So I recently just attended an Entirely Fictional conference called that explores the contentious realm of books and learning.  This field is attempting to tease out how one might possibly learn something from a media as engrossing and entertaining as a book. Over the last few years it  has ignited a whole realm of research, interest, and controversy. However, there are still quite a few people that are slowly unpacking their own biases about how media works. It’s slow going. For example, here are some of the sessions I attended:

“Book Learning: An Oxymoron?”

In this session the presenter explored how one might learn while reading a book that you would enjoy. Since obviously any pleasure derived from the act of reading must clearly not be on-task and non-standards-aligned, this presenter had the cunning idea of pasting multiple choice quizzes onto pages near the end of each chapter. In this way, we can get that critical “just in time” assessment integrated into the reading experience without worrying about whether or not the reader is perhaps not reading the correct sentences or deriving the expected meaning from the material. Fascinating!

“Pages…of Terror? “

In this session, the dangers of violence in books is explored, with some worrisome new findings. It turns out, not only can books contain disturbing depictions of sex and violence, but THE BOOKS THEMSELVES can immediately be used as weapons, if the child’s book-infused bloodlust demands instant rage and retribution. While of course several books with intense violence are considered works of art, and everyone present at the conference agreed they were intelligent enough to parse them without punching or stabbing someone immediately afterwards, new technologies like foam wrappers for book spines and printing books on spongy pieces of bread were discussed, shown, and ultimately eaten.

Intermission

In the break between sessions, I ran into a researcher who was very excited about books and learning. The oddest thing about it though, was that he’d never actually read a book themself. “My son reads books though. Loves them. I saw him reading just the other day, and he was having a great time. When I was younger, I looked at some pamphlets, but obviously books have gotten more sophisticated now, and I just didn’t keep up.” I thought it odd that someone who intended to study the media didn’t even have a passing literacy, but hey: who am I to judge? To be frank I’m just glad they’re here.

“The End of Language As We Know It”

This presenter was extremely anxious about the anti-social implications of books as a media, and felt they had no place in schools. “Books will be the death of spoken language. With the efficiency of storing words on pages, and with authors able to craft word-based experiences vastly more compelling than your nearby friends own off-the-cuff oratories, we’ll soon see people stop talking to each other altogether. Children will no longer form sentences themselves, and will simply refer to passages from books they’ve read to convey meaning to each other in some kind of atrocious shorthand language that I’ll never figure out. Books? Not on my watch!”

At this point, the presenter was visibly shaking, and I ducked out.

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This post is not an accurate reflection of where the contemporary field of games and learning is, but I’m constantly on the lookout for for the shreds of these sentiments. Overall I’d love it if everyone who loved games and learning started with a love of both…games…and learning…but there are still people who see games as a simple gimmick or shallow receptacle that can be used to help swallow the bitter pill of conventional teaching. We have a long way to go and many, many more games to make before we’ll see learning games as a normal, healthy part of instructional media, but the sooner we can get people to accept that games as a media, art, and fundamentally unique way to express information, the sooner we’ll let our children learn in a richer, better world.