What I Have Learned From Shaun White

After a semester of trying to get better at playing a video game (Shaun White's Snowboarding Road Trip), I have to honestly say that I am still bad at it. I know that my performance is not because I have not tried, but I believe that it is because of my attitude toward playing. I am content with not completing the game and not having the highest scores. I am proud of myself for just improving my personal records and that gives me satisfaction. Playing the game took up so much of my time, so I chose not play every day. Even if I did play every day, I still don't think that I would have completed the game.

My experiences with this game have made me think about the learning process, and about myself. I know that in life I don't like doing things that I am not good at, and I think that playing video games fit into that category for me. I struggled with learning the different skills necessary to do well with in the game, so it wasn't always enjoyable for me. There were many nights when I played for over an hour and still didn't score what I needed to move on. I would not stop playing until I improved my score, but I didn’t enjoy wasting my night away doing something that I was bad at. In order to try to improve I read the manual and I watched others play, but in a game like Wii, you need to physically do the actions, so my attempts at "studying" were unsuccessful.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I wondered that if we were being graded on our progress and accomplishments in the game, would I have done better? I really think that I would have. I am definitely the type of student who is ok with not being the best, as long as I know that I have tried my best, but when a grade is involved things change. If I had to grade my performance in Shaun White’s Snowboarding, I think that I would have earned a “C+”, and the “+” would only be for effort. If that was going to be my grade for this project, I would be so upset. I don’t think that I would have let that happen, so maybe I would have stayed up late every night practicing. Maybe I would have put off the other responsibilities that I have to make sure that I did what was necessary to get a better grade.

Is doing whatever is necessary to get an “A” worth sacrificing for? I don’t know the answer to that. Is learning about getting good grades, or is it about what you have actually learned? In school, do students only work hard to get good grades, and is that why some students (who do not care about their grades) do not work at all? I have enjoyed my experiences learning how to play this game, and I have learned, isn’t that what matters? I just have to keep practicing in order to improve. Every student learns at his/her own pace. Obviously a semester was not enough time for me; someone who has not played video games since high school, and who had never even tried playing this game until the beginning of the semester. What does that tell us about how we treat students in school? We often don’t take into consideration the fact that some students need more time and more attention to learn something. If they do not learn it they get a bad grade and we move on without them ever having learned the material. We do it every day, but that is definitely not right.

This experience has also helped me realize that students spend more time doing the things that they enjoy. If I really liked playing video games, I would have gotten better at it. I think that I like writing and talking about playing more than I like playing the game. Some students might agree with me, others would probably laugh at me. We all learn differently and enjoy learning in different ways and by doing different things. I think that is what I learned most from this project. My students would love it if I brought games into the classroom. However, I already had a student tell me that the games we play, like Jeopardy type review games, are not fun games and that those don’t count.

Now I am going to try to find computer games that involve American History, are age appropriate for high school students, don’t take too long to play, and can be used as valuable instructional tools. I have searched, and so far I have been unsuccessful. I don’t know why more companies do not make such games, maybe they do, and I just have not found the good ones yet. If I do introduce these “fun games” will I lose the interest of the students like myself who really don’t care to “beat the game”? Would some students play just to win, and not absorb the valuable lessons that the game is teaching? Playing Shaun White’s Snowboarding Road Trip has made me evaluate how I approach and deal with learning situations. Maybe playing games in class would help me evaluate the same things about my students.

Even though the assignment is over, I am not giving up on Shaun White. Maybe someday, and not any time soon, I will be able to say, “I beat the game”, but if not, that’s ok with me.