Did you ever see the program “Connections2” by James Burke?  Each episode would feature a meandering set of almost trivial things that brought together diverse elements from history.  He would prove that two seemingly unrelated ideas were completely dependent on each other, often in very unexpected ways. One of my favorites showed how hot pickles could be a historical starting point for the discovery and use of Neodymium lasers. This blog is a little like one of those shows.

I was working out, (Yes, mom, I do that now and then) using my new game, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012, for Kinect X-Box 360.  (As an aside, I just learned that you can totally hook up the Kinect to a computer and program it with Scratch.  Now how awesome is that? )

Anyways, I was working out, using my new X-Box game.  I was getting badges for just about everything I did.  Congratulations . . .you input your weight!  I know you are supposed to have a feeling of success and all, especially at the start, but I think sometimes you should have to put some work into it. Maybe I was missing something that would make it more motivating. And this got me thinking about teaching students how to play the recorder.

When I was teaching recorder to elementary school students, I would give them a leveled book of music. Each book was a different color.  The students would practice their music, and they would come to me.  They could try once or twice a day to “pass” their recorder test.  If they played the song correctly they would get a coloured piece of string to tie around the recorded, roughly analogous to the belts in Karate.   The idea wasn’t mine, it was from Barb Philipak.  You can actually buy belts that are pretty awesome, but I just used coloured embroidery thread.  Everyone who ever uses this program finds it highly motivating for their students.  It says so on Barb’s book.

Yet, there were some students who were not successful in this environment of testing.  They didn’t like coming for tests, and they certainly didn’t accept failure (I mean, failing isn’t fun, is it?). There was one grade four boy who reframed the whole process in a very clever way.  He said, “Treat Mr. Martin like he is the boss from “Half Life 2”

Let’s leave alone for a moment that these 9 year olds were comparing a lesson in my music class to a violent video-game taking place in an imagined brutal police state somewhere in a dystopian future. You see, if I was a video game boss, and your work on your music is a level (a chapter in Half Life 2),  then your goal is to defeat me in a Recorder Battle. That re-framing of the role of testing was magical.  I would even ham up the test, speaking in my deep evil voice, “So, young music warrior, you think you will be able to get to the next level.  Do your worst. Mwahahahahaha.”  If a student didn’t make it they would say, “Oh, man.  I will so get that note right next time, evil music boss.”  No more depression, no more being despondent, and best of all, no more giving up if it didn’t work out the first few times.

I swear, for years after that astute observation I used the metaphor in every class.  Think of me as the boss in a video game.  You might not beat me the first time, or even the first ten times.  Each time you try to beat me and don’t you will get a little bit closer to getting it right.  It worked for learning to play recorder.  It even worked for teaching Algebra!

And this reminds me of spelling.

I created an online shell for advanced spellers.  It is loosely based on the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but at its heart was just a love of words.  And some really nasty spelling tests.  Like NASTY with extra NAST.  Like syzygy or flibbertigibbet.  Like a spelling bee, you would have to spell the word even though you had probably not seen the word before.  The students that were involved in this unit enjoyed it, but they were moving through it very slowly.  So when one girl (let’s call her Mary) received a score of 100% on her “Really Hard Words with a French Origin” test I developed a cunning plan. I made a really nice webpage at the front of the unit.  It said: “Wall of Exceptional High Scores.”  Then there was a line and in really fancy letters I wrote: “Mary, Master French Etmologist, 1st Rank.” This had a very interesting effect on the little group.  First, they figured out that if they got perfect on the test they would get a title and their name on the front page.  Then they figured out that the rankings were first come first serve.  If you wanted to be 1st rank you had to be the first one to get 100%.  This little idea, stolen from games, also proved to be highly motivating.

This idea became so successful that for a few years I used it in the classroom.  You could be: Geographer and Cartographer Marty, Master of Algebra, Creator of 5 Haiku, Honoured Sink Cleaner.  You had to be really committed to cleaning a sink to get the title of Honoured Sink Cleaner, let me tell you. And, so nobody felt left out, everyone could get titles and some titles were extremely easy to earn.  I even had the title “online security specialist” for students who changed their server password at some point in the year.

This brings me to my Fitness Game, which is trying to motivate me by giving me statistics and badges and all of that good stuff, every time I take a breath.  But I need a wall of fame to share it on.  So, since I have this blog, why not share it here?

Orange Fitness level is quite an accomplishment!  It means I burned 100 calories playing a video game today!

See, I feel more motivated already. And admit it.  You kinda want to be on my wall too.

S. Martin

PS:  The game will share this information on Facebook, but it isn’t the same without the fancy text.  Which I made at Cooltext.com.