Use of Educational Board Games on Student Engagement and Understanding

Heskett, Collette

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/articles/cr56n269v

Abstract

Being raised in an upper middle social and economic class, in the Peak District in England, I had experiences and opportunities that many of my current peers did not have. Our community, like myself and my family, were predominantly white. I grew up with two parents who were equally present in my life. My father, who is American, and my mother, who is British, raised me and my brother with dual United States and United Kingdom citizenship. I grew up with many privileges, white privilege being most prevalent. White privilege, combined with middle class socio-economic status, afforded me the opportunity to travel extensively and experience first hand numerous different cultures. My family, and teachers considered travelingto be a more valuable way to learn about the world than textbooks or classroom learning.

My teachers, who were also white and supportive of the value travel can bring, permitted me to take a three month gap from school to travel the world with my family. On this trip we went to multiple countries, learnt about different cultures, and spent time in non tourist regions of each country. On this trip there was one experience that started my journey to become a teacher. It was when we went to Molatedi, South Africa, and were able to visit a local school called Tlhageng Primary School. The primary school I attended in England had electricity, multiple forms of technology, numerous classrooms for each grade, and mixed gendered classes -Tlhageng was very different. At Tlhageng Primary School, there were only two classrooms, one for boys and one for girls. In each classroom the students were mixed grades, ages four to eleven years old. There was one teacher per class, and they were instructed to teach the children all of the subjects, while simultaneously differentiating between the ages of the students. I was only seven years old when I saw this, but even then it amazed me with how complex and difficult this was for the teacher. What I noticed however, was that the teacher was managing to meet the 3
learning needs of all pupils and the culture of the classroom prioritized participation, allowing teaching to be more efficient and engaging.

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