Teaching with Sega

The idea is to change how education is viewed, and to reach as many kids as you can.

The above statement is a quote from High School teacher, Paul J. Ackerman, speaking about a new advance in introducing technology into the classroom environment. Not just any technology, though – video games. In her article, Rhea R. Borja explores the response that both students and teachers have to video games and computer applications becoming the modern method of learning. According to those in her article, the virtual lessons are well received by most in the high school community. Students seem to find the class work, which is made up of designing and programming your own video game on the computer, both challenging and entertaining. The teachers claim that the games serve as a “vehicle for honing students’ mathematical, problem-solving, and reading-comprehension skills.” Although Borja’s article opens with a student designing a game that involves shooting bullets at an enemy underwater, she addresses the logical concern for promoting violence by writing,

Educators are realizing that video games don’t have to be violent. Instead, a new breed of games, imbedded with core academics and analytical and problem-solving skills, teaches through a method some educators call “stealth learning.”

Although Borja never comes out and says explicitly what is meant by “stealth learning,” the meaning of the term is made all too clear by various quotes from Mr. Ackerman and others in his position: “These kids are learning algebra without knowing it,” and, “The kids have to do math;...they have to manipulate numbers.”

My concern, when I consider my own teaching and learning experience, is that an education is not something that should be obtained unknowingly. Mr. Ackerman and the “stealth learning,” seemed to be supporting a method of teaching that ‘tricks’ kids into learning by attracting their senses and forcing them to use math and science as a way to further their fun. This method is riding a very thin line between introducing children to the idea that math, science, and other subjects are worthwhile in-and-of-themselves and introducing children to the concept that all of these subjects are just skills that you have to master in order to succeed and create the best entertainment tools.

In my own classroom, I like to have sets or introductions that bring up a topic of interest to the students, and after bringing up this topic of interest, I try to show the students how math is directly and indirectly involved with it. This method of having a set or introduction to the beginning of the lesson may be somewhat “stealth”; but, never during my teaching am I trying to convey to the students math is a skill you have to develop in order to be a creative innovator and secure a safe-job in the future. I want to teach my children math. I want to teach them to see the beauty in math, and to love it for what it is. I don’t want to teach them the beauty in video-games and the necessity for math in order to complete an assignment.

With the introduction of video-games and more technology in the classroom, we need to stop and seriously consider what our educational goals are. Is our goal to produce better creators of software; do we want to advance in technology as far as we possibly can, at as young an age as we possibly can; do we hold out any hope for simple appreciation and awe of the subjects themselves; do we want all of these goals to be rolled into one? I am skeptical of the newer uses of technology in the classroom, but perhaps it is because I am unclear on what sort of minds we want to send from the classroom into the world.