New Rule

For those who may not be familiar, Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator (early 20th century) famous for inventing the Montessori Method of education: an approach radically different from the current American accredited education system in some significant ways. I’m going to quote a bit from the Wikipedia article and make some observations about how the Montessori method is eerily similar to the thought process involved in playing (and designing) games. I would be interested in the reader community’s reactions and criticisms

A brief introduction to the pedagogy of the Method:

Among the premier contributions to educational thought by Montessori are:

• children as natural learners
• children as competent beings, encouraged to make maximal decisions
• observation of the child in the environment as the basis for ongoing curriculum development (presentation of subsequent exercises for skill development and information accumulation)
• the importance of the “absorbent mind,” the limitless motivation of the young child to achieve competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they occur within each sensitive period. The phenomenon is characterized by the young child’s capacity for repetition of activities within sensitive period categories (Example: exhaustive babbling as language practice leading to language competence).
• self-correcting “auto-didactic” materials

Sounds almost exactly like the intention of a game: reliance on the human mind as a natural learner (as in naturally curious and investigatory), assumption of basic competence in the player, observation-based feedback and adaptation (as in real-time response and dynamic difficulty), the “absorbent mind” and the thirst for pattern recognition and mastery (as in the grok impulse), and a self-correcting, auto-didactic environment (as in self-taught, self-motivated play).

Montessori is a highly hands-on approach to learning. It encourages children to develop their observation skills by doing many types of activities. These activities include use of the five senses, kinetic movement, spatial refinement, small and large motor skill coordination, and concrete knowledge that leads to later abstraction.

Observation-based learning? Hands-on approach? Many different types of activities stimulating different parts of the brain and body? Building tactile skills that lead to later abstraction? Sounds an awful lot like a game…

A child does not engage in an activity until the teacher or another student has directly demonstrated its proper use, and then the child may use it as desired (limited only by individual imagination or the material’s potentially dangerous qualities). Each activity leads directly to a new level of learning or to a concept. When a child actively learns, that child acquires the basis for later concepts. Additionally, repetition of activities is considered an integral part of this learning process, and children are allowed to repeat activities as often as they wish. If a child expresses boredom on account of this repetition, then the child is considered to be ready for the next level of learning.

Activity demonstration sounds like a tutorial or a rulebook. Once the activities (rules) are demonstrated, the child (player) uses (plays) by their own motivation, at their own pace and skill level. Each activity (game type or level) leads directly to new levels, and the child actively acquires the basis for for advanced concepts (higher levels, harder difficulty, or different games). Repetition is critical. Boredom equals mastery and suitability for the next level. The parallels to game design theory are obvious.

From a 2006 study on the Method, published in Science Magazine

On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who, because of a random lottery, attended other schools. By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on standardized tests of reading and math, engaged in positive interaction on the playground more, and showed advanced social cognition and executive control more. They also showed more concern for fairness and justice. At the end of elementary school, Montessori children wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.

Gameplay makes you smarter It also, apparently, heightens your social cognition, executive control, and (most importantly, in my opinion) sense of fairness and justice. Plus more creativity, which I think gamers have known since time immemorial.

Tags: Game Design, General //