Learning Everything through LARP

LARP stands for Live-Action Role Play. It's a hobby. To LARP, you dress up in costume and go out with your friends to a big, open space and act out whatever story you have in mind. LARPing may follow a script, or be an improvisation that starts with a couple of givens (e.g., the year, the place, and a quest).

(There are various solutions to the problem of how to LARP combat. Some people learn actual combat skills; some use foam weapons; some halt the drama at its climax for a game of rock-paper-scissors.)

There's also a school in Denmark (I gather that it serves to fill in a sort of European gap year) that teaches all its subjects through LARP.

Here's the school's website:

Østerskov Efterskole

Q. Do you lose something when you teach a subject in a different subject's framework instead of organizing it according to its own internal logic (e.g., teaching whatever math happens to fit with the LARP scenario)?
Q. Or do you gain something?

I'm intrigued by the relationship in this educational model between what the teachers put together and what the students furnish themselves. It's a very teacher-determined course of study. Somehow, it doesn't feel like one.

I've also been trying to figure out where LARP might serve in the Judaics department. It has obvious applications in halacha l'maaseh, since that's all about understanding what to do in situations as they arise. I think it would be great to teach students halacha and then send them into a series of scenarios to test their knowledge.
But in, say, Navi class... I'm still thinking about it.

No comments:

Post a Comment