My Professional Goal
When I think of a game, I picture humans around a table, with cards, a board, dice, pawns, and popcorn. Because this is my happy place, and because this is an effective way to keep children sharing and interacting while learning, I've only ever made table games, not digital games. I am all for digital games, and there are many out there that are absolutely awesome, but I don’t have experience making them.
After having made many science, math, and social studies table games, projects, and investigations as full time teacher, I’ve realized that I most enjoy making the games, projects, and investigations. I love the students, but it's much more fun to learn with them this way.
My goal is to continue my career as a full time educational creator, whether I'm teaching full time or something else.
Educational Philosophy and Games
Even during my teaching training, I was interested in making classroom games. My advisor had the book City Planning: The Games of Human Settlement, by Forrest Wilson, which I borrowed, and made an entire physical board game, complete with dice, paper money, and pawns. I still have the game, and I remain very proud of it, but I’ve never been able to play it with anyone. A continuing project, I guess. If you know anyone who wants a board game to teach about how ‘civilization’ advanced, let me know.
As I matured as a teacher, I have been more and more attracted to games, projects, and investigations as teaching tools, for a few good reasons.
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Children approach these activities with enthusiasm: they expect to have fun, to be able to collaborate and just hang out with friends, and to not feel classroom performance anxiety.
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Engaged and relaxed children are more able to focus.
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Learning how to play a game together is an object lesson in social-emotional learning.
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Most children understand the structure and pace of games, which helps them feel safe taking other risks while playing.
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The children absorb the content effortlessly. For example, while playing in the Fantasy Snowfall League, they were rattling off names like Helsinki, Sapporo, and Caribou as if they were actually Pokemon. And, they argue happily over whether the Nutrition token can go straight to the intestines or if it has to pass through the heart first.
And if those seem like minor victories, imagine that for the rest of their lives, they associate those places with snowfall, which places the cities geographically, tells you something about their culture, and gives the kids a friendly connection to that city (Hey, I had them as a Pokemon!). When they hear about someone with a problem in their digestive system, they'll remember where the organs are because of our game board. They'll remember all this because they played the game and cared about it.
Personal
For 13 years, I lived in central Maine with my twin children, my mother, and my kids’ pets. When I walked the dog at night down to the cow pasture at the end of our block, I could see all the stars.
My kids spent most of their childhood in Teaneck, NJ, and I taught mostly in the Bronx. We moved to Maine as they entered 6th grade. They are now (almost) done with college, we are all more free to choose our own paths. In other words, none of us know right now where we’ll end up in the future, but we’re open to opportunities.
Last year, my mom and I moved to Hyde Park, Chicago, where we can be with my daughter as she begins her life here. I am hopeful my son joins us, but they do make their own decisions.
As a family, we have played and made many games. The kids and I made Cooke Monopoly for the grandparents, using people and places from their childhood, complete with a Sculpey token for each of us. I’ve found that in playing any game, I’m more interested in the game being fair and us all enjoying it. I don’t care much about winning the games. It makes my students nuts that I have never even tried to get to the End in Minecraft. And, I am happy to break rules in the name of cooperation and community.
My hobbies include reading, playing games, walking the dog, and laundry. I have in my life been an avid lap swimmer, hiker, camper, gardener, softball player, photographer, kayaker, knitter, sewer (one who sews), and very amateur carpenter. I'm interested in everything and often find myself reading about random ideas because of a crossword clue half an hour ago.
I’m very quiet in my personal life: I sometimes go to the movies with my son and on walks with my daughter, our family sometimes visits across country with my parents, but mostly I stay home and work and enjoy the dog and the stars. I even use social media as a lurker. I have been enjoying this quiet for a long time now, though, and I think I’d like to move back to a busier part of the world. Let’s see what happens.