Game: "the American Un-Dream"

The American Dream: if you work hard enough, you'll succeed.

Do you believe this?  Many people do.

Too bad it's not true.

Let's look at 6 obstacles that can get in the way of success, assuming you work hard:

1. RACE: if you're anything but Caucasian
2. GENDER: if you're not male
3. MONEY: if you don't have enough
4. FAMILY: if you don't have support or the "right" connections; G-d forbid if you're abused
5. ABILITY: if you're mentally or physically disabled, or if you haven't had enough education or the "right" education
6. VALUES: if your values aren't compatible with those who decide if you succeed or not

This is one reason why, for example, Obama's success doesn't mean that all African-Americans have the same chances of success: most don't have access to the opportunities he had because he was actually raised in a White family.

Game:
Roll the dice.  Whatever number you get, see if you can think of a successful person with that many handicaps. 
For example: If you roll a 4, think of someone who is African-American, a woman, in a wheelchair and poor who has achieved financial success. 

The higher the number, the more difficult. 

And that is why the American Dream isn't true.

Word monster: reading game for a 3 year old

Take two A4 papers.  Tape them together along the sides so that the one in back is a little higher than the one in front.  Draw a monster so that the big mouth is on the opening.

Make small cards with names of people and other words your child knows. 

Say a word and have her find the card and "feed" it to the monster.

After "eating" 3-4 words, the monster has to poop them back into the box.  Only naughty monsters poop directly onto the table!

If the word is wrong, the monster throws up dramatically.

 

Game: Food Inc.

Food Inc. is a powerful movie describing everything you never wanted to know about where our food really comes from.
Michael Pollan, in his brilliant bestseller "The Omnivore's Dilemma", described exactly how ubiquitous is our friend, corn: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is in everything from ketchup to Coke; cattle, who are ruminants and should only eat grass, are corn-fed (sounds wholesome, doesn't it?); ethanol, a corn sugar, is made into gasoline, and the list goes on.  In fact he describes a McDonald's meal this way:
"This is how the laboratory measured our meal: soda (100% corn), milk shake (78%), salad dressing (65%), chicken nuggets (56%), cheeseburger (52%), and French fries (23%). What in the eyes of the omnivore looks like a meal of impressive variety turns out, when viewed through the eyes of the mass spectrometer, to be the meal of a far more specialized kind of eater"
Disturbing, isn't it?

Supersize Me is a film by Morgan Spurlock in which he documents his experiment with an only-McDonald's diet for a month.  At the beginning of the month, he is tested by doctors and is certified a slim, healthy man.  By the end of the month he is near death.

I wanted the students to go on a journey from corn to hospital following four different routes: HFCS, beef, pork and tomatoes.  I designed a board game where each of the four players starts out as an ear of corn.  Then each one follows a different path: HFCS, cow feed, pig feed, transportation and refrigeration for tomatoes.  Along each path are cards that you can pick up to find the story. 
All paths lead to the hospital where you select a card.  If you're lucky, you survive.  If not, you die of diabetes, heart disease, cancer or E coli.

Games: effort, luck and hindrance

Psychology students are doing a unit on how to deal with special needs children inside a regular class.

One of the biggest problems people of all abilities and disabilities seem to have is confusing luck, effort and hindrance.

For instance:
"The teacher gave me an F on my exam."  This kid sees the teacher as a hindrance, but it's up to the student herself to put in the effort.

For instance:
"I couldn't be bothered doing the reading."  This kid may have a learning difficulty such as dyslexia, but covers it up as a lack of effort.

For instance:
"My teachers say I'm just lazy."  Maybe this student does try but needs extra help.  The teachers are hurting, and hindering him, by saying this.

Here are three short games to help students identify the problem and one longer task to reflect on it.

1.  All of the students are given the same text to read and questions to answer.  Some students have some of the text blacked out so that they have a harder time reading.  The first student to answer the questions correctly wins a candy. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

2. A running race: the winner gets candy.  However, some of the students have their legs tied.  Some of the remaining students are told they must hold the hands of the ones who have their legs tied.  Only the students who are untied and free to run will win. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

3.  Students are given pennies to count.  The student with the highest total wins the candy.  Some students have 23 pennies, some have 24, and some have 25, but only one has 26. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

4.  Each student is given a card with a specific disability written on it (dyslexia, wheelchair-bound, asperger's, even genius).  They are asked to research their "character" and write a journal in which they react to receiving an F on a test.  They deliberately misattribute their failures to luck, effort or hindrance.  They then exchange journals and try to point out the error of their thinking.

action research vs case studies

ATTENTION ALL ACTION RESEARCHERS

The mission: to journey through the literature until you find at least 10 good sources that will start you on the road to your research project. 

