Opening Analysis

The following discussion reflects the direction I am leading Wonderama.

I formed Wonderama 15 years ago, creating a work environment and system, meant not only to use leading edge educational methods, but go beyond creating and improving on innovations in education. After 13 years of staying in the forefront of science education, and having survived the damage 9/11 caused through the inward turning of schools, I decided to change Wonderama’s focus.

If you spend any amount of time in the schools and watch the teaching of science (or any subject) one main feature will leap out. Mainstream K-12 science teachers (public, private and charter) teach knowledge, or facts about science. This is the easiest part of science education (or any subject) to teach, because:

1) Most educators with a little knowledge of a subject are able to use a science book to teach kids definitions.
2) Universities train teachers to use a knowledge based educational style.
3) Tradition, from the start of education in this country used “knowledge” based teaching.
4) Knowledge based education is the least expensive of all styles.
5) The school day, week, year, the whole system is designed around, “knowledge” based teaching.

For example, the parts of a plant or animal cell have been well documented and written about at length, so state and district curriculum guidelines require teachers to have students memorize the names and purpose of the parts of a cell. Astronomy works the same way. Requirements to name the nine planets and place them in their order from the sun is an easy task. It becomes more difficult to explain how a planet orbits the sun and predict what would happen if the orbits of different planets were swapped. We are so locked into this system that it would be easier to move Mt. St. Helen with a crowbar that change the way schools teach.

Wonderama was providing educational support to schools within this “knowledge” based framework. Most of the programs we conducted at schools provided a reinforcement of the “knowledge” component of a school curriculum. Next we used examples, connections to student lives, comparisons, and descriptions in an attempt to teach step two, comprehension, of Bloom’s taxonomy. Then when possible we used experiments to allow students to calculate, compute, demonstrate, estimate, evaluate, and practice through step three, “application”. The only time (outside the rare student inquiry) we could really reach the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy was when we conducted our Venture Science Classes (usually in the summer). This was the only time we had enough contact hours with students to be able to reach to these levels.

This was no easy task. Every turn was filled with obstacles. Working in the field of science education is a constant struggle against the forces of popular culture, which unwittingly unravel the knowledge base of our country. The recent Star Wars movie is a classic example. I cringed in horror when I saw a couple robots blown (by air?) off the wing of a space fighter in the opening scenes. There is no air in space of course, so this scene consisting of cool special effects was physically (based on our universe’s laws of physics) impossible. Of course the entire movie was filled with awful science. This style of movie so undoes what Wonderama accomplish’s in our educational programming.

So Wonderama is putting that style of teaching on the shelf for now. We were very successful and provided the best programs, far exceeding our competitors at science museums or universities in quality, content, cost and educational value. It is time to move up the ladder of Bloom’s taxonomy and develop new innovative ways of teaching to America’s kids.

Where to Next?

The question to address at this time is, “How do we want students to use the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) in their lives.” It’s time for a current and relevant example. Our government has decreed new initiatives to convert automobile engines from gasoline to fuel cells, which burn hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical reaction producing water and heat. The government makes two claims about the use of this technology. First fuel cells will give us clean engine emissions. All the automobile engine pollutants will be gone. This is true and will solve many environmental issues, particularly in the big cities. The second claim is that it will free us from a dependence on fossil fuels.

Ok here is where we hit the bump in the road, so watch your head. While it is true that fuel cells do not burn oil, hydrogen and oxygen are not just lying around ready for us to pump into our cars. Both chemicals have to be made, extracted, refined. It will take energy, and lots of it, to make the needed supplies of oxygen and hydrogen. Where will this energy come from? Why from fossil fuels of course. So what we have done is transfer the burning of fossil fuels from cars to power plants. Do you want a power plant in your backyard? How do we really free ourselves from fossil fuels? The only way to be free of fossil fuels is to develop and build power plants that use non-fossil fuels, like wind, solar, nuclear ..... what did I say?..... nuclear ..... OK now what do we do with the additional spent radioactive fuel rods from the reactors. We are already having troubles finding a storage place for the current radioactive rods. Look up “Yucca Mountain” on the internet for a glimpse of the struggle going on between government and citizens.

