Research = Work?

So I was listening to Car Talk, the NPR show with the two old mechanics from the Boston area who take phone calls about car trouble.  They were talking to a woman from Palo Alto who was having problems with a noise in her tire.  Eventually, they asked her what she did for a living.  She answered, "I'm a graduate student."  Of course, they asked what she studied, and she responded, "Italian literature." They tried to make that into pleasant "small talk," and something came up about "at least you get to go to Italy."  She said, "Yes, for research," and one of the hosts said, "sounds like a lot of work."

My first thought was, "what the heck are you talking about?"

My second thought was, "you must not be someone who enjoys research."

I was putting myself in her place.  I was thinking about what it feels like, to finally dig into the topic to try to create your own original work, your own take on the issues that stir your field.  To step forward and assume the mantle of the professional scholar, diving into the topic to discover and explain something new.  An intellectual astronaut, as it were.  If you are the kind of person who is lucky enough to have found a field that you can be passionate about, this is a dream come true.  This is akin to meeting your childhood hero and getting his/her autograph and then sitting down for dinner with that person.  It's a chance to drive your dream car, go on a date with your dream girl/boy, sleep in your dream house, and so on.  It's a GOOD thing, not work.  It's a chance to play in the "big show," the audition for the lead on Broadway, and so on.  It's not a bad thing.  It's not work.

There's lots of ways to think about this.  I know that not everyone likes research, and not everyone gets a chance or a reason to conduct research on a topic that they love.  But it's the kind of skill that everyone needs and that everyone wants.  It might be work to do research for something you hate, but hopefully a graduate student is not someone who hates to do research.  Hopefully, it's the opposite.

My point is this: research doesn't have to be work.  It doesn't have to be painful and soul-crushing.

That's not to say that it isn't difficult or sometimes time-consuming or even expensive (like flying to Italy).  But my own research experience was not really work, or not always work.  True, there were a lot of difficult nights with piles of dense, seemingly irrelevant text to wade through.  But there were great moments and the pleasure of discovery.  There were times when I could make sense of things, and I could explain something new.  That's a great feeling.  I feel like I learned something and made something, and that has helped me in ways that are hard to explain sometimes.  Perhaps it's like the kid who can be successful in sports, so he/she feels more confident off the playing field because of success on it.  I don't know if that's adequate.  But research is a chance to make something new, building things from the knowledge and experience of others.  It's important now because of the vast opportunity to conduct research via the Internet and other electronic tools.

This is an ongoing concern, and I don't think I've adequately expressed it here.  I'm going to think about the research process and post again when I'm ready to try to explain it again.

Gee and Learning

Let's take another look at these principles from Gee:

6) "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle - 
Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered.

7) Committed Learning Principle
 - Learners participate in an extended engagement (lots of effort and practice) as an extension of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling.

8) Identity Principle
 - Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity.

9) Self-Knowledge Principle
 - The virtual world is constructed in such a way that learners learn not only about the domain but also about themselves and their current and potential capacities.

I think that P6 is kind of obvious. Learners are happier in a safe space. I think I've probably read that a dozen times.

P7 seems to be the interesting implication of P6 in a video-game environment.  Players have to care about the game, and the identity that they assume in the game, before they will put serious effort into it (Gee 59).

P8 and P9 are the real gold here.  P8 is about how assuming an identity is part of the learning process - we step into the shoes of a scientist and pretend to be one, when we really sink our teeth into science.  To really learn and understand writing, you have to adopt the persona of the writer.  And by doing so, the learner starts to think about the reasons that these identities look the way they do, and what modifications can be made to these identities.  Conversely, learners in these situations start to think about their own identity - prior to this adoption of a new one - and they can begin to reflect on the identity they normally assume, and how it can be adjusted, or the consequences of elements within it.

Let me illustrate with an oversimplified example.  Ted wants to try science.  He assumes that scientists use "big words."  He starts to try using big words.  Of course, he has to feel like he won't be made fun of (or that it won't hurt when he is), and he has to think that it's worth trying.  Once he begins experimenting with this identity - Ted the Scientist - he starts to think about why scientists use big words.  Can Ted be a scientist without using big words?  Not exactly.  Can Ted use big words and be a scientist - is it an essential part?  Yes, but the "big words" matter.  What are big words for, really?  Hopefully, Ted starts to think like this about what it means to be a scientist.  The next step occurs when Ted asks himself, why don't I use big words?  Do I want to?  What will happen if I do?

P9 comes from all of this.  Taking on identities, discovering what you are good and bad at, with the constant feedback provided by the video game, and with the experience of multiple games, and multiple scenarios, and multiple successes and failures within each game, helps learners discover a great deal about themselves.  Video games - and learning in general - are about much more than so-called "hand-eye coordination," although that is a component skill.  There is much more at stake, and learners gather quite a lot of data about themselves and their abilities as they play.

The video game example and the example of Ted as a scientist use Gee's notion of a "projective identity," a kind of identity experiment that a learner will adopt for the sake of playing a game or engaging in deep learning.  I think that this is the most exportable idea from this set of principles.  I think that getting students to adopt this - assuming that they will be motivated to do so - can be really powerful.  The key is the voluntary buy-in.  That's hard in a classroom.  That's where "affinity groups" come in, and that's where Gee's earlier comment - about "mindless progressivism" can be challenging.