The dangers: how do you find "good" sources?  How do you decide if they're what you're looking for?

The challenge: to journal your research journey and reflect not only on what you find but also on how you go about finding it.

BUT BEWARE
You have a case study researcher on your tail who wants to analyse how you do research.  Will you help her?  Or won't you?...

Game: research philosophies

How do you make a game out of research philosophies?

Give students the following words each on separate cards.

positivism
objective
reliable
generalisable
interpretivism
understanding
specific
interpretive
critical theory
critical
practical
emancipatory
discourse analysis
language
values
assumptions

Can they categorise them correctly and win the coffee?

Kids, courting

Read Kids, Courting, an article by Joe Fiorito in his collection entitled, "Tango on the Main".  This is a girl who is trying very hard to be rebellious and is almost succeeding.  She's 15 and has already been arrested for theft.  She smokes and scrawls swear words on her backpack.  She uses stolen dye to color her hair blond and purple and her roots are an inch long. The story opens on her flirting in a subway car with a couple of teenage boys who are wowed by her attitude.
Contrast this with the heartbreaking fictional stories written by my students about homeless children. 

The game:
A silent dialogue on a piece of paper passed back and forth between a homeless child and the girl in the story.  The child needs to convince the girl to go straight.  She probably won't.

Logic: the game

It's often easier to understand logic by noting its absence.
All men are mortal.
Socrates was a man.
Ergo, Socreates was mortal.

That's a fairly simple and obvious syllogism.  But what about this one:

Everything that is rare is expensive.
Cheap horses are rare.
Ergo, cheap horses are expensive.

The game of logic then is to teach a particular logical concept, then have students create examples where they flout the rule and see if their classmates can spot the mistake.

Homeless in Nepal and Ecuador

My students played my homeless child game:

A) Listen to Cardboard Box City by the Levellers: what’s the song about?

Choose one of the following songs:

·         “Rosemary” by Lenny Kravitz

·         “Nobody’s Home” by Avril Lavigne

·         “Little Miss S.” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

Listen to the song and follow the lyrics (you can find both on the internet).  Answer the following questions:

1.            How old do you think the girl in the song is?

2.            What do you know about her life from the song?

3.            What advice does the singer give her?

Talk to students who chose the other two songs and discuss the different stories.  Note down similarities and differences.

 

B) Cut up the following cards and place them face down on the desk.

 

FOUND AN OLD FOOTBALL- PLAYED FOR AN HOUR – WE WON!	SOMEONE DROPPED A CELL PHONE – SOLD IT TO A GUY FOR $25	SAT OUTSIDE A BAKERY- RICH TOURIST BOUGHT ME CHOCOLATE CAKE
FALL FACE DOWN IN MUD- EVERYONE LAUGHED	COLD – SLEPT IN DOG HOUE IN RICH NEIGHBORHOOD	WATCHED JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME MOVIE THROUGH WINDOW OF ELECTRONICS STORE
BIG KID JOE BEAT ME UP	GUARDS THREW ME OUT OF MALL – COLD	BIG KID JOE STOLE OLD LADY’S PURSE – SHE THOGUHT IT WAS ME – HAD TO RUN
FOUND FRENCH FRIES IN GARBAGE CAN	STOLE GLUE FROM STATIONERY STORE – SNIFFED FOR AN HOUR –FEELS GOOD	FELL ASLEEP IN PARK – SOMEONE STOLE MY SHOES
BEGGED IN FRONT OF CHURCH – GOT $6.32	DOG TREED ME FOR 2 HOURS	WAS LOOKING IN CAR WINDOW-FELT COP HIT ME ON HEAD WITH NIGHTSTICK
WON CONTEST WITH CAB DRIVER TO SEE WHO COULD PEE FURTHEST- HE BOUGHT ME A BURGER	SAW DRUNK SLEEPING IN PARK – STOLE HIS JACKET AND HAT	PASSED A SCHOOL – KIDS COMING OUT IN NICE CLOTHES – I HATE THEM
STOOD OUTSIDE RESTAURANT LOOKING IN – NEVER HAD ICE-CREAM BEFORE	STOLE A COLA FROM A STORE – OPENED CAP AND WON A FREE ONE	WON $4 FROM BIG KID JOE ‘CAUSE MY FOOTBALL TEAM BEAT HIS
FELL ASLEEP IN PARK – BIRD POO ON MY FACE	THIRSTY – FOUND ½ BOTTLE OF WATER IN GARBAGE – WIPED OFF LIPSTICK MARKS	STOLE BUSINESSMAN’S WALLET ON BUS - $75

 

With a partner, take turns choosing a card.  Decide if the event described is a happy one or an unhappy one from the point of view of a homeless child using the following scale:

 

 

-3            -2            -1            0             +1           +2           +3

 

Then add up your score.  Which child had a better day?

