Building Understanding

A story in the news lately has a 13-yr old Italian boy diagnosed with addiction to PlayStation.  Is this a case of lost in translation from Italian to English or does it mark the beginning of a new medical diagnosis?  The American Medical Association thought otherwise last year when it essentially stated that “while overuse of video games and online games can be a problem for children and adults, calling it a formal addiction would be premature.” (Wash Post article)

Here’s the story in a nutshell:

I watched this story and had some thoughts…

I believe that people become obsessed with games because they represent an outlet from a “regular” life that doesn’t live up to expectations or desires.  Gaming provides feedback, praise, challenge, success, and potential that many are not finding in their non-virtual experiences.

If teens in our schools are becoming addicted (for lack of a better word) to escaping reality, then we need to find ways to include positive experiences in their real lives.

I get that we are about embracing who they are and how they interact with the world.  I get that games are here to stay – in fact, I quite like most of them.

But we have to care about the whole child.  If we are really producing 21st Century success stories, then let’s make sure that includes being a part of a world.  I think we will increasingly value this as it becomes less and less a part of our lives.

What are we talking/sharing/doing about ensuring that kids are out helping people, feeling like they count for something, and are important?

Are we challenging kids?

Are we praising kids for accomplishments they care about?

Are we engaging kids to be better than they were?

If we can do that, we will find that kids are having fun with games, and are addicted to life.

We spend a lot of time at schools talking about what learning looks like.

We design assessment to be authentic, specifically to ensure we see children demonstrate what they have learned in an applied, meaningful way.

We debate and discuss how to recognize learning. Will we recognize it, when we see it?

What does learning look like?

Maybe we think too much.

Today I saw learning so clearly, it almost slapped me in the face.

My 2-soon to be 3-yr old son finally got a shot at our new/old little blue iMac (hard to believe that this model was ever an adult desktop computer!). He was on a Playhouse Disney online game – his older sister was out playing with friends. He simply had to navigate Pluto through a maze to the different musical instruments.

Watching him play this game, his processing was so clear that it was as if you could see into his brain. While his eyes scanned the screen and then looked down at his finger poised above the 4 arrow keys, you could almost hear the loud clap of pieces snapping into place. He would catch himself pushing the arrow too many times or in the wrong direction and he would shake his hands in the air as if to say…whoa, I did too much!

Then he’d make adjustments and correct his path.



Amazing. Awesome.

I sat there, watching him, so proud. Not because he was on a computer and I’m a geek, but because I was watching him learn…my kid was learning. It happens all the time (and I’m proud every single one of those times), but today, it was just so blatantly clear.

I loved seeing him raise his tiny fists in the air in celebration when he achieved his goal (and got immediate feedback – thank you technology). And I loved seeing him want to do more…to practice his newly learned knowledge/skills.



And we think kids on games are bad…why again? (Another whole post…I know.)

But today, I was reminded so clearly what learning looks like. I have not done its power justice here in this post. Maybe I’m still beaming too much with pride to write clearly.

Or maybe it’s something that’s hard to describe, which is why we educators spend so much time laboring over what it will look like and designing just the right assessment tools.

It might be hard to put into words.

But it isn’t hard to see.

You just have to give kids the chance to think.

Then just sit back and watch.