,” which I believe is, in part, a summation of the discussion we’ve had in class, as well as the information provided in the last few chapters. The idea of immersion as an important part of education seems to be the crux of the problem Gee is discussing: simply put, the difference between “education” and “schooling.” Schooling, on the one hand, involves the type of learning that we’ve been calling “skill-and-drill” while true education embodies a different set of premises all together—one that does not find the students’ ability to memorize facts as the most important skill. In this chapter we find that neither “typical” schooling (skill-and-drill) nor radical “teaching” (such as forcing students to be totally immersed without providing any guidance) are the best forms of pedagogy. Gee explains that “educators tend to polarize the debate by stressing one thing (telling or immersion) over the other and not discussing effective ways to integrate the two” (114). It is this integration of both telling and immersion that Gee finds to be most helpful, and which is, of course, evident in all “good” games.
The problem with the polarization of telling and immersion is that learners cannot work with an abundance of information that a teacher has provided them “outside the context of immersion in actual practice;” neither can students “learn without some overt information; they cannot discover everything for themselves” (120). Going back to the previous chapters in which Gee discussed the need for students to create projective identities that fit with the given situation (e.g. science students forming a type of identity they want as science students), it is through pedagogy that immolates video games that creates a situation where learning comes naturally. In this model, the learner/student begins to juxtapose his or her real-world identity with that of the virtual identity. At this point, Gee makes an interesting observation—one that I believe is at the forefront of the entire book. He writes that real learning is a “refashioning of the self” (121). Of course this makes sense in terms of virtual vs. real-world identities: the real-world identity begins to take on characteristics of the virtual identity (and vice versa).
Following up this notion of true learning as the refashioning of the self, Gee begins his discussion of cultural models. He begins by noting that video games allow players to take on various identities. Often these identities have completely opposing viewpoints. Gee says that this has a two-fold effect: it can either reinforce a players presupposed perspectives on the world or it can challenge a players views about the world. He writes that “when you act in (or think in terms of) the role of someone else . . . this involves not merely taking on a new identity but sometimes thinking and valuing from a perspective that you or others may think ‘wrong’” (149). (Though this is perhaps getting away from the Gee’s intent, it seems clear to me that the idea of the cultural model occurring in video games would be an interesting way to teach philosophy—particularly a course on ethical relativism. ) Of course, this text is interested in pedagogy, so Gee eventually acknowledges the ways in which these cultural models appear in the classroom; however, he questions the validity of some of the cultural models we hold about learning. (Though, as Gee mentioned, cultural models aren’t right or wrong—they’re simply ways of viewing the world or the classroom.) In the cultural model most evident in classrooms today, the goal or final outcome is the most important aspect of learning. Considering this final outcome is usually a good grade, this model of teaching leads to the decontextualized skill-and-drill model Gee has worked to discredit. One other cultural model Gee held about learning was that “good” learners were able to solve problems quickly and with few (if any) mistakes. We’ve discussed this in class and Gee discusses it in previous chapters. While we may superficially believe that a “good” learner solves problems without making mistakes, we also know that these mistakes are, perhaps, the best learning tools. Video games are, of course, a great example of the benefits of mistakes because the player is allowed to make mistakes in a less high-stakes environment through his or her projective identity. Finally, before reiterating his learning principles, Gee ends the chapter with a radical idea: “[w]ouldn’t it be great if we could say to children in school, when they were struggling mightily with hard problems: ‘Aren’t you luck you have the time and opportunity to learn’ and have them smile and nod?” (175-176).
Questions:
1. What cultural models do you hold about learning that have been challenged by this book?
2. How is learning a refashioning of the self?
3. How has our class’s use of videogames such as Second Life follow the idea of immersion?
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