The only truly long lasting solution is going to be the development of fusion, the power of the sun. This will be the cleanest and safest fuel source around, yet our government spends pennies on research in this area. Why ? Well to hazard a guess, the individuals who patent a viable fusion reactor will become incredibly wealthy, while the owners of coal mines, and oil wells will see a dramatic decline in money and power. The net result of the proposed energy policy is that we will still rely on and run out of fossil fuels. A far different conclusion than our government wants us to believe. Before I continue I must say that I am NOT a radical environmentalist. I am a scientist and I follow the facts where they lead me.

So with that example in mind where does education fit into this issue. The above example is the type of situation where kids needs to learn “discernment”. I would like the public, and kids in particular, to have the skills to examine our government’s ideas and DISCERN truth from fiction. The story the public is getting on fuel cells is incomplete. It sounds plausible, but because most adults cannot discern the truth of the situation, they are unable to call for different energy policies, or even make an informed analysis. It is to late for most adults to learn discernment skills, but kids can and should be given the opportunity.

I am using the term “discernment” here because I believe that it is a word that groups together the top three threads of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Discernment is analysis, synthesis and evaluation all rolled into one term.

The importance of teaching discernment is essential to the continuation of this country as a leading power. Yet our government leaders seem less than enthusiastic towards the idea, seeming to desire the lower three levels of Bloom’s taxonomy to be the core of our educational system. Again ....why? It is my belief that society trained on using the three lower levels makes for:

1) really excellent technicians .... not thinkers or innovators ....... technicians
2) a country of technicians is easily able to manipulate. Facts can be twisted, misrepresented, diminished, and construed to push a particular point of public policy.

Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I was taught that this nation was formed around the basis of an informed public, able to decide its fate based on the “facts”. This becomes difficult in the 21st century because of the sophisticated marketing and advertising methods used to manipulate the public mind. Here lies much of my motivation. Our kids .... perhaps our future lies in developing the mind of a child into the mind of a discerning adult. Discernment is the next step we can take in America to raise up our children on the educational ladder.

Developing Discernment

Kids need two things to develop this skill. First they need to find, understand (comprehend), and apply information. Then they need to assemble (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) this information into a framework that provides them with the wisdom to make an accurate discernment. Wonderama’s original goals dealt with the knowledge and understanding part of the discernment process. Now we are developing methods to help students develop the skills to assemble this information and use it wisely.   We have done some of the beginning research, but it is now time to study what we have found in a more formal research setting and publish the results in scientific journals. Only through this type of initiative can something “new” be put into the educational system. If you read this proposal and have any thoughts I would appreciate your input. I am looking for individuals to collaborate with, funding sources and just general critiques. The Wonderama email, phone number and address are scattered throughout this website for your use. Contact me and open a dialogue perhaps your thoughts can help our kids obtain a better education.

How do we teach discernment, the ability to take information and determine if a view is fact or fiction, true or false, accurate or misleading?

Difficult question, but after some thought I realized there was one idea I was always promoting at Wonderama’s programs, but unable to present an effective way of achieving, even though it is key to the discernment process.   That idea is the integration of different subject areas together. Math, science, history, reading, writing are important, but they become the most effective tools for adults when, we integrate them together.   Integrated they allow students to put discernment into place. Many adults compartmentalize subjects mentally, because it is how they learned to view the world when they were in school. Even in the sciences, subjects are compartmentalized. Just open a Discover magazine and there are articles on Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology and Technology. This leads to a very linear view of the world and prevents Bloom’s three higher levels from being utilized.

Yet technology has allowed Astronomy to make major discoveries, and Chemistry has enabled the analysis of Biology’s DNA in ways we never dreamed.   Ideas from all these areas filter into movies, radio, food, clothing. If we learn Biology, but have no understanding of the connections biological information has to other areas then so much is lost. Even scientists think this way, oftentimes missing out on a major connection, because they were unable to look at links outside their narrow subject.

When students take information from unrelated areas and integrate these areas together, particularly using problem solving methods, they are more likely to use Bloom’s three higher levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Wonderama used this idea in many of its classes from Shark Dissection to Chemistry in an attempt to push students into utilizing these higher levels of thinking. When we used a linear approach, as in model rocket building, we were only able to teach knowledge, comprehension, and application. I will add one last major pont here. Most students had a VERY difficult time assembling unrelated information together and would resist our attempts to teach them in these areas. This pointed out to me so clearly just how little students actually use Bloom’s higher levels in their lives. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do the thinking, it was that they had no exposure with the how and why of learning to think at higher levels.