 

C)  Think of events that might happen in a day in the life of a homeless child.  You can use ideas from the cards above or invent your own.  Imagine the order in which they happened during the day.  Write each event next to the times below:

 

·         6:00am:

·         8:00am:

·         10:00am:

·         12:00pm:

·         2:00pm:

·         4:00pm:

·         5:00pm:

·         7:00pm:

·         10:00pm:

·         12:00am:

 

A)      Using the timetable you created above, write a story about a typical day in the life of a homeless child.  Write the story in the first person, for example “This morning I woke up under a bridge”.  Start by explaining where, when and why the character woke up, and end with where he or she goes to sleep.  Include details about the character’s family and/or friends in your narrative.

B)        Read your classmates’ stories.  Write in your journal how you felt after reading them.  Do you have any ideas for ways to help the homeless?

 

EXPLANATION OF METHODOLOGY

A) The lyrics to the songs can all be found online at http://www.lyrics.com/ or any other lyrics website.

·         “Rosemary” is about an abandoned child in bare feet and a tattered dress.  The singer tells her not to lose her faith in Christ.

·         “Nobody’s Home” is about a teenager living on the streets. The singer’s advice is “Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why you've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind. Be strong, be strong now.”

·         “Little Miss S.” is about a teenage drug addict who sleeps with a lot of different boys who don’t care about her.  The singer says “You got a lot of livin' to do without life” which means that she’s trying to make decisions too quickly without waiting for wisdom and experience to guide her.

A)      This task can lead to some interesting discussions.  Sniffing glue, for instance, is a terrible thing to do, but perhaps for a homeless child, it ranks as one of the best parts of the day.  The interesting part is deciding which values are universal and which only apply if one is well-fed and otherwise safe and cared for.

B)       This step is important in order to plan out the structure of the narrative.

C)       The length of the narrative can be set by the teacher.  Writing in the first person helps to make the story more poignant.  Impose any additional requirements of grammar and vocabulary you wish, but in this case, the main aim is to stir the emotions of the reader.

D)      Students will find each others’ stories more or less impacting, so the aim in writing (step D) is to make the story as emotionally powerful as possible.  Humor is also an emotion and may serve to make the more tragic points of the story stand out.  The students can therefore document how each story made them feel in their journal.

Final note: bind the stories together as a book and "sell" them to the next level down to illustrate.  The money goes to Nepal or Un Techo Para Mi Pais in Ecuador

Ancient Egypt museum game

How to turn boring powerpoints for a university course on Ancient Egypt into a learning experience:

Send the students the powerpoints and have each group create a museum of pictures, journal exerpts and "newspaper articles". 

BUT each exhibit has x number of errors: can the visitors spot them? (the "visitors" are, of course, classmates or other classes)

Quest of a slave woman

 A game for two players using the texts from http://spartacus-educational.com/USAslavery.htm as non-player characters.

