Teacher Gamer
The TGPC highlights all aspects and different styles of teacher-gamers and games in education. Kids need more playful learning wherever they are getting learning: homeschools, in the classroom, school and community. And hopefully on fewer screens and on more tabletops. Although role-playing games (RPGs) are a primary focus, Teacher-Gamers can be anyone bringing a playful edge to any domain of teaching and learning. In season one we talk to Jesse Driver, Maryanne Cullinan, Aaron Vanek, Mark Hoge, Peter Jung, and Dr. Olu Taiwo. In season two we get into it with Sam The Educational DM, Kevin Jennings, & Richard Campanaro, Noan Fesnoux and the kids from Real School Budapest, Shawn O‘Docharty, and others We talk about RPGs, Life-Skills, Larping, Art, Theatre, PhDs in games development, Movie References, Homebrewing games for History class, Creative Writing, Mini-War Gaming, Picking up cheap materials, Middle school hobby and craft time, Gateways for games in schools, Setting up crypto wallets for homebrew games about real economics, tabletop gaming as a reaction to digital culture, why WarHammer is like Polo, robust character background vs pre-generated characters, homebrewing games for school focus and learner engagement through games. And more and more...
Episodes
Lifelong musician, artist, activist and community builder Michael Franti shares his playful, heartfelt journey from growing up in a big family to starting the Beatnigs and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and breaking into the major label scene opening for U2 and developing Spearhead into an enduring musical group just celebrating their 14th album release in May 2025, “Welcome to the Family” with the birth of Sara and Michael’s daug...
On this