Over the years I have seen some wonderful programs attempt to solve this issue by providing a structured curriculum. For example there is a High School chemistry program offered by the ACS that ties chemistry into the real world. Although a great program it is designed for the novice student with few chemical skills. College bound students that really need this type of knowledge never see a day of it. They are required to learn chemistry to an amazing depth, but with little cross subject integration. As I see it these types of High School classes are where the student starts down the path of specialization and scientific tunnel vision. I believe all subjects can be successfully integrated together without any loss of content.

The teachers in our schools are becoming less and less able to be generalists. The subject matter that is taught at middle school and high school is becoming deeper and teachers are able to only handle so much material. We can’t ask them to teach more. They are already maxed out. The trick to teaching the connectedness of subject matter lies in, when and how we teach students to look for these connections. This search for a system that can accomplish this objective is what we have been researching at Wonderama.

Key Elelemnts to a System

The beginning development of any system starts with looking at the parameters we need the system to fit. The main objective of this system is to develop in students a desire, need, tolerance, understanding, skill set, and knowledge base to search out and use connections between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. The system should also fit the following conditions:

1) easy to use
2) easy to learn
3) inexpensive
4) time flexible
5) work across and through many grade levels
6) utilize current school facilities
7) require little teacher or parent management
8) promote teamwork
9) excite kids to learn
10 encourage study outside of the school
11) encourage the development of writing, reading, and math skills.
12) promote and teach healthy social and moral attitudes
13) incorporate consequences as a result of action

The Solution

The one system Wonderama has adapted to accomplish the objectives listed above is roleplaying.

Ok now that I let the cat out of the bag, I need to explain the type of roleplaying of which I am talking. A common response from people when they hear the word “roleplaying” is an image of individuals taking on the “role” of some person around them. They then act out how they feel that person will behave in certain social situations. For example, a parent may take on the persona of their teenage child or a child becomes their father or mother to help each other gain an understanding of the others feelings. This helps everyone understand how the person, whose role they are imitating, feels and behaves. THIS IS NOT the type of roleplaying we are talking about. Although this type of roleplaying is very effective under certain circumstances, we are referring to a whole different system.

The system I am referring to is based on the infamous Dungeons and Dragons. Now before you throw the book at me, keep on reading and let me explain where Dungeons and Dragons came from and what it is like today.

I must diverge to another thread for a moment and point out a bit of historical irony at this point. In the 50's, 60's and 70's there was a huge tolerance for kids. Kids could go anywhere and do anything with little thought for harassment by the community. By the 80's, this tolerance was evaporating and by the end of the 90's had all but gone away. Most communities currently have laws and regulations that prevent kids from playing in the street, playgrounds or yards of their neighborhoods. Most cities even have laws forbidding the launching of model rockets !!!!!

When my kids were about 11 years old, in the 90's, they were playing cops and robbers in a forested area behind our neighborhood in East Lansing. An intolerant neighbor called the police to complain about the noise and four cops with real guns drawn snuck up on the kids and jumped out of the bushes ordering the kids to put down their weapons !!!!!! (all plastic toy guns) It is a miracle no one was shot. Thirty or forty years before, this type of incident would have never happened. The irony is how kids adapted to this intolerance. I hear many adults complain about kids watching video games. Kids watch video games because it is safer inside. If they go out they are held to so many restrictions in the neighborhoods that there is little they can play. Ultimately it is our lack of tolerance and rules that has driven kids inside to the computer and video games.

Now back from that commercial break.

 History & Development of Roleplaying

After World War II the US was a changed place. Many new technologies were developing and people were looking at the world differently. One area that changed was games and toys. The development of plastics had much to do with this. Before plastics, toy soldiers were made of lead or pewter. They were heavy, expensive and breakable. Generally the cost put them outside the reach of most kids. The introduction of plastics into the toy soldier market suddenly allowed millions of kids to possess not just one or two toy soldiers, but hundreds of toy soldiers. Now kids could have an army. This led to a change in the critical thinking skills of kids. I, like so many others, remember having armies of soldiers, and planning long complicated detail driven battles. Armies could fight on the carpeted plains of a living room floor or from couch to couch. Even a jungle of backyard grass provided an environment new to the toy soldier. This coupled with better family oriented movies and TV shows, sparked the imagination. With plastic guns and objects seen on TV kids could run through their neighborhoods playing, pretending to be FBI agents after gangsters or Davy Crocket fighting a bear. This burst of imagination and creativity changed the level of our thinking and I believe it developed unrecognized by society, the ability to manipulate facts and information differently than our parents. Is it any surprise that during this period Bloom’s Taxonomy was developed?