You are an escaped slave.  You have a bounty hunter trying to find you.    Roll the dice with the bounty hunter; if you get the same number, he will catch you and drag you back to the plantation where you will be punished.  If this happens twice, the second time you will be executed.  If you roll different numbers, pick up the next card and continue.	You are a bounty hunter.  You are chasing an escaped slave.    Roll the dice with the slave; if you get the same number, you can catch her and drag her back to the plantation where she will be punished.   If this happens twice, the second time she will be executed.   If you roll different numbers, pick up the next card and continue.
You have two goals: Your first goal is to find out what happened to your four children who were sold from you about 10 years ago.  You need to find them before the bounty hunter does.   Your second goal is to take notes for an autobiography you want to write to expose the injustice and cruelty of the slave system.  Start by describing your life as a house slave.  Post it.   Note: Be aware that the bounty hunter might read what you write: it’s important to tell the truth but you might want to change some details to throw him off.   Also, you do not have time to write very much, maximum 100 words per note.	You have two goals: Your first goal is to capture the slave, but ideally you also want to capture her children whom you know were sold away at auction about 10 years ago.  You need to find them before the slave does.   Your second goal is to keep notes of what you find out for the investors who are supporting you.  Start by explaining the laws that allow you to catch runaway slaves.  Post it.   Note: Be aware that the slave might read what you write: it’s important to tell the truth but you might want to change some details to throw her off.   Also, you do not have time to write very much, maximum 100 words per note.
You think one of your daughters may have died as a field slave. Ask Mary Prince OR Henry Box Brown how your daughter may have died.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you are not captured you may continue to search for your other three children.	You think one of her daughters may have died as a field slave. Ask Moses Grandy OR Elizabeth Keckley how she might have died.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you do not capture the slave you may continue to search for her other three children.
You’ve heard of the Underground Railroad.  You aren’t quite sure what it is, but you have information that one of your sons may have escaped north that way.   Ask Harriet Tubman OR Sojourner Truth what she knows about the Underground Railroad.  Take notes and post them.     Roll the dice and if you are not captured you may continue to search for your other two children.	You’ve heard of the Underground Railroad.  You aren’t quite sure what it is, but you have information that one of the slave’s sons may have escaped north that way.   Ask Harriet Tubman OR Sojourner Truth what she knows about the Underground Railroad.  Take notes and post them.     Roll the dice and if you do not capture the slave you may continue to search for her other two children.
Some slaves revolted.  You think one of your sons may have participated in one.    Ask Nat Turner about his rebellion.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you are not captured you may continue to search for your last child.	Some slaves revolted.  You think one of her sons may have participated in one.   Ask John Brown about his rebellion.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you do not capture the slave you may continue to search for her last child.
You know that your youngest daughter has been working with both abolitionists and feminists.   Ask Angelina Grimke OR  Harriet Beecher Stowe about the suffrage movement.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you are not captured you may continue and check your answers.	You know that your youngest daughter has been working with both abolitionists and feminists.   Ask Henry David Thoreau OR Lucretia Mott their opinion of slavery.  Take notes and post them.   Roll the dice and if you do not capture the slave you may continue and check your answers.
Your first daughter probably died from a whipping. The second child, your son, probably escaped along with hundreds of others along the Underground Railway to the North and to freedom. Your third son was probably executed after participating in a rebellion. Your youngest daughter is probably alive and working for pay in the household of one of the suffragettes.   You have lost two children, but your two living children are safe and cannot be captured by the bounty hunter.   Roll the dice one last time.  If you escape you may go free.	Her first daughter probably died from a whipping. The second child, her son, probably escaped along with hundreds of others along the Underground Railway to the North and to freedom. Her third son was probably executed after participating in a rebellion. Her youngest daughter is probably alive and working for pay in the household of one of the suffragettes.   You cannot capture any of the slave’s children and your investors have pulled out.  Roll the dice one last time.  If you do not capture her, leave her alone and pursue someone else.

 

Snap: researchers vs dull normals

Where do researchers get their questions?
Educational researchers have it easy: we've all been more or less educated.  So we played "age snap": snap with numbers from 6-17.  If you both turn over the same card, you talk about your school experiences at that age.

Results:

• There seemed to be a lot of trauma in the shift between primary and high school.
• When you're in primary school, the teacher is everything; when you're in high school it's all about your peers.
• A bad teacher can ruin a subject forever.
• "Hands-on" is hands-down better than lectures.

What research questions do these findings inspire?

Media: the counter-narrative

The narrative: "News: everything you need to know".
The counter narrative: "...and everything you don't".

We started with the Seinfeld episode "The Outing" in which a journalist publishes an article saying that the comedian is gay, which of course flips his life upside down.

We then read texts describing how people get hounded by the media, so we played "phototag": take as many candid photos of your classmates as possible while trying not to get photographed yourself.  These were posted on our private FB group which allowed students to comment on the photos using the grammar and vocabulary.  This was quite successful and they wrote some pretty cool sentences.

The next activity was theoretically good, but for some reason, it didn't seem to work quite as I hoped: they had to interview each other with the following caveats:

• Interviewer's aim: to find out as much personal information as possible about their partner
• Interviewee's aim: to reveal as little personal information as possible and only talk about their academic career.

The students didn't seem to get the game though and cheerfully told each other all about their girlfreinds/boyfriends and pets.  Maybe my instructions wree wrong.

Now they have to write a summary of the interview along with 2 invented "facts" and post it.  They then have to go onlinbe and correct what was written about them.