The Politcal Side of Play & Learning

Gonzalo Frasca is a video game designer and theorist whose research considers the potential of games as tools to raise social consciousness. His work is highlighted in the book, Video Games and Eduation, but I left the book and read Frasca's article titled, “Video Games of the Oppressed”. His work is tied to the idea that critical theories of pedagogy can be used as best practice in our current state of education. (Frasca 2004) says, “videogames could indeed deal with human relationships and social issues, while encouraging critical thinking” (p.85). 

How can your content area tap into issues of human consciousness? This is getting practical. For example, students do not learn about just the concepts in science, but the biology of those concepts at play in the real world. There are thousands of games out there for many systems both new and old that employ scientific concepts in its fundamental game play. In those, many contain other hidden teaching elements that are just waiting to be used as a teaching resource. Depending on the educational context, sometimes the virtual world is the best place to experience certain types of learning.

As I read through the political, persuasion, and propaganda section of this book, I keep thinking about how our rights as free and equal citizens in the U.S. have shaped so much of the current state of education and video games today. Starting off in the 50’s with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), educational equity and equality have been hot issues for concern. 

Brown v. Board of Education changed education in the United States. After this court case came to decision in favor of educational equity, it would set forth the dominoes for other similar issues to be heard. During the time of the case, education was in a rough spot. Education and schooling, like many other socially constructed things were hinged between rising tensions of inequity and social justice among racial minorities in most parts of the country. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark case that would create a ripple in the paradigm of thought that fueled much of the effort to change how "schooling" is delivered to whom, why, and where.
 
On the other end, simultaneous growth in the area of video game development has been propelled by legal battles starting in the early 80’s. “In 1983, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts likewise decided that “any communication or expression of ideas that occurs during the playing of a video game is purely inconsequential.” This led to odd laws around the nation like in Illinois for example. There, it became illegal to play video games under the age of twenty-one in an arcade without a parent. Food for thought. We have changed a lot in thirty some odd years. What is next?