This new imagination and intellectual ability, of post WWII children, did have its drawback. That obstacle, that difficulty, was RULES..... yes as much as kids hate rules, a lack of them is what made these games difficult to play. If a child is playing by themself they can make the rules up in their own head, any way they choose, as they go along. However, when playing with a group of other children, it becomes difficult to decide who wins and who loses. Without rules it is all subjective, the game breaks down, and quickly ends, oftentimes with a real verbal or physical fight. As kids became adults and fighting became unacceptable (after all it is just a game). Something had to change.

When the 70's hit the time was ripe for a change from a ruleless system of chaos, to one governed by concrete rules. It had been tried in board games like Monopoly, Life and Risk with great success. If you put rules in writing then there can be no dispute, the rulebook is consulted in search of a resolution to the conflict. It is why today we have “Scrabble Dictionaries” to resolve those tricky word spelling issues . The 70's began to see the development of rules for games about war simulations. One game system that really caught peoples imagination was Dungeons and Dragons. What Dungeons and Dragons did was to take parts of the reality of our world and blend them together with the fictional realities of the “Lord of the Rings” genera of fantasy books. Dungeons and Dragons took our world and made rules for anything and everything that can happen. Our intelligence, wisdom, charisma, strength, jumping ability, running speed, walking speed, carrying ability, knowledge, clothing, food, weather, climate, environment, everything and I mean everything was converted to mathematics. Rules were written for integrating this information and abilities together.

The game also took out of the hands of the players the decisions for running the game. No longer did players have to argue about how the rules would be interpreted or when to use them . Now there became a third party a person who would “run” the game, called a Game Master (GM), making all these decisions. The players roles were changed. Instead of fighting each other, they were working together as a team fighting the “bad guys”, who now became NPC’s (non-player characters) who, when you defeated, didn’t care because he existed only in the players and GM’s imagination. Storylines were introduced into the game with players taking on the roles of a particular character in the story and involved in the development and conclusion of the story. Players were now active, in an imaginary way, in the story, making decisions they thought their characters would make. Risk became an acceptable part of the game. Here was an opportunity to take risk and see if you could be successful in a risky situation. Because the world is a seemingly random place, with events happening in unpredictable order, dice were used to imitate this randomness. Most readers use a six sided dice that looks like a cube of sugar. However through the wonder of geometry there are actually many shapes that dice can be made from, including 4 sided, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, 24, 30, and 100 sided dice. Finally, here was a game that truly challenged adults.

I must admit that initially, Dungeons and Dragons was designed, for people who liked statistics, math problem solving, puzzles, imagination, fantasy, combat and warfare.

Roleplaying Today

Since those early days Dungeons and Dragons has gone through many creative changes. Its popularity has brought forth an incredible variety of role playing games. It seems that every science fiction or fantasy movie of any notoriety releases a roleplaying game hoping to capture the excitement of the movie in a roleplaying version. Still after all these years most of the games are written to appeal to the high school and college age adult male. Some women do participate, but only about 5 - 10%, much to my disappointment. The reason such a small segment of the population (women) play the game is that the games involve a large amount of fighting which appeal to the male population. This can change.

There are so many games out there that we must consider roleplaying a type of game, a genera so to speak. One that is very popular. Dungeons and Dragons still exists, but only as one segment of a large industry. This genera of games has spun off an incredible variety of other styles and types of games, including board games, card games, computer games and miniature models. There is something for everyone. Last year I went to a five day Gaming Convention in Indianapolis for this genera. There were over 200,000 people from across the world that attended. All there to play, explore, study, and investigate the style of games that interests them.

Roleplaying's Educational Potential

The huge foundation of roleplaying games is what I started with when I began looking at adapting roleplaying for an educational purpose. The first thing I did was to see how closely roleplaying could fit my criteria listed at the beginning of this section. The brief analysis presented below showed that roleplaying fit the criteria.

Roleplaying should be:
1) easy to learn. Roleplaying straight out of the box is difficult to learn. However, the variety of games with varying mechanics demonstrates the adaptability of roleplaying. It can be simplified and made grade, subject, level appropriate.

2) easy to use. The most you need for roleplaying is paper, pencil, dice. It can be made more fun by adding accessories, like a game mat printed with a grid of 1X1 inch squares, miniatures or landscape models (think train track landscapes).

