Video Games, Literacy, And Making Mistakes

“The game encourages him to think of himself an active problem solver, one who persists in trying to solve problems even after making mistakes; one who, in fact, does not see mistakes as errors but as opportunities for reflection and learning.” – What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy

I start with this quote from the book because this one of the topics that I really liked that the author ,James Paul Gee, talked about in several of the chapters. Video games start off the player in tutorials or scenarios where the risks are not very high and players are shown the ropes and basics for what they need to do later on. They help prepare and guide us for what to expect in the future as we play. As the game progress things get more challenging and the player is likely to make mistakes but in a way that challenges and encourages the player to do better.

For example in the early Tomb Raider games, starring the famous adventurer Lara Croft, had very wonky controls on the PC and at first it could be a little tricky at times in getting Lara to not swan dive head first into the ground subsequently breaking her neck . As you progress through the game, the controls can become second nature but even then you might find yourself  yourself diving head first into a pool of lava, make the mistake of jumping off the wrong ledge, or not react fast enough to falling into a trap door filled with deathly spikes regardless the game will allow you to restart where you last saved off. Learning from your previous actions, you then know that there’s a trap door from underneath the ground up ahead and you can plan ahead for what controls you need to use to make sure to avoid it so it won’t catch you by surprise again. A lot games do this of course and like Gee mentions throughout the book, this allows the player to want to explore, challenge, and learn in an environment that doesn’t necessarily feel like its bad to fail because you can always try again.

Put this in contrast to school were it tends to be all or nothing at times and if you fail you’re forced to accept that mistake without given the chance to try again and I think this is one of the things that schools could take away from video games. Video games allow a player to not be afraid to make mistakes which is an aspect that school tends to lack. In middle school and high school I  was hesitant to raise my hand and answer a question a teacher asked because I was afraid of being wrong and put on the spot. As a person who wants to be a future English teacher to non-native speakers, I would want for my future students to not be embarrassed, the way I was, to make mistakes. Gee in his book shows how video games make for a good basis in which we can learn without the fear of  being wrong for not getting it the first time and I think that this is something which we definitely need to promote more in our classrooms.

 I only covered just a piece of information that the book talks about because this is the part that I wanted to concentrate on but it really goes far into explaining all the ways that video games could be used to improve the way we tackle problems in learning new literacies. I think that Gee did a good job in breaking down his book to be understandable and interesting to read even for those who aren’t so into gaming. It’s definitely a book I would recommend to others.