Poland puts computer game “This War of Mine” on school reading list
notesfrompoland.com
notesfrompoland.com
IMO, only two other games accomplish something comparable. Portal (as a masterpiece of gaming in every respect) and Stanley Parable (as being another masterpiece that has a "message" inexpressible in any other medium).
If you'd add to that list, I could do with more maximum quality games to have played ;)
A good story has shades of gray, and Detroit fell short there for me. There were clear "good" guys and "bad" guys (or gals).
Disco Elysium is a narrative masterpiece.
Outer Wilds has the most balanced story/exploration loop I can think of.
Baba is You because it screws with your brain nicely.
Spoiler:
-- when you realise your actions carry over across reloads
Perhaps the author could edit the comment and add a warning?
There are plenty of games that do a decent job combining gameplay with a particular theme or feeling or experience (Bioshock, Planescape: Torment, Thief, and a whole bunch more), but there's always some 'gap' between the two. But with these two games (and I'm sure there are others) both aspects elevate each other.
The Talos Principle - a puzzle game that looks promising and it's on my list since after I heard some in game dialogue. Touches on identity.
You cannot understand culture and tradition without reading some classics,starting with Bible, Homer's Illiad, or Shakespeare. And of course in Poland we mostly focus on Polish writers. You know, before journalism was invented novels served pretty much the same purpose as newspaper reports - there are the goldmine of information about how Poland looked like back in the day.
Unfortunately, contemporary students prefer to just watch movie based on a book than reading the source material.
I, personally, love reading books. But forcing that material to 12-18 and saying read these classic ones just pushes back youth from reading at all. You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result.
I am not from Poland myself. Perhaps Henrik Sienkiewicz is one of those authors..
Perhaps they should prescribe the Witcher novels too.
What does this mean, exactly? And why is it valuable?
> You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result
The classics are thousands of years old and have served as popular educational material for centuries. Why is Gen-Z categorically different from all of the generations that have come before such that we should change? I'm not sure that Gen-Z is even different with respect to their ability to understand or appreciate the classics, and to the extent that they are, I suspect that's because (at least in the US) we've changed how we teach, de-emphasizing things like civics (probably in favor of an increasingly identitarian curriculum). Note that this isn't a defense of the classics--for example, this wouldn't rebut the idea that classics are overrated--it only challenges the specific idea that something abruptly changed such that the classics are obsolete.
Even kids growing up in the 90s probably didn't have their own computer and the internet wasn't full of video entertainment and free games and kids growing up 2000-2010 didn't have phones and tablets.
80s kids had cable and VHS.
50-60-70s kids had TV
20-30-40s kids had radio
So personally I do think it's a big difference. I'm awestruck by what kids have access to today vs what I had access to growing up in the 70s, early 80s. Kids today can learn about any topic and anytime, anywhere. When I grew up if it wasn't in my family bookshelf or the library I didn't have access to it. Kids today can also watch almost all movies of the last 100 yrs on demand. When I grew up video wasn't a thing and cable didn't happen until I got to high school so all I had was the few channels on the TV and whatever they happened to be showing.
That difference has to mean something. Whether it means "classics" are still relevant or not I have no idea but reading of those arguably came from a time when content was scarce. It's not anymore.
One of the first plays I read that actually interested me in Theater was Waiting for Godot. Reading The Stranger in high school exposed me to so many new and complex ideas. Even extremely recent books like "Something that May Shock and Discredit You" by Daniel M. Lavery or "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino are fascinating works of the modern American Canon. I'm not Polish but I'm sure there are equally relevant works in Polish.
If you think kids just prefer to watch a "movie based on a book" maybe stop making them read boring books that truly lack lots of meaningful relevance to their lives today.
And seriously, stop making kids read The Bible as a literary lesson. Nothing made me dis-engage in school like being told "I know you're Jewish and this feels like proselytizing, but I promise, this is purely a lesson in literature, nothing more". That is proven to be a lie when King James's edition is selected over an English translation of the Torah, and when no other non-Christian religious texts are selected for literary evaluation...
[1] - “Biblia: stworzenie świata i człowieka oraz wybrane przypowieści ewangeliczne, w tym o siewcy, o talentach, o pannach roztropnych, o miłosiernym Samarytaninie” ( https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU2017000035... )
Just because you never experienced Christian propaganda in your public school district in your state doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If your town is mostly religious, mostly Christian, and the oversight mechanisms for something like this happen require a complaint to be filed, who is going to complain? Saying "I never experienced this in my school in the 70s" is about as relevant to somebody else's experience of school in the early naughts as saying "I've never been to a baseball game, so I don't believe baseball actually exists".
As is the case in many of the landmark freedom-from-religion-in-schools cases, Christians.
See, the thing is, America (and even most—but not all, sure—small towns in America) have lots of different flavors of Christianity, and they don't agree on much (especially when you include the JWs and other groups that other Christians view as not-Christian rather than Christians-who-are-in-error). So, typically, sneaking in your brand of Christian propaganda pisses off all the other brands of Christians.
Why was it important for you to verify my experience and the details of it and relay an anecdote that was counter to my own anecdote if not to implicitly refute my experience?
https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168613461/promoting-hinduism-...
