Video Games: A Disruptive Container

Using the Human Systems Dynamic Institute's CDE Model (developed by Glenda Eoyang) as a way to understand one of the central problems for why it is so difficult for teachers to accept video games as a viable tool for instruction can be helpful.  First, lets consider what the model looks like:

C- Container: holds agents together until system-wide patterns can form.

A student is a container.  That students identity is their container.  They choose to affiliate themselves with others based on what containers they view themselves to be connected with. 

D- Difference: provides the potential for change and enagagement among agents. A variable to watch that is divergent from the status quo. It is the action we want. 

We want the student to succeed.  We want them to become engaged with the material, but that simply isn't always the case.  Every person is different, with divergent interests and abilities.  To get students motivated to succeed, we must determine what difference makes the difference and focus on that.

E- Exchange: establishes the connections among agents and between individuals and the whole.  It is a two-way transfer.

In a traditional classroom, the teacher gives information to the student.  The student is then expected to accept that information and internalize it.  This doesn't always happen, thus creating an unmotivated student.  Another exchange may be in the work the student does (or doesn't) turn in to the teacher.  It may be in the questions the student asks, or the comments the students make.

Using the CDE model, I can identify patterns, or differences and similiarities shared amongst interactions with a student.  If I have a student (c) who is disengaged (d) and refuses to interact with the rest of the class (e), I have identified WHAT the problem is.  Then, I must think, SO WHAT can I do with this information?  In my view, I need to connect with the disengaged student and figure out what matters to them.  What will make a difference to them?  In interactions with some of my disengaged students, I've noticed that discussing popular culture, specifically video games, helps create a common text for us to complete goals.  NOW WHAT do I do to take action and help this student and future like-minded students?  My adaptive action, or action taken as a result of noted patterns, is to try and incorporate gaming culture into my normal classroom instruction.  This is the human systems dynamics model in action.

One difficulty with getting other teachers to buy-in to this method is that they see video games as a container and school as a container.  In this view, they are separate containers that don't mix.  They are disruptive.  But, in my view, the student is the container, and these two parts of their life work together to create learning.  When the student goes home and plays the video game, they (the player) (c) levels up (d) by completing quests (e), they are consistently moving forward to harder and harder cycles of learning.  In school, when the student (c) plays the game of school, they are tested (d) to determine their levels of learning and expected to verbalize (e) in class.  We need to shift our boundaries to include both parts of the students life in to the whole picture of the student's learning experience.  Instead of trying to set up fences to separate the two learning engagements, teachers should be trying to use games as a way to create an affiliation, or to attract the student to learning the content.  Students want to recognize that their learning outside of school is relevant in school.  They want to see a consistent pattern.  However, when we devalue their gaming culture, we are interfering with the pattern, causing students to have to choose which identity they would rather have: a good student, or a good gamer.  Unfortunately, some students will choose to identify as a gamer and will then give up on school.  Its not worth it to try in school because it isn't important to them. 

Here lies my sticky issue.  How can I convince others that this sort of thinking isn't helping our youth?  With the help of HSD to frame the problem, perhaps others will be able to see that it is, in fact a problem.  The devaluation of gaming as a learning system is creating an identity crisis in adolescents, leading to disengagment.