3) be inexpensive. The largest cost is the book or books, which can be used for years to come.

4) be time flexible. The game can be short as in 50 minute blocks of time or long for many hours. A storyline can develop and go on for days.

5) work across and through many grade levels. The earliest I would start roleplaying is 4th grade, after that there is no limit. The reason is the difficulty in earlier grades students have distinguishing reality from a pretend world. Kids know by 4th grade that Donald Duck is not real. There should be earlier grade level preparations for roleplaying, but these would not require additional classroom time. Their purpose to make kids aware of roleplaying as a fun activity they will be doing at a later time.

6) utilize current school facilities. The game can be set up in any classroom or room with chairs and a table.

7) require little teacher or parent management. The key to successful roleplaying is a good GM (game master). Exceptional players can be taught to run the game. However, the younger they are the more monitoring they need. Several games can be going on in one room at a time, so a teacher could take a class of 24, break it up into four groups and manage the game in that way.

8) promote teamwork. The game is designed so success can only happen if a group works together.

9) excite kids to learn. Boy does it excite. Most 4th, 5th and 6th grade students would have an easy time jumping into the game. The hormonal changes of 7th, 8th and 9th grade would require a little more care in game design. Older HS students would find it a fun and stimulating addition to classroom learning.

10) encourage study outside of the school. I believe yes. Roleplaying encourages and subtlety draws kids into the game, even outside school. Students want to be successful in roleplaying, even if it means they need to do homework outside the classroom. I have seen it change kids who hate reading into avid readers.

11) encourage the development of writing, reading, and math skills. You cannot survive in a pretend or real world without these skills. If you don’t use these skills then there are unpleasant (imaginary) consequences. Success in roleplaying requires basic skills in these areas.

12) promote and teach healthy social and moral attitudes. Yes, as it turns out evil characters don’t survive. They are thrown in jail, where there are consequences. Try to be bad, unpleasant, sour, mean, hurtful, hateful, uncaring and there are consequences.

13) Consequences. If you try something good, bad, risky, kind, there are consequences. Sometimes the results are pleasant and sometimes they aren’t. It all is up to the GM to determine. This becomes an incredible learning tool. Students can make a risky choice and see what happens.

Research into Educational Roleplaying

Next research was done with kids and adults of different ages using different styles of games. Here are some of the results.

Roleplaying works by creating a world or environment. The rules of physics, chemistry, biology must be predetermined. This is the job of the GM. The game is operated managed run by a GM. Once the GM makes the rules they should almost never alter those rules. For example, let’s create a Jurassic era world filled with dinosaurs. The small Jurassic world environment we have established is at the edge of a lake. We want to place a T-Rex looking for a meal walking along the edge of the small lake about 1000 feet long by 300 feet wide. It isn’t enough to say a T-Rex, we must establish a bit of “the life” of this dinosaur. How big is it? How old is it? How healthy is it? Is it male or female? How hungry is it? Sometimes at this point a GM might use dice to randomly establish these facts. For example, a GM might roll a 10 sided dice to determine the dinosaurs age. A 1 means a very young 1 year old juvenile, a 10 is a mature adult 10 years old. On the other hand a GM might want to place a really big mature adult at this spot and just make it 20 years old. Weight would be determined by the dinosaur’s age. A 20 year old T-Rex could weigh 8 tons. If the DM wanted to be accurate checking a book on dinosaurs would confirm the weight and make the dinosaur more believable. Then the GM must consider the lake. Is it muddy? How deep is it? Are there predators in it? What is the bottom like? .... Sandy? Rocky? Why are these facts important? Perhaps during the game the T-Rex is going to try and cross the lake. How well it can move through the water is determined by the conditions of the lake. From this small analysis it is possible to see how much work it takes to be a GM.....lots. It is also why there are so many reference books available in the roleplaying world. Lots of books make it easier to look up references. There are even complete modules available with storyline and lots of detail to allow a GM to pick up and roleplay with little prep-time.

Roleplaying in the schools would require pre-written modules. These modules would include all the facts and information necessary to run the game. Modules also allow the writers to put together the stories that meet the curriculum needs of a state. The teachers job becomes a breeze because there is little planning needed to run the module. Well planned modules could be laid out so they can be easily tweaked by teachers to more precisely fit their curriculum needs. Modules could be designed to include all the printed materials, lesson plans, homework assignments (although I would not call them that), and test materials. Students would be talking about modules for weeks to come, so it would be necessary to make small changes each year to keep the module fresh for incoming students that heard, “last years story”. So much excitement and learning, yet not much work for teachers.

