Last Thursday

Last Thursday was a really interesting day at the work. Peter, Louis, and Andy had a meeting about the video game scheduled for all day, and they let me sit in on it as long as I answered the phone when it rang (which was only three times all day). Present at the meeting were four other people not from the office. There was a man from CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), two ladies from Maryland Public Television, and one eighth grade history teacher who was the mastermind behind the game's conception.

The meeting was very interesting and very informative (for me). I discovered that CNAM is working on one of seven projects that were pitched to CPB. I guess CPB sent out some sort of memo saying they'd pick up to three lucky projects (that teach history to middle schoolers) to receive funding. CNAM's video game made the first cut down to seven, and in November, CPB choses the three projects they will fund.

The man from CPB basically came to the meeting to remind CNAM (or explain, in my case) about the terms and guidelines for the competition (I guess you'd call it that). I'm still not really sure why the ladies from Maryland Public Television were here. Perhaps they represent potential outside sources of funding for the video game.

During the discussions about the game, the teacher had a lot of good ideas about how the video game could work. As a person who works with eighth graders every day, she definitely knows her stuff about ciriculum, etc... from a teacher's point of view. But as I was sitting there, I realized that everyone in the room, excluding myself, hadn't been in middle school for over thirty or maybe even forty years. So all their planning and their ideas are coming from what they think middle school kids will enjoy, although they really have no idea.

Thats not to say the video game is bad. Not at all. I actually got to play it on my first day here, and call me a nerd, but I really enjoyed playing it. I made a bunch of money on the little loom game, and I enjoyed following the girl, Anna, around and seeing the "sights" of the mill town. Its a fun video game.

But I kinda secretly wish they had asked me my opinion sometimes during the meeting. I know I'm just an intern and all, but I was the youngest person in that room by far and I'm really only one year out from high school history and five or so years out from middle school history. So I had a lot of ideas about what they were saying kids would and wouldn't like. Maybe I'm not a completely perfect respresentative for the age group in question, but I think that time of my life is much more fresh on my mind than it would be on theirs.

But no one asked me my opinion and I wasn't brave enough to chime in (I wasn't sure if that was my place or not), so I just wrote down all my ideas on a piece of paper that no one will ever read. But it made me feel better to write it down.

Fun Fact: There is currently between $7-8 billion dollars in funding out there for K-12 curriculum development. Billion dollars. I always knew those school textbooks were gold mines.