Greetings!
I am Dana Vance, newly hired Educational Programs Director for Sharp As A Tack. I was a classroom teacher for ten years, the past four in gifted education. I first became acquainted with Jason three years ago. He came into my classroom twice a year to do game days. I was teaching gifted language arts to fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders. At first I figured it would just be a fun day, a treat, a break from traditional academic work. My students were extremely bright and as such dealt with a tremendous amount of pressure, both internal and external. A game day was the perfect way to take a breather. That was my rationale. Over time, though, it became clear that more was going on than just FUN. Not that fun isn’t enough, but there was more. I watched fifth and seventh graders team up to play Loot. Sixth and eighth graders battled it out over Abalone. Students who never faltered academically found themselves unable to crack the master level of Rush Hour. Grade levels became irrelevant when making teams to play Word on the Street. I began to purchase some of the games that Jason brought and students played them when their work was done or when they needed a break. We started to talk about strategy, about how our brains work under pressure, what it felt like to NOT be immediately the best at something. We talked about different types of thinking and planning and how to apply game strategies to their academic lives. Then I started to hear from parents that they had purchased the games and were playing them at home, having a ball as a family. Yet another unexpected benefit! Clearly more was going on here than just playing fun games!
The more I talked to Jason and looked at all positive affects playing was having on my students, I knew I wanted in on Sharp As A Tack. I cannot think of another avenue that is so uniformly applicable in a classroom—any child can play a game. Games can be modified for English Language Learners or learning disabled students. Games can offer students on the autism spectrum a way to interact with their peers. Games can help students with behavior disorders practice social skills. Games can help gifted and talented students learn to deal with failure in a safe way. Games help all students learn good sportsmanship, how to deal with losing and how to be a gracious winner.
I have always been wary of “curriculum in a box” programs, the kind where a teacher can purchase a ready made set of books-workbooks-assessments on a given topic and BOOM—instant lesson plans. Those kind of generic programs are marketed to schools from New Jersey to San Francisco and are meant to apply to any student anywhere. How is that possible? Students are different everywhere you go! Games, though, work with any student anywhere because games are not a program. Games can be used in so many ways in so many classrooms with so many kinds of students. That’s why I left classroom teaching to come on board with Sharp As A Tack. We all know the education world is changing. It’s becoming harder and harder to engage students in rigorous thought and exploration, harder for teachers to compete with video games, hard for districts to do more with less funding. Using board games as an antidote to all that may seem old fashioned, but it’s exactly the opposite: brain games are the perfect way to engage students and capitalize on their engagement to address critical thinking, strategic planning and social skills, all the things we need the next generation to be able to do.
You will be hearing more from me in the future. I am thrilled to be a part of the efforts of Sharp As A Tack to bring fabulous brain games to as many students as possible. Look for news and information about using games with ADHD students, ELL students, gifted and talented students and autism spectrum students, and of course all kinds of other students too!!!
Dana
currently obsessed with Zertz
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