Indie Game The Movie: Every Teacher Watch!

by Guy E. White on 16 August, 2014

I’ve learned three killer lessons from “Indie Game: The Movie.” They could not be more applicable to what teachers do every day.

In the winter of 1987, my parents bought me my first video game console: the Nintendo Entertainment System. For every free moment of our indoor lives, my brother and I would play Mario and Zelda, among many other games. In 1988, I programmed my first video game. Little did I know I was already preparing to become a teacher.

When I was seven years old, I picked up a book called “Computer Monsters” from my school library. Within a couple weeks, I was creating video games for my brother. Within a year, I was creating games and selling them to my friends on floppy disk. However, I learned years later that I truly hated programming. My knack for programming was not to be confused with the passion that it was stirring: a passion to create things and help others create things, anything. So, though this independent film came out a couple of years ago, I still find myself a bit obsessed. Frankly, I think it could be one of the greatest teaching movies ever created, even though it really does not have a single “teacher” in it. Here’s why:

1. Students Need Passion More Than Jobs

Right off the bat, I know that this statement may be a bit controversial to some. With all the economic upheaval, don’t jobs matter? Yes, but frankly, when I look into my daughter’s eyes, I’m not praying for a job for her – I pray every day that she will find her passion, pursue it to the ends of the earth, and find satisfaction there. A survey conducted in 2012 found that only 19% of American workers felt “satisfied” with their job. How are your students able to build capacities that will support their passions?

“Indie Game: The Movie” powerfully illustrates a group of programmers and creatives that are working every day in projects about which they are excited (most of the time). Some of the best moments of the film are when these determined creators get caught between the passion they feel for what they are creating versus the day-to-day hard work required.

2. Hard Work Pays

Students and teachers both need to see convincing, real-life images of hard work in action. “Success” rarely falls on someone that cannot hold their attention to a project for more than a few minutes. In my classroom, I talk about hard work lots – this film shows it so well. This film powerfully illustrates hard work. While so much media out there touts “get rich” imagery that is disconnected from the hard work that is required to go big, this film does not shy away from showing projects fail, stall, and, metaphorically, go up in flames. Frankly, I’ve never seen a documentary film so artfully accomplish this encapsulation of “hard work” into such a potent punch.

3. Democritization of Content Publication

Number 3 here is your vocabulary term for the day. “Democritization of content publication” refers to the recent ways in which people can simply publish their work without an intermediary or formal publisher. For example, you could write a book and publish it on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing® platform today and have that work for sale worldwide within hours. One could create a video game and publish it via Steam®. One could publish their print book, music, or film via Amazon CreateSpace®. More so than ever before, people can publish their creations without the help of a large publisher.

This is a big deal for teachers and students alike. TeachersPayTeachers.com, for example, allows teachers to sell items they have created online for commission (Note: you can’t sell stuff you create for your students as part of your job here; you have to create original works in your own time, outside your workplace – stuff you create at school belongs to your school). Services like those mentioned above are avenues through which students can create and publish today. As teachers, we need to start acting like it is possible for our students to create meaningful work and publish it now and in the future. As I look back, if I had these platforms when I was ten years old, life would have been quite different.

Summary

See this movie. The theatrical release is NOT suitable for students for language and visual concerns. If you can get a license for the Educational Version and get the standard approval within your school, this film could be quite a springboard for you, your colleagues, and your students. Either way, rent or buy “Indie Game: The Movie.”