Katie Salen on creating a school that teaches through games.
Wish I could have gone to her school…
Wait. Katie – Can I teach there with you?

Watch the interview here on bigthink.com. (7 minute video) (TRANSCRIPT after the jump.)

From the Quest2Learn website: An Overview.

“Mission critical at Quest is a translation of the underlying form of games into a powerful pedagogical model for its 6-12th graders. Games work as rule-based learning systems, creating worlds in which players actively participate, use strategic thinking to make choices, solve complex problems, seek content knowledge, receive constant feedback, and consider the point of view of others. As is the case with many of the games played by young people today, Quest is designed to enable students to “take on” the identities and behaviors of explorers, mathematicians, historians, writers, and evolutionary biologists as they work through a dynamic, challenge-based curriculum with content-rich questing to learn at its core.”

Read the rest of this entry »

1) YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEAVE YOUR ROOM

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

– Franz Kafka (at advicetowriters)

~ HOWEVER ~

2) WRITERS HAVE TO HAVE TWO COUNTRIES

“Everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really.”

– Gertrude Stein (at advicetowriters)

So hard writing about China
five thousand years old
wielding power,
the width of their culture
not to mention mass
compared to
let’s say
America, at only
250 grams.
The concept is flabbergasting
yet awfully trite
i.e. unimpressive generally,
but if that’s your subject matter
then you gotta write about it,
and how better than in the form of a long detailed documentary.

Or you could weigh the culture using a modern scale.

Use it for the next note.

1. Are you healthy in body?
(If not, go sleep.)

2. Have you taken account of all classroom and teaching variables?
(“Yes”=Liar. “No”=Think.)

3. Do you know students have diverse learning styles?
(Haven’t you heard?)

4. Have you spiced things up lately with a variety of activities?
(What spice describes your class dynamic now?)

5. Have you included humor and fun in your plans?
(Are you fun and funny with your class?)

6. Are you intentionally having fun teaching?
(Does fun just happen randomly?)

7. Have you clarified your expectations lately?
(Today? Tomorrow?)

8. Did you make clear those expectations from the start?
(“No”=New Beginnings)

Reject the temptations of success, throw back the status symbols, says Dr. West. It takes courage to think for oneself, but is necessary for one’s own freedom and happiness. Bravery is necessary for greatness, and this is what we should strive for.

He said it before, the current generation will have to retrain their minds to look past success, and to look to a higher place:

I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five years “Be successful, be successful, be successful” as opposed to “Be great, be great, be great”. There’s a qualititative difference.

See another powerful video of Dr. West speaking at Brown University. And keep in mind your vision of personal greatness, make it a habit of mind to retain your focus on it. Make life about more than just commodities. As the Doctor said, sadly we have to learn to recognize the nihilism and destitution that our culture encourages so effectively. And that’s where the fight begins. That’s where we begin to hack our own destinies.