The headline read: “It sounds like a cop-out, but the future of schooling may lie with video games.” OK; that got my attention.

The article in The Economist detailed an educational project with a games-based curriculum being piloted in New York City. Quest to Learn purports to be a model that encourages students to make “connections between ideas and skills in real world contexts” using interactive technology as the primary tool. School 02M422 opened last week to 6th grade students; eventually the program will house students through grade 12.

I’m a bit of a skeptic; but I was also curious. And there is much that is attractive about this initiative that has the feel of a magnet school. The idea is to engage students as active participants in their learning, to discourage them from considering subjects in silos, and to nurture creative thinking. The mission of the school builds from that of the Institute of Play, which uses gaming literacies to develop appropriate skill sets for college and careers. Gaming literacies include taking risks, defining problems and solving them collaboratively, and building capacity for non-linear thought. Sounds just like the language we use here to prepare students for world beyond LaGrange College.

But an entire curriculum built around gaming? On first read, I wondered if this hands-on, technology driven program was a “one size fits all” replacement for the oft disparaged blackboard, pen and paper model. What if students’ best learning doesn’t follow hands-on strategies? There doesn’t appear to be a Plan B. And a sentence in the article that discussed learning bits of content while engaging in role play gave me pause. While process is important, middle school students need to master more than bits of content. Is some important core learning being sacrificed here?

Partners ranging from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and New School University, to Intel and publisher Pearson Education provided financial support. The MacArthur Foundation awarded a $1 million grant in 2007 to fund planning and development. The project is the brainchild of Katie Salen, associate professor at Parsons New School for Design. Her research in the area of digital media and learning concluded that students can learn to effectively apply the strategies used in gaming to become adept at systems thinking in other contexts. Salen believes that the structure of games - playing within established rules but pushing the limits - transforms the learning process from a focus on “learning about” to one of challenge and inquiry; where, she says, true learning takes place. She describes Quest as a media-rich, dynamic learning environment that capitalizes on young people’s facility with digital technologies. The site explains that one of the reasons for pursuing this type of school is the fact that young people spend 8 hours per day engaged in interactive media anyway. I can believe that. But is formalizing that engagement and increasing hours spent in this way, a good thing?

So what does a school day look like? Students follow a block schedule, completing four knowledge areas daily following Morning Meeting and time with a faculty advisor in Home Base. Courses include Being, Space, and Place (English and social studies), The Way Things Work (mathematics and science), and Codewords (English and math). The curriculum is integrated; there are no discrete English, history, or biology classes.

The Q2L website at http://q2l.org/ indicates that the faculty makes extensive use of online games, board games, and virtual simulations in addition to role plays. (The FAQ section assures parents that they do use textbooks.) This is a standards-based curriculum with well-developed objectives for enduring understandings and essential questions for each learning domain explored during a trimester. A campus network site called Being Me allows students to connect outside of the classroom and continue their learning via journals, peer critiques, and online discussions with adult mentors. That’s a great benefit, assuming students have access to technology from their homes.

This is a bold experiment. It will be years before there is sufficient data to evaluate the effort. I wish Q2L well, for the sake of the children. But I’m not at all convinced that gaming is the foundation on which we should base learning for 12 and 13 year olds, that teaching of discrete subjects should be abandoned, or that teachers’ roles should be redefined as advisors, as Q2L has done. I suspect eventually that experts may determine that interactive media is not “the” tool, but one tool among many that, used well, will enrich the educational experience for our young people.