The Game School

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Mission
The Game School, scheduled to open in Fall 2009 with a 6th grade class, is being designed around the principles of game-like learning in support of current standards and new 21st century literacies. Attention to students’ development of core and civic competencies will take place through a deep and iterative engagement with not only subject matter but also with student, teacher and community identity. Students learn to reflect on and act within feedback loops connecting school and life systems drawn from the social, technological, and natural worlds they inhabit. In a school spanning the 6th -12th grades, each year is being designed as an immersive exploration of learning itself, supported by work with games, game design, simulations, and models as intensely iterative, rigorous, and innovative learning tools. Pedagogical emphasis is on design and systems thinking, engagement within social/ cultural/ natural worlds, and the reproduction of culture through technology, both old and new.

Core Beliefs
“Everything I do in school connects to my life outside of school through a game design and systems perspective.

“School is a practice space where life systems I inhabit (technological, socio-cultural, nature) are modeled, taken apart, re-engineered, and gamed as a way to build understandings for action.”

"Being Me: I am a writer, designer, reader, producer, teacher, student, gamer.”

Pedagogical stance
--Prototyping and iteration
--Managing and reflecting on one’s identities
--Building feedback loops connection school and life systems
--Engaging games and their design