Gee Chapter 7
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In Chapter Seven, Gee’s basic argument is that learning is a community affair. That the previously dogmatic ways of “isolated learning” are outdated, and learning should be seen as more a social function. In the opening pages of chapter seven Gee describes the worlds outlined by the popular games World of WarCraft and Everquest. In both these games players function in worlds in which participants throughout the nation participate. Players from thoughout the country login, communicate, and cooperate to be as successful in the game as possible. Within the context of a video game, players create their own virtual worlds where the rules of the outside world often overlap with the playing of the game. People of all value systems and lifestyles play the game and participate. Players cooperate with one another to be as successful as possible while playing the game and depend on one another to survive. In the opening pages of the chapter, Gee sets up his argument explaining how learning is being better understood as a cooperative process. He describes a story told by a 15 year old boy named Adrian who played the game Civilization beat it, and then when into the game program and actually decoded the game. Through this manner, young kids like this boy are learning skills now that will benefit them when they get older. Gee comments that many children have already conquered skills that will need to know when trying to completed a bachelor’s degree in computer science when they go to college. Many players of World of WarCraft have decoded the game and copied it to another website where players can actually play the game for free. Gee finds that the playing video games these days is a social event, and only a small minority of students play games by themselves.
In this section Gee describes how people think in patterns. What is taught to us is taught through social persuasion. Whenever we are a member of a group, our thoughts and experiences are always manipulated to fit the context of the group we are in. The most important knowledge is distributed from one individual to another. A Groups with a common objective are referred to as “affinity groups.”And players playing “World of WarCraft” are an important affinity group where important information is shared.
In another example Gee describes a game where he was successful except for one aspect of the game: jumping. From communicating with other players he attained to account that enabled him to play the game without jumping. On a couple of occasions from attaining knowledge from other players he was able to advance and be successful where in previous years he would have gotten frustrated and given up. Instead of schools valuing how students operate within social context, schools are stuck on the old methods of learning such as how students function as an isolated individual. This does not fit in with what Gee calls “New Capitalism.” This is a new system of capitalism where knowledge is a bigger asset then assembly lines.
Schools often treat video games as a waste of time, but games are in fact conducive to “New Capitalism.” Gee describes how players are encouraged by video game companies to create their own maps for the games they play. And instead of shunning the advice of game players, video game companies are actually letting their players show them the way. For this reason the video game industry has lately been more financially successful then either the movie or television industries which both have rigid top-down approaches. Gee argues that students are often times learning more valuable skills when playing and later designing games for the world of “New Capitalism” then they do when they are in school. And that as a “producer” of new content for the video game, students actually learn far more than they would otherwise as passive participants.
