I went to high school with a guy named Andy Giles. Andy was truly one of those remarkable specimens — he was super intelligent, athletic, good looking and possessed strong character attributes. Just an all-around good guy.
I met Andy through basketball — he was two years older than me and on the varsity team while I was an unknown transfer fighting for a spot on the JV squad. I was also part of a “lucky” squad of JV players that hung around for the varsity practice everyday to scrimmage against the older guys. As luck would have it, I often drew Andy as the opponent I was supposed to guard in those practices.
Of course, luck is a relative term. Andy was five inches taller than me, had real muscles, and the prettiest jump shot I’d ever seen. He had long arms and big hands, and every time he blocked me out for a rebound he added another bruise to my rib cage. About the only thing I had over Andy was speed. I could always run away from him if things got too intense.
Like I said, Andy was a nice guy. He was also the best “practice” player I’ve ever seen. He worked harder on every play, practiced the fundamentals with greater intensity, and performed better than everyone else in practice on a consistent basis. If you had attended one of our practices, you would have left thinking that Andy might be named Mr. Basketball in our state.
The only problem was that Andy had difficulty translating what he did in practice into a similar experience during games. Instead of playing with practiced confidence, he looked like someone who had hardly played the game at all. He missed easy shots, bobbled the ball, and made stupid passes. He looked completely out of place.
Probably because I was either insensitive or just ignorant of social protocol, I asked Andy one day about the disparity between his practice and play. He simply said, “I love to practice but I just have trouble being a basketball player in the games.”
Since then, I’ve noticed this strange dichotomy many times, as a coach, teacher, father, and general observer of events. There is indeed a marked difference between practicing or doing something and internalizing our actions to the extent that those actions become part of who we are. There is a difference between simply “doing” and “becoming.”
This difference between doing and becoming is the difference between traditional simulations and current online role playing games. No one has accused simulations of taking over people’s lives or leading to excessive violence. Simulations are things you do while role playing games are something you become. Discreet tasks and rules-based decision making are perfect for simulation practice while role playing immersive games are for internalizing understanding and bridging the gap between practice and real experience.
We see the difference between doing and becoming in the classroom as well. In class, it is the difference between processing or cataloguing information for exams and actually internalizing and applying the knowledge so that what we learn can lead to real understanding and shape our identity.
As teachers and parents we find it easy to recognize and reward students or kids who practice well. We find it easy to measure “doing.” We have spent less time thinking about how to recognize and reward “becoming. ” Ultimately, if we want to move beyond the surface debate and name calling in educational polemics like NCLB, we will need to design a system that has expectations for what learners are and what they can be rather than what they do while in practice.
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