Our Presence is Requested: VR and RL

I just started reading Stanford University’s Jeremy Bailenson’s new book, Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do. As someone with kids and a deep personal interest in how technology can help or hinder us, I was drawn to read it from a discussion between the author and Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday last month.

What stood out to me in the interview was Dr. Bailenson’s personal reluctance to play virtual reality (VR) first-person shooter games. His reasoning is based on his professional work. He understands how the unreal can be absorbed by the body as real.

The key to accomplishing that? Psychological presence.

I’ve only begun the book, however, his early descriptions remind me of an essay I wrote in September 2017 about a shirt I own with a cute spin on a great idiom: Cake It Till You Make It. In that essay, I described how we can try putting on roles in life (cake it/fake it), and by practicing them, we can truly become them (make it). Shy people can become more outspoken. Aggressive people can become more reflective and responsive. It simply takes belief in the role and lots of repetition.

Perhaps it’s only temporary, but these changes can become our reality with application and belief.

In Dr. Bailenson’s VR world, the hardware and software work to offer the brain and body such life-like information, our systems actually take them in as truth. Whereas I wrote of people choosing to don a mask & script to alter themselves and how they respond to their environment, Dr. Bailenson is saying the outside world, VR, can clothe you in a way that you take on whatever role the program has determined for you. And you will truly believe, on all levels of your brain, its legitimacy.

To the human brain, VR is real. It cakes it for you.

Dr. Bailenson goes on to describe current and future uses for VR. During the NPR interview, I was both excited at one suggestion that VR could allow people to “become” another sex or race and experience what that is like, and concerned that this isn’t talked about in everyday conversations. That sort of application is not common knowledge, but we all have at least some exposure to first-person shooting games, VR or not.

If I decide I want to cake something helpful, that can be very positive. However, I can just as easily cake something negative that hurts me or others. The same goes for VR.

VR has a leg up on everyday people’s abilities to “cake till you make it”. VR can reach way more minds than the average person, through marketing and corporate influence, if we allow it. This power should make us consider its usage. What if we ask ourselves:

What reality do I want to live in?

What reality do I want my children to live in?

What reality will allow for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all?

Sure, games of beating enemies and achieving an objective using weapons, craft, trickery and force have an entertainment value. You’ll definitely learn some things. But what is it doing to our natures? To our other facets like empathy, equality or love? Aren’t there other ways to use our abilities and different directions to grow? Aren’t there other ways to spend the limited days we have before us?

If we could design reality, what kind of world would we really like to exist in? Couldn’t we at least try to get there? VR could help. Going back to my shirt- simply dreaming and then doing would, too. As Dr. Bailenson said to Ms. Garcia-Navarro, “Save it (VR) for things that are impossible to do in the real world.”. We should use ALL the tools available to us.

In reality, making the fantastic- but currently impossible- possible, seems right where we would want to be.

Grit. Revisited.

The following is an essay I wrote a year ago. At that point, I was writing short newsletters to our teaching staff every Sunday, reviewing what was happening on the Playworks playground and offering stories I hoped would make them smile and feel joined to something beyond their own classrooms.

This experience helped launch what I have accomplished a year later: the publication of my first book, Dear Teachers. You might say I demonstrated some grit! I’ve always enjoyed writing. This time, I kept writing and rewriting until I had crafted 40 essays I believed would interest a broad range of educators on topics from finding niches to finding sweetness.

My intentions remain the same: I hope to initiate some smiles and remind educators that they are connected far beyond their classrooms. I relied on Marlene Oswald’s photographs to give me a comfortable and approachable starting point. Her images lend themselves to relaxed study. I placed writing prompts to help readers remember ideas stirred by their time spent with the book. The Facebook group for readers will be another opportunity to unite and encourage.

I hope our book brings us all a little bit closer and a little further down our paths.

