Exercising the Mind

An opinion in response to the ongoing debate over the usefulness of AR...

I hate exercising. I will go to lengths to avoid it. I will write a blog post instead of hopping on the elliptical (right now, for instance, I should be at the gym). We all have things that we dislike doing.

Any doctor will tell you to exercise 30 minutes a day. As adults, they cannot force us to do this, but instead tell us that it is for our own good. But do we exercise? Some do, some don't.

I think of my aversion to exercise when I see kids with an aversion to reading. They don't want to open that book any more than I want to go on the treadmill. I look to my own experience to figure out how to motivate them. One of the best ways to get me moving is to take out Dance Dance Revolution. I won't go on the treadmill, but offer me a chance to best my high score on DDR, and I'll be sweating away to the techno beat! I avoid the stairmaster like the plague, but put on Wii Fit and my Mii is high-stepping down the street.

What does this have to do with kids and technology? I think that some kids need a reason to read besides the fact that it is just fun. Some people *gasp* think the treadmill is fun, but it certainly doesn't help me get on board! So how do we encourage these reluctant readers? I think one of the ways is through Accelerated Reader. Students read a book and take a quiz. The more quizzes they take, the more points they get. The better they do on the quiz, the more points they get. Just like the arcade that posts the high scores, our students get their scores posted on the wall. You can only go up! The more competitive students want to beat each other. The less competitive students just want to see their own score rise. We set goals together, then work on achieving them.

Some of these students are going to read whether or not they get points for it. But some students need a purpose beyond the promise of "fun." They've already figured out that reading is not their idea of "fun."

A teacher long ago told me that we don't like to do things we are not good at. This is my problem with sports. I'm simply not good at them. That, in turn, is incredibly embarrassing, and as a result, I avoid them even more. But a sport like DDR, or Wii Fit, doesn't pit me against the world - it is me against me. And it turns out that I actually do enjoy exercise, as long as it is disguised as fun. So if AR disguises reading as "fun" for other kids, and in the process they discover they actually DO like reading, then isn't it a worthwhile activity?

But what if AR isn't "fun" for the reluctant readers? As a last resort, it is a chance to experience success. Each student chooses a goal he/she can reasonably expect to accomplish. On the elliptical for me, it was a certain number of minutes. And I did it. And it wasn't so bad. Some students have the same experience with AR. So they push themselves a bit further, as I did on the elliptical. And because our minds/bodies are more in shape, we reach that goal too. As it turns out, the elliptical is becoming my friend. I've seen that happen for reluctant readers and books too, through the feedback and appropriate leveling in AR.

I also don't think it discourages the avid readers. To test out my theory on a true reader, I let myself take some AR quizzes. I did pretty well on my favorite books. It was fun to relive the books, and see if I had missed anything in my reading. Personally, I'd much rather take the quiz than have to do a diorama (have I mentioned my aversion to art?)

As I learn about the technology available for students, I think that students have many tools available to them. Just as in the classroom, no tool is a comprehensive solution, but each tool has its potential benefits. As teachers, our craft is to figure out how to exercise each mind so that every "muscle" is developed and maintained as its peak performance level.

In the meantime, I will continue to push my best on the elliptical, beat my high DDR score, and maybe even tackle the weight equipment that looms in front of me every time I visit the gym.