There’s Nothing So Good Education Can’t Ruin It

By: Miles Harvey, Ph.D.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The future of games as literature looks bright. Things are starting to change, and slowly, education is embracing game-based learning on a larger scale. The research is there to back up the idea that video games, especially in the language arts classroom, are ready to be used as learning vehicles. Slowly, teachers will start to embrace to use of video games, virtual reality, and augmented reality as literature in their classroom. The average age of a video game player in the United States is now 35 (ESA, 2016), which is very close to the average age of a teacher in this country, which is 42 (NCES, 2012).

The idea is that children who were once known as gamers and readers are now becoming teachers and researchers. This natural progression from casual gamer to professional is bringing some exciting changes to many disciplines. One in particular is the world of education. More and more, teachers are able to relate to their student’s gaming interests by saying, “Oh, I play that, too.” The bridge between out-of-school literacies and in-school literacies has been constructed, and now it is up to those willing to cross it.

During my dissertation defense in March of 2018, Dr. Christopher Holden from the University of New Mexico asked me a great question. He first stated, “There is nothing so good that education can’t ruin it.” He then asked, “As your ideas about using video game as literature gains more traction, how might the education world negatively impact the adoption of this idea?"

I had thought about this in recent years as I studied literacy, video games, and taught language arts and media literacy at a local middle school. For years, I had been immersed in rhetoric surrounding the world of literature from the perspective of teachers, principals, policy-makers, test developers, and various other stakeholders who all wanted to have a say in what it meant to read. There is definitely a need for various stakeholders to have a say in what students read, but things have gotten a little messy over the years. For example, the idea of banned books, grade-specific texts, young adult literature selections, or literature cannons of prescribed readings have taken away the freedom from language arts teachers across the country to get students to read what they think is important. I have a hard time believing that ninth grade teachers prefer to read, “Romeo and Juliet” every year. Nonetheless, how does this tie into the implementation of video games as literature in the classroom?

As video games are adopted and better understood by teachers, principals, policy-makers, test developers, and various other stakeholders, they will become standardized just like other literary tools. Yes, there will be banned games, grade-specific games, young adult games, and a cannon of games prescribed for students. What will be the new “Romeo and Juliet” of video games for ninth grade students? The projections of the future make me cringe, as my hopes for the implementation of video games as literature gives the teacher more freedom then shackles. I can’t imagine students being tested on their efferent stances on their gaming experiences. Rosenblatt (1978) who championed the idea of reading for the experience and not for the test would probably agree on this. I hope my future students will not be tested on their gaming fluency or gaming speed. It doesn’t make sense to test a student on playing games, as the game is the ultimate test itself (Gee, 2007).

So where do we go from here? How do we keep gaming for literary experience in the right hands so that students do not lose the enjoyment of playing them before school ruins them? How do we resurrect the enjoyment of students who were once nose deep into their favorite books and now put their nose up in the air as school has taken those books and turned them into assessment tools meant to drill and kill? How can we keep the mediums of the imagination into places where experience reigns supreme?