Maybe it was an expression of surprise and genuine interest.
Thinking about it now, Beowulf should be added to this list. That's another great way to teach students about the evolution of the English language.
It's also interesting how the pronunciation is reconstructed. Looking at rhyming pairs that don't currently rhyme (e.g. loved/proved), looking at different accents of English (Irish, Scottish, American, etc.) to identify historic pronunciations, etc.
So what? Other works lack these archetypes? No, they don't. Literature at school isn't supposed to be courses on comparative linguistics and theory of literature. A short intro is enough. Then move on to modern works.
Bible is better suited to history lessons on history of religion alongside other religions.
If you imply that every word isn't the literal truth you will again have at people howling for your blood.
I'm always surprised that any school would teach creationism. Even catholic priests don't preach creationism as an alternative to current scientific theories. USA has to be a strange place :D
When in grades 3-5 I read about 100 (Admittedly easy) books per year on average. After that we had to read books for school and it almost instantly caused me to drop my yearly amount of books to 10 AT MOST. Now that I am out of school I read a lot more again.
BTW: Shakespeare wrote plays, not books. So why force children to read it instead of watching it?
What the fuck, high school. Why? Why?
The idea of mandatory novels isn't to entertain and captivate. It is to bring young people into the culture that they will live in, and it's done by studying the culture's roots. Having said that, I felt like a TON of that stuff just flew over my head when I was in school - I mean, literary experts discuss the meaning of for example Mickiewicz's work to this day, and I, a child/teen with no frame of reference, am supposed to get some of it? It would require highly talented teachers to pull this off.
In my experience what's causing young people disintrest in reading is that noone teaches the physical skill of reading correctly.
I mean, I never really took any speed-reading courses, but still, when I take a test my speed is usually 400-500 wpm. I read somewhere that typical high school student reads about 100-120 wpm. If I were to read a lenghty book, like any of Dickens of Tolstoy works at that speed I would probably also give up very quickly.
Other than that, I believe it is important to know the roots of the modern culture and society, and classic literature from authors like Dostoevsky, Mickiewicz, Conrad, Prus, Bulgakov, Shakespeare, Orwell, Hemmingway, Schulz, Twain, Huxley and many many others. I've met all of them in my school years and I'm thankful for that.
No wonder there are so many illegal sources for epubs.
I hope it won't be 20 years again. I plan to go there for that light show on the river next time it'll happen with my gf.
That's because the list of mandatory [1] reading in Poland is 90% haphazardly thrown together nationalistic martyrdom bullshit with terrible state-mandated interpretation.
I used to _hate_ literary analysis, partly because of the works we were studying and how we were forced to interpret them. Then, years after leaving school I've discovered that this can actually be interesting and intellectually stimulating, especially if you care for the work, and doubly so if you're actually explained the point of this sort of analysis in the first place. Every single peer of around my age that has gone through the same system has had the exact same experience, regardless of school or district.
[1] - as I've experienced it 10 years ago
Unrelated: I still have your Arduino knock-off which you lent me back during our days in a company related to a certain fruit.
- book about an anorexic girl (which IIRC was assigned by the lottery to the recovering anorexic girl in my class)
- book about a teenage boy falling in love with a drug-addicted girl and falling down into that swamp as well (names "Einbahnstraße" => "one-way street")
- some other books about adipositas and fat kids/teenagers hating themselves for being fat (IIRC some even contemplating suicide)
+ a bunch of other books in the same vein
Needless to say that was a very fun few weeks while presenting the books and their analyses...
I've experienced this about 30 years ago and I'm experiencing it now with my child, and I couldn't agree more with that description. In fact, it is the best summary of our reading curriculum that I've ever seen. Saving for later.
I'm fairly confident this has been a staple throughout most of the world, and, if I had to wager, time.
huh, I'm not shocked. The only book that I've found interesting out of those mandatory books was Ferdydurke ^^
>Gombrowicz himself wrote of his novel that it is not "... a satire on some social class, nor a nihilistic attack on culture... We live in an era of violent changes, of accelerated development, in which settled forms are breaking under life's pressure... The need to find a form for what is yet immature, uncrystalized and underdeveloped, as well as the groan at the impossibility of such a postulate – this is the chief excitement of my book."
I fully appreciate that this is meant to get you into the spirit of the game, but in the end it just ends up breaking immersion completely and makes you wonder what the hell you're doing in your life, pushing virtual people around a virtual house for hours on end.
I gave up on playing the game after a few tries, when I realised this was going on. I picked it up again a few months later and I enjoyed it much more, precisely because for some reason I didn't experience the same slowdown. I don't know if the game changed, possibly I was more aware of the things that could make my characters slow and managed to avoid them- but I'm not 100% sure.
I've had similar experiences with other games. Sunless Sea, forced me to push a virtual boat around a virtual sea in what felt like real time, because it was the game creator's vision that travel should be slow and you should go over the same empty tracts of sea again and again and again and again, always at a teribly slow pace, even with the most expensive engine upgrades. I didn't pick that one up again, after I found out that this was actually a design feature (I think I read an interview with the creator, or some thread in the game's forums on steam?) (edit: I think this was the thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/304650/discussions/0/14832329...).
