Game School

If we are all ONE, than every time we teach anyone anything, we are merely teaching ourselves.

X THE GAME is an educational platform designed
to empower both student and teacher to have a more engaging and effective time in the classroom. The process also enables a new perspective, which leads to eXperience every moment of our day living in the great classroom we
call LIFE.

X from Napa Valley College Professor Sharon Gotke.
X from GAME Ambassador and Educator Don Berg

Through the educational eXperience we envision classrooms around the world using this fun, interactive tool to be a helper with classroom management, offering interesting ways for teachers to connect with students and a way for students to engage and interact with their class-team; and a new intuitive way for curriculum to be delivered and absorbed. More..

You teach best what you most need to learn.
Richard Bach

The curriculum based "Educational eXperience" is being designed as a 21st century educational solution to counteract some nefarious challenges in our society. One of which we have identified as Intention Deficit Disorder. IDD is striking our youth due to the influx of rich multi-media, the hyperlinking ability of the web and the amazingly full lives and "to dos" which keep us moving at a light speed pace. How do you compete with this world? How do we win the battle to inspire youth to embrace education as a life passion, and to be proactive in building a better future now.

THE GAME is a vehicle to engage with our youth in more intelligent ways. eXperience THE GAME is more than a game… it is a powerful communication tool that brings people together to a deep level of connection. We see the GAME being played by youth as an alternative to trivia based games, or war based games into a more meaningful game eXperience. One that is also fun and compelling!
The vision is for this game to be as engaging in the living room, as in the class room, as in the board room. Our focus now is to reach the Millennial generation… to offer alternatives to enhance the present educational system.
While the point of formal education--arguably--may not be to play, it may be that one of the best ways to approach education is through a spirit of playfulness. The magic circle associated with play doesn't render learning meaningless. Rather, it allows for personally meaningful, authentic, goal-driven learning in a safe space, a space that can allow for exploration and problem-solving without irrevocable consequences.

Find out more about being part of our Educational Council or order a complete training package (Gain 4 levels of Training in this GAME Intensive that includes personal hands on instruction.)

REFLECTIONS ON eXperience THE GAME by Professor Sharon Gotke

Having introduced THE GAME to two of my classes at Napa Valley College and having played it on numerous occasions myself, I have come to appreciate the breadth and depth of its conceptual foundation. Drawing upon universal archetypes and sacred number combinations from the best Pythagorean, Cartesian and Boolean templates, THE GAME offers fun and challenging adventures in emotional and intellectual growth. Its organic relatedness to so many academic, artistic and ancient mystical traditions explains its universal appeal. THE GAME represents an eclectic amalgamation of the best of the word’s wisdom traditions.

To wit, I see inherent in THE GAME the following gifts, which for purposes of brevity, do not, of course, here constitute a definitive list of the world’s treasures of wisdom. Emily Dickensen’s astute observation, “truth in circuit lies,” plays out in THE GAME in its nonlinear, ongoing format. From the Gnostic Gospels, THE GAME naturally leads players to follow St. Thomas’ injunction to bring out into the light what is hidden within each one of us in order to heal ourselves. Socrates’ injunction to “know thyself” is naturally followed during the course of THE GAME. It is a magnet for synchronicity, bringing to players’ awareness the close relationship of the subjective mind working in remarkable tandem with the “external” objective world. Nature follows mind. In other words, the sequence, thought-word-manifestation, works magic. THE GAME does seem magical, and it is no wonder that the word “magical” derives from both “mathematical” and “grammatical”. It inspires players to articulate thoughts in optimal syntactic and semantic renderings, bringing to fruition more precision in linguistic communication and thereby heightened self-awareness as well as deeper understanding of others. Social interactionism is rendered in game format.

Following the Buddha’s example, THE GAME assists players in awakening to their true selves, while felicitously engaging others to participate in their own awakening. It calls each player to balance mind and heart in perfect synchrony in search of meaningful answers. Each one playing THE GAME unwittingly joins James Joyce in his personal aspiration “…to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” The human race is, needless to say, in desperate need of creating anew a viable, healthy collective conscience, the provenance of which is a perspicacious, protracted excavation of the soul.

THE GAME offers the perfect vehicle for exploration of the soul. The felicitous results will be healthier individuals better capable of dealing with the quotidian personal exigencies of daily life as well as with the monumental social, political and environmental changes confronting us today. Etymologically related to the word “healthy” are the words “wholly” and “holy”. A healthy mind, soul and body produce a wholly individuated person in the Jungian sense, which, in turn, gives rise to wholeness and sacredness (holiness) in one’s life. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I am certain that with a critical mass of people devoted to playing THE GAME, we may well be in a position to collectively avert the many dire predictions of future disaster brought on by human unconsciousness in favor to creating Heaven on Earth.

Sharon Denise Gocke, PhD, JD
Professor of Philosophy and Humanities
Napa Valley College

Comments and Feedback: Don Berg

“I always have a great time playing…

As an educator who has used a coaching method instead of the traditional instructional delivery method of educating children I see that X the Game has tremendous possibilties for blending my method with the traditional instructional approach. One of the greatest challenges that is rarely recognized in schooling is the difficulty of creating a unique curriculum to ideally match the specific interests and talents of an indivdual teacher with the diversity of interests and talents of their many students. Normally curriculum

is developed completely independently of the people who will use it, and therefore inherently assumes that one size fits all. The normal process goes something like this: If one especially creative teacher working with his or her students successfully learned this material in this one way that allows us to package it and ship it to a different teacher with different students, then we (the curriculum publisher) can make a buck and put everyone at ease because a good, "proven" curriculum was provided, even if they fail to learn with it.

The opportunity X the Game provides for the field of education is an opportunity for teachers to still have deliverable curriculum (geared to specific standards, if necessary), but to also be able to customize the instructional delivery to a degree that is unimaginable in the field of curriculum development today. Even with the advent of computer curriculum that can be somewhat responsive to different demands, X the Game takes the customization possibility to a whole new level that involves the student, the teacher, and potentially all their classmates and colleagues in the process of developing, delivering, and perhaps even assessing learning of curricular content.

X the Game provides the teacher, as game facilitator, with the opportunity to assist students to develop meaningful relationships with their own ideas and the ideas of others. Since the core Life Circles deck of cards is entirely customizable every teacher is encouraged to develop, share, and borrow from other teachers images and instructional prompts that can be clearly tied to specific content and curricular standards. The simplicity of the whole game process is easily learned by even elementary age children and the elegance of the card system for structuring player interactions gives everyone abundant opportunities to explore to whatever level of complexity or depth is appropriate. Best of all every single player has frequent opportunities to actively participate or simply observe according to their own inclinations, even when it is not their "turn."

X the Game will not take the place of instruction, nor should it. But it will provide creative and proactive educators with a valuable tool for transcending the limitations of mere classroom instruction. For teachers who believe their job is more than merely inserting knowledge into young heads, X the Game will soon be a tool with which they can assist young minds to actively explore their own lives, and the world, in search of the meaning and fulfillment that make it all worthwhile.

Don Berg, Seattle, Washington