Pokémon has changed my life three times.
Why do I say that? Well, my child-like imagination, adult social life, and professional endeavors have all been impacted because of one story. I cannot recall when I first heard about Pokémon, got my first trading card, or played my first game – I was too young. However, I do recall the hours upon hours of time that I have committed in my life to this cultural phenomenon. Come with me on a journey as we look to see how Pokémon has educated me through and through.
First and foremost, let us review Vazquez’s insights on which learning frameworks Pokémon and its peripheral games and activities can impact. As a result of a case study of her nephew, Vazquez identified the following list as just a few aspects of education that are inherent to Pokémon gameplay.
- Active, Critical Learning Principle
- Design Principle
- Semiotic Principle
- Committed Learning Principle and Practice Principle
- On-Going Learning Principle
- Situated Meaning Principle
- Intertextual Principle
- Multimodal Principle
- Intuitive Knowledge Principle and Affinity Group Principle
- Insider Principle
These principles are situated in Vazquez’s case study that took place from 1996 to 2001 and mainly in her nephew’s interactions with the card and video game contexts. Today, players who engage in the Pokémon universe are steeped in the video games, television shows, card games, internet forums, and mobile apps. The world of Pokémon spans such a vast distance, and so the aforementioned principles are likely only the tip of the iceberg of knowledge that is out there to be studied. However, the point rests in the aspect that this entertainment piece is just as much an informal learning environment. Whether the learners are integrating math into their play, learning about etymologies from the names of Pokémon, investigating their environment through the relationships of Pokémon types (fire is weak to water, water is weak to electricity, electricity is weak to earth), engaging their real world in new ways through an AR app, and so on, they are learning.
This room is not my room. However, at a young age, this room may as well have been my room. I first received a Gameboy and Pokémon Yellow for Christmas. I had a few trading cards from my older brother, but I wasn’t as interested (SPOILER ALERT: I couldn’t read very well, and I didn’t like to. Makes it hard to play a text-based card game that involves strategy based on every piece of information on every single card). Yet, when I slapped my two AAs in my Gameboy and first entered this room, a new learner was born in me. This is the first moment that Pokémon changed my life.
While the card game was almost exclusively text-driven for the sake of gameplay, Pokémon Yellow was a bit easier. The gameplay itself did not rely on text, though it was based in it. What I mean by that is that I could skip the conversations, learn my Pokémon’s names, learn some basic attack names, and then just go on from spatial memory. “I’ll use the attack in the first spot this time and the attack in the second spot next time.” Playing wasn’t about reading: it was about responding to the environment in ways that I understood. To that effect, I was experiencing the beginnings of the Active, Critical Learning Principle and I was experiencing the Design Principle. I was analyzing my game’s environment to help me make decisions because I didn’t want to, and in some ways couldn’t, rely on reading. (2nd SPOILER ALERT: I learned how to read a LOT better from playing this game).
Now, fast forward to 2016. I have learned to read, and I quite like it. The second time that Pokémon changed my life, however, it did not involve any text at all. Ironically, Pokémon GO returned me to the Pokémon world, but it did not require me to read. That may be because I am well versed in the game code, if you will. Following the Insider Principle, I know everything I need to know about this game. It was my wife who had to take a lot of time to get up and running. I had to apprentice her into the community: evolutions, ball types, potions, leveling, and more. I simply picked the game up, found the closest Pokémon, and furiously swiped away trying to catch it with my Poké balls. She took her time trying to discriminate between Pokémon she liked and didn’t like; she tried to identify Pokémon that looked “better” than others. My wife did not give up on the experience, and became quite interested in it in fact: she experienced the Committed Learning Principle and the Practice Principle. She understood that playing more was to play better.
Pokémon GO has certainly caught us in the On-Going Learning Principle. The game creators, Niantic, recently added in a streak component, i.e. the more days you catch a Pokémon or go to a Poké Stop in a row, the more experience you get. This upgrade has rejuvenated the system. For the past 13 days, I have turned the game on every morning and used it to get the Poké Stop next to my house. When I get to work, I find a quick and easy Pokémon to catch, and then I set it down for the day. Sometimes my wife and I return to it in the evening on a walk around our city, but otherwise the game waits for the next morning.
Lastly, we come to my current, professional endeavors. I continue to reflect on this component of time and distance in education. I was first made aware of it by Bradley Kemp when he spoke at my institution in 2016. Nonetheless, I continue to see how AR, Mobile Learning, and any number of practices coming out of Situated Learning theories are reducing the time and distance that keep learners from learning. I’ll leave you with the following video as a well-captured example of the tension that games like Pokémon GO are creating in education today.
Get out there and catch’m all!
WVHI
Class Prompts
- What principles from Pokémon GO could be leveraged within (or beyond) learning settings? Why might this lead to alternative forms of learning for youth?
- We need to capitalize on the Committed Learning Principle and Practice Principle, the Insider Principle, and the Affinity Group Principle as outlined by Vazquez. Not only because of Vazquez’s insights in her case study but because of research done on community in learning, such as Lave & Wenger’s work on the Community of Practice. What we see in the Pokémon fandom is that diverse people groups come together to learn an intricate culture and system of information without any prompting. The community helps to bring in new players and walk them through the maturation process in their field. Frankly, players become expert Pokémon players and learners much like anthropologists learn about peoples, cultures, and environments. If it is working for Pokémon, why not incorporate it into formal learning? I think that there are some aspects of the “fear of the unknown” that play into whether or not we should integrate strategies from informal learning into formal learning environments, but we could see learners become Biologists, Archaeologists, and Mathematicians in their K-12 days. If they can be Pokémonists at 10 or 12, why not in a professional field?
- (How) does a technology-enhanced/augmented reality version of Pokémon advance the learning/literacies of engagement with Pokémon (as described by Vazquez)?
- Pokémon GO enhances the experience that Vazquez’s nephew had by taking that multi-modal world of Pokémon video and card games and making it into a spatial and relational experience. To play a video game or a card game, you must stay in one place with another participant or yourself. To play Pokémon GO, you have to get up and go out there with other players. Of course, there are those who GO by themselves, but even when you get out there to your first Poké Stop you are likely to run into someone else. Now, what was static and in a confined game context has become a dynamic, daily experience. You see Pokémon in society now: the local cemetery posted a sign to advise Poké players that they are welcome there so long as they respect the cemetery and only come during official hours. A local church has a recharge station at their Poké Stop; players can come in, charger up, get some crackers, and head back out. The learning component is ubiquitous and the literacy is spreading. Even parents who might have only have heard about Pokémon before are now interacting with Poké players in their daily life whether by seeing their child play or by watching people walk by on the streets playing.
References:
Vazquez, 2003. “What Pokemon can teach us about learning and literacy.”
Bradley Kemp on Twitter: https://twitter.com/brdkmp
YouTube video on Pokémon GO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay5e1j4gGsk
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