Merchant of the Skies, that I've been playing a lot recently can also be tedious though, honestly, not that much. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, well I guess that was a walking simulator and it's my fault for playing it for as much as I play it. The list goes on for a bit.
Just, don't take away from my time to live and give me nothing back in return, mkay?
I would really love to have a save feature in TWoM, I feel like its sorely missing.
Having a defined end date would make things easier psychologically.
There is also a board game (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188920/war-mine-board-ga...) that I’ve heard good things about.
In danish education we have the concept of an "udvidet tekstbegreb" that means any references to texts can also refer to any other kind of cultural medium.
If we look outside Denmark, the European institutions also have this view. If we, for example, look at the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), they give us this exact definition of text [0]:
> Text is any sequence or discourse (spoken and/or written) related to a specific domain and which in the course of carrying out a task becomes the occasion of a language activity, whether as a support or as a goal, as product or process.
[0]: https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97, pp. 10.
school curriculums are not intended to capture the nuance of how a "terrorist" group like the NSF might gain popular support and even the moral high ground as a result of their efforts to reduce the inequality of vaccine distribution. an inequality of distribution that our society is all but destined to replicate, as soon as we have a vaccine for COVID-19.
nor are school curriculums interested in provoking critical thought by posing questions like "what if powerful groups of people are conspiring for their own gain, even when it results in mass misery?" this too we have already covered in the pandemic, when trump's political allies recieved preferential access to the right to sell protective equipment that was in short supply even when their need for it was minimal and the consequences of their greed was mass death.
put differently: school curriculums exist to prevent enlightened dissenters from existing, not to make more of them. i'd be all for having it be part of a course, but it's just too real.
Very underutilized.
TWOM is a work of literary art. If you haven't played it, do so, but be warned: it hits hard, emotionally.
I've got a few days off work this week so need to give it a shot. I was never sure looking at videos and screenshots what sort of game it actually is.
Having not played TWOM I don’t know which translates would be more appropriate. The GP is however most likely a joke (and not a bad one IMHO).
Also, "Kampf" would be active fighting, and this game is about people who are in the opposite situation and become subjects of violence.
Putting a game on a school reading list when there is already 100's of games on there, is not really news.
Kind of just seems like a ad than anything else.
I do think it is silly to put it on a 'Reading List'. I prefer to create a new category.
No its not, its about learning howto think about war/extremism/politics and how it influences a society, its NOT a math game like Midnight Rescue. That is why it is on a READING list and not on a Math-Learning plan.
What else would you put in this category?
I was coming from a background where I wasn't eating every day, the only sport I could afford to do was track- and that was only because the track coach was gracious enough to take me to a running store and buy me shoes, I was spending my nights cleaning office buildings, spending my early mornings getting to school early to shower and cram in my homework for the day before class. I was at a private school, so there was no reduced or free lunch program, and I had a very hard time staying awake in class, except for his class. Partially due to un-diagnosed ADHD and a really terrible home situation.
That class gave me an attainable goal to work towards, and now I'm a programmer today. I had previously relegated my ambitions to simply surviving.
But again i thinks that's a first-timer having a game to understand War/History and Society (in a war situation). Sure games existed as playful math/engineering(FSims)/Programming helper and so on...but not in that context.
But this game (War of mine) is fantastic!!!
EDIT: Well one time it worked, but that was in florida, so i don't count that.
Just because it's not classified as an education game does not mean it isn't teaching.
The article clear says
"“Of course, games are already being used in education for teaching maths, chemistry, and developing cognitive abilities, but I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a game being officially included in the educational system on a national level as a school reading,” said Grzegorz Miechowski, CEO of 11 bit studios."
They clearly say there is already games on the list, this is just the first time a game is classified or put into the "reading" category.
Which is cool, but I don't get why this is news beyond being a giant ad.
given that stream of thought u could also argue civ v or skyrim or any other game is an educational game. why, you are learning something while playing league, right?
it’s pedantic to claim this war of mine is educational when it was clearly meant for a general gaming audience. that is why it being on a reading list is significant.
you should try the game
I guess I strayed away from my original point, that this reads more like an advertisement for the game than a revolutionary teaching tool.
But I digress.
Maybe your are halfway truth your thinking WHY it's actually a interesting decision....but just halfway...
(Text)books can only take one a certain depth into understanding these parts of history. Visual media helps making the unimaginable imaginable. Interactive media allows you to immerse and get a small grasp of the impossible choices and consequences surrounding of life in wartime.
"It doesn't make sense to compare the qualities of This War of Mine, educational or otherwise, to those of Math Blaster. The fact that it's on a "reading list" should be the first clue. It really is a pretty interesting decision."
Is much better. People take away different things from articles all the time.
Obviously going to ignore the rather aggressive undertone. I clearly missed something in the article so I reread it. There is nothing wrong with that.
My comment was in reference to the guidelines, which clearly state
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
Academia likes and itself all about first type: actually it is just another computer game, especially with recent remote/online movement. Surviving in real life situation like that, is nowhere near the computer game, but quite the opposite.