Coming to an issue: Part 2

For my second lesson I introduced the topic of violence in video games. I showed a PowerPoint on the SmartBoard. First, we recapped what we discussed the week before and then I asked "Is outside the only place we see violence? Is it safe to stay inside? What about the fun things we choose to do at home?"

Then I showed our students this image:

And we all agreed that it is a violent image. I had them name what makes it violent, they said the guns, the fire, it looks like war, etc. Then I showed them this picture:

The room was in a roar. I heard gasps all around and students say, "What?" or "Oh my god!" At this point I wish I had been filming the lesson because it would have been great to show them their own reaction. I asked our students to talk about why they reacted the way they did. One student responded, "it's a girl." I thought this was interesting, considering I thought the most shocking part would be her age, not her gender.  Another student explained, "she's so little...too young." Our students then started talking about why they thought it was bad for the girl to be playing the game. They listed that it would affect her learning, cause her bad dreams, because it's violent, she would learn "to do that." 

Another student identified that when playing a game like Call of Duty you have many lives, and when you lose one you can just restart. He went on to say that in real life it is not like that. I was thrilled at the discussion our students were having. 

Another student brought up the rating system. He explained to us that Call of Duty has a M rating, and he told us that meant that it was for adults 18 and over. Then many kids started admitting that they played it anyway. So I had students raise their hand if they had played the game. Then I asked, "Anyone who is 18 or over stand up." None of our students could stand up of course, because they are all 9 to 11 years old. One student explained that sometimes the stores sell him and his dad the video game, because they assume its for his dad when really he [the underage student] is going to play it. 

We had a fruitful conversation in that it raised many questions about video games that we can continue to learn about. I also showed my students this video from the New York Times called Immersion. We quickly talked about the reactions (or lack of reactions) the children had while playing the vide games. All in all, I am excited because this conversation told me this is our topic! I am not sure exactly what direction we will go in but it is time to start learning more!