In re-reading this essay, I smiled at its roughness. I’ve already grown in my writing style since then. It was written in the craziness of the last weeks of a school year, as we find ourselves in once again, to encourage everyone to forge ahead and not give up.

Another example of the power of sticking to something. Here’s to grit!

May 1, 2016

Grit: (noun) Courage and resolve; passion and interest over time.

Heard a discussion on NPR this morning about grit. Angela Duckworth, psychology professor from the University of Pennsylvania, has written a book about it, called Grit. I loved how Dr. Duckworth had great ideas about grit and related traits like empathy and curiosity but also fights the notion we can/should test for it, or grade it or decide how effective a teacher is by how much grit his/her students have.

I had a few cases this past week out on the playground where grit came into play (word fun!):

“I don’t want to coach that game.”
“It’s so cold.”
“But she’s doing it, too.”
“I want to try, but I’m not good enough.”
“Ugh! It’s only Wednesday!”

That last one was me. :-) Anyway, each one of these quotes is either an opportunity to show grit or to give up. We can help each other out by how we respond:

“How about you cover that game for 10 minutes and then switch at the bell.”
“Let’s run some relays!”
“I have some 3rd graders who would love to show you how to play RoShamBo relay instead.”
“Stand right here and I’ll be your partner- we’ll do it together.”
“But you made it!”

Sometimes, it’s the tiniest of things from deep inside ourselves and those around us that help us make it to the end.

Let’s do this!!!

We're All Mutants!

I have diabetes and one of my sons has a birthmark that makes his hair all different shades and textures. I had a medical professional tell me once that we all have about 7 things “wrong” with us. That idea always interested me. It was always reassuring in a weird way.

I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about how we’re all together in this thing called Life- that we have enough things in common that we can (and should) get along. I’ve tried to focus on the positives (Look, we all have someone we love!) or the humorous (Hey! We all have to poop!). I began to wonder if I looked at the not-so-upbeat side, maybe I’d have a more convincing argument.

I dug into it a bit more and it turns out that yes, we’re all messed up! Rob Stein wrote Perfection Is Skin Deep: Everyone Has Flawed Genes for NPR back in 2012 where he outlined some research on the subject of genetic mutation that had been done up to that point. This research included estimates based on one study of 179 individuals which stated that the average human has about 400 defects to his/her genes and at least a couple of those defects are known to be connected with specific ailments.

The study also indicated that although the test subjects had major defects, they were all functioning as healthy people. Their genes read concerns for failure but their lives told of success.

That reminded me of something my own father said to me in his later years as he struggled with the ravages of the lung disease, emphysema. I was a depressed and frustrated youth at the time and probably bemoaning how I should die because of some failure I perceived in myself. He looked at me and smiled, saying something like this: “You’ll be amazed at how strong your body’s spirit to live is. It will stop at almost nothing to survive.”

My take-home messages on all of this?

Our bodies want to be here.

They are our vehicles to experience and enjoy this world. For that reason alone, we should treat them with respect and support them with good choices and healthy living. Our very DNA gives us ways to cope with imperfection in unbelievable ways; stop-gaps and redundancies that allow us to succeed. Let’s not stand in its way through unsafe and unhealthy choices.

We all have problems so we should truly accept that fact.

None of us asked for the genetic roll of the dice we received. We should recognize that and support each other. That includes operating a health care system that acknowledges and helps alleviate the pain and suffering any one of us could face, and does regularly, through no fault of our own. That also includes offering all our children the best education system we can to help them reach their potential and succeed.

There are “problems”. And then there are real problems.

The very wackiness of our genetic code allows for an amazing variety in humanity. My son’s hair does not affect his ability to thrive- it’s just a part of him. The worst thing it does is make his hair stylist’s job a bit more difficult. OK, a lot more. Hair, eyes, skin, even how we learn- the more we just accept and work with how we look and are, the more time and resources we have for dealing with the real problems.

We’re all mutants. Let’s be proud of it together!