How Games Are Designed - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 226

characters we create may seem to be, they must always be constructed with the
truth of reality at their core. If our characters act in a totally incomprehensible

manner, with no handles that we human beings can grab on to, they destroy our
willing suspension of disbelief, our ability to empathize, and therefore our
interest.

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How do I reinforce this theme in the class? By the scouting expeditions where
the students must observe and interact with real people, asking students to
revisit and refine their characters the more they learn about human behavior,
and questioning how their characters react to the challenges they face in the
world. Were the decisions made by the players after the debate over giving blood
to the witch to save the snow leopard honest? Was it true to their characters? Or
must their characters be adjusted?

Let Learning to under-

stand and appreciate poetry is an essential component of a full, well-rounded
and happy life, even in a world obsessed with STEM.

' s take another class: Poetry 101. The theme might be “

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STEM

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM is an initiative
that recognizes these disciplines as core necessities for a civilization to advance.

However, the knee-jerk reaction to the United States losing ground to other
countries in these areas seems to be to concentrate solely on them, cutting
deeply into funding for the arts and humanities. The Department of Labor has
named 14 sectors projected to add substantial numbers of new jobs to the

economy or affect the growth of other industries or are being transformed by
technology and innovation requiring new sets of skills for workers.

“

� None of

them include a hint of music or literature or a foreign language.

Teachers are an endangered species who recognize utility and beauty cannot be
at war with one another, if our civilization is to truly advance. The idea of using
techniques taken from the most technology-heavy claim to art we currently
have, video games, may seem ironic, even subversive, but games and gamifica-
tion are everywhere. And they well may be the Trojan Horse that can sneak art
and humanities into the walled fortress from which they are misguidedly
excluded.