Serious Fun: Role Immersion Games and the Transformation of Higher Education

Ever since Plato's Socrates proposed to banish anyone who was adept at transforming himself "into all sorts of characters and representing all sorts of things," educational reformers from Rousseau to Dewey, and Piaget to Erikson, have deplored the seductive lure of mimesis--the habit of imagining yourself to be someone else. Though tolerable among the young, such forms of play were fundamentally bad--"foolish and disordered" (Dewey), "infantile" (Piaget), "destructive and delusional" (Erikson). By the time students were old enough for college, they should give up such forms of play and get down to work. This helps explain why the subject of role-playing pedagogies is so far removed from academic discourse that thoughtful arguments on the subject, for or against, are hard to find. In consequence, fraternities, media conglomerates, beer makers, and video game designers have usurped the motivational power of mimesis to generate profits. Lost in such forms of play, college students have found it difficult to engage passionately with academic subjects. Deep role-playing pedagogies, featuring extended role immersion games, harness the motivational power of mimesis to intellectual purposes. In Reacting to the Past, for example, college students play role immersive games, set in the past, their roles informed by classic texts. Adopted by faculty at over 350 colleges and universities, Reacting to the Past games have succeeded in engaging students and drawing them into the life of the mind.