Because any scenario is possible, this allows the creation of a scenario to fit the educational and curriculum needs of a group of students. Let me continue with my example to demonstrate this. Next we need to create the character the students will be playing. There are six students playing animals that are the T-Rex’s prey. OK now here we have a problem. There are differences between girls and boys. Most boys like violence and most girls do not. So how do you have a game where both can be happy. The solution is that the GM knows in advance that the T-Rex will not attack the players animals. Why? Because they are the healthiest and strongest animals in the herd. Instead the T-Rex will attack one of 5 other animals. Each of these animals has a weakness. One is a juvenile, one is an old adult, one is sick, one has a leg that was injured and is healing, but it has a limp. The last one was born with a deformity. Its back legs are longer than the rest of the herds. It can’t move as fast, but it can reach higher into the trees when it stands on its back legs (a bit of evolution at work?). The balance of girls and boys happens because it is a fight (boy thing), but it is a herd of herbivores, so attacking the T-Rex is not a healthy thing to do. Instead it will take thinking skills to resolve this attack and this is what most girls like.

The herbivore herd animals that represent the student player characters will be all have the same traits and skills. Students at lower grade levels work best if they are all treated equally. High School students are capable of having animals with varying skills, although for this story it is not necessary. Herbivore traits would include size, weight, color, running speed, walking speed, intelligence, dexterity, smell, sight, hearing, taste, hunger/thirst level, fear level, herding factor, strength, defensive abilities, vocalization, and communication ability. Students understand these skills much better than adults, since they are found in computer games. Students use these skills as a basis for making their decisions. For example, an animal with a low intelligence but high smell, will smell something from far away, but have a more difficult time deciding how to react to the smell. Attaching numbers to these skills forces students (willingly) to react within the limits of how the animal might. Again I cannot emphasize enough how much students through computers are attuned to skill based numbers. It is the teachers that will need training in using these numbers, not the students.

At the start of the scene the herd has just stepped from the jungle to the lake edge to get a drink. This is unfamiliar territory. The herd members don’t know what is at or around the lake.

The T-Rex is at the lake because it smelled the herd from a number of miles away. The wind was blowing towards T-Rex, so it smelled the herd not the herd smelling T-Rex. When it detected the herd coming to the lake, it carefully backs into the jungle and waits hiding. What T-Rex doesn’t know is that by luck it backed into plant foliage that the herd loves to eat.

So now the action moves to the herd members. Each student is given a turn to act. Their place in the order is determined by a roll of the dice. A student may move or do nothing. It all depends on how the student feels about their character. The choice is their’s. The herd animals must decide what they can do . Each animal can act independently, or they can communicate using cards with simple words on them like eat, look, run, danger, drink, move, etc. Talking out situations is not allowed because the herd doesn’t have those kind of thinking skills. However, student players can combine words together like “look danger”, or “move drink”. The students take action, probably drinking since they are thirsty when they see the water. Each student can only move their animal as far as the movement rate will allow them. They could run to the water, but then they lose their ability to sense the environment. All animals have skills that they use with a dice to see or hear or sense something. This herd can’t see very well, but they can smell and hear. Eventually students will see the food on the other side of the lake and probably decide to go over for a snack. If they won’t then one of the sick or hurt animals will move based on the GM’s feelings. Again the herd can follow or stay. Eventually (hopefully) the T-Rex will jump from the bushes and go after one of the sickly animals. Now all animals must try and make an escape, or fight if they can. The animals have certain moves and speed and will need to each decide where to go to get away. With some dice rolls and a little luck, the students will escape. However, the odds are good that a sick animal has been caught. Although what makes the game interesting is the almost unlimited choices students have when reacting. A GM never knows what to expect from players. For example, usually the herd may choose to run from T-Rex. If an individual animal decides to fight T-Rex it will lose. However, let’s say some clever student decides to combine the words, “run water” and send them to the herd. If herd runs in water, T-Rex may follow. If the student then says words, “fight enemy” to herd, the herd may turn on T-Tex which loses much maneuverability in the water. The herd may possibly defeat T-Rex. It is this creative problem solving, teamwork, skill use, higher level thinking skills that makes roleplaying so successful educationally. This is the end of the game...... for the day.

