Re: The school game

Beth W. Baldwin, Ph.D. (bobaldwi@HAMLET.UNCG.EDU)
Mon, 12 Aug 1996 19:36:44 -0400

On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, Richard Long wrote:
>
> If education is a game, then it should be played to the student's
> advantage, but that doesn't mean the student makes the rules because the
> rules created by the student will likely be the game the student already
> knows how to play: avoidance, circumventing, and, worse, resistance to
> creativity. An example is to write what you already know about a topic than
> about implications of what you know about the topic.

And I believe that the "best" students are the ones who take their
experiences with the game and turn it to their advantage. Genuine
learning is not impossible in traditional educational institutions. It's
just that the highest quality learning happens for students who are able
to engage early on in levels of critical thinking and a meta-analysis
of the situations in which they find themselves. Students unable to get
the strategy aspect of the classroom are likely to have worse experiences.

Beth
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Beth Baldwin, Ph.D. *
Office of Continuing Education *
University of North Carolina at Greensboro *
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