Excited Students

However, the lesson has only begun. Now that the students are excited, like they just came from an adventure movie, they are much more likely to journal, answer questions, remember facts, do math, and most importantly enjoy learning. However, for those skeptical about what students can learn that they couldn’t learn in a regular classroom let me list the following. The basic information on the difference between herds and carnivores can be deeply explored. The limitations of size. Team work in a herd, helps the herd survive. The plants and animals of the Jurassic Era can be explored. Relationships between animals, plants, and environment. Plus overpopulation, overgrazing, and species extinction are just a few of the ideas of a biological nature. There are many other areas learning that are used. Mathematics in dice rolls are essential. I have seen students in 8th grade still counting on their fingers. Suddenly they are adding numbers on dice and need to be able to leave their fingers behind and move into the confidence of counting in their head. I have already mentioned reading skills, but interpreting graphs, data, ratios, matrix’s, geometry an a myriad of other math skills are all used in roleplaying. I could fill pages with examples of educational uses, but I guess the only thing I can say is the sky is the limit. There are also the social skills students use during roleplaying from cooperative teamwork, to problem solving, creative thinking and more.

Roleplaying is not a perfect world. There are a number of pitfalls that teachers would need to watch out for. First never place the students in the town they live. If the scenario is to “real” it can create behavior problems in students who have had difficulties in their lives. In other words it may dredge up the past. Fictional places and people keep the unhappy memories away. It can be therapeutic allowing students to gain self esteem, communication skills, team skills, overcome shyness and learn to take risk and the results of bad decisions, but caution should be paid to the troubled students. Often perhaps even usually in a classroom, boys can dominate a situation, by being more aggressive that the girls, or one child can take control because they are more outgoing that a shy student. This can also occur in roleplaying. The game is designed to keep this to a minimum, but only if a GM uses and enforces the rules that keep one person from dominating.

Key Educational Elements (Bloom’s Taxonomy) in roleplaying

1) Knowledge - Obtaining knowledge is essential to playing the game. Students don’t mind learning when it is presented in a format that they enjoy. Computer games force students to learn complicated systems and huge amounts of fictional knowledge to even get through the beginning levels. Students do this willingly because the game uses their learning style. Roleplaying when designed properly can also stimulate the same desire for learning.

2) Comprehension - It isn’t enough in roleplaying for students to know information they must comprehend the information to move onto step three below.

3) Application - Taking information and using it for a particular purpose is an essential part of roleplaying. For example, students must use their herd animals skills at sight, smell, taste, hearing to gather information on the environment, then use this information to produce a picture of the situation they are in.

4) Analysis - Having the information is only part of the process towards success. Students must now compare information form various categories to move towards making a decision or taking an action.

5) Synthesis - This step actually requires students to prepare a plan and take action .

6) Evaluation - Finally the results of one’s decisions must be evaluated. Even if it is happening quickly in game time. The more students use this skill the better at it they become and the faster and more confident are their decisions and evaluations.

Conclusion

It would take a book to describe the details of roleplaying’s use in education. I feel roleplaying is a new and exciting method of teaching. It is the future of education. To use a coined phrase from Star Trek, “it is uncharted territory.” The newness of roleplaying can generate both excitement and fear in people. I lean towards the excitement end of this new idea because of the incredible educational opportunities that lie with the implementation of this teaching style. Roleplaying was not possible 50 years ago. Today with computers a major component of our society, the task of generating successful roleplaying games becomes very real. Whether we embrace this idea now or in 30 years, it will one day become part of our educational system.

The reader may wonder why I am so excited about roleplaying. I guess as a way of explaining I would say that my excitement comes from the positive changes I have seen come about in kids that have participated in roleplaying. Kids who hate school, kids who like school, jocks, nerds, go through a mental change. Roleplaying allows students to do the one thing in life that they most wanted ....... to make their own decisions, control their destiny, find out what happens when they make choices. With no parent or teacher hovering over their shoulders judging them, telling what and how to do something, kids can synthesize, evaluate and analyze information on their world. Roleplaying seems to empower students to learn their way, in their style and at their pace.

I admit we are a long way towards using roleplaying on a regular basis in the schools. The barrier is not the kids. It is teachers and administrators who are reluctant to change a comfortable system. Yet change will come. The fall of traditional educational teaching styles is inevitable. If America is not willing to change then other countries will change first and America will become a second rate power. If America wants to stay number one then we must ALL work towards growth through change. Roleplaying can provide our nation with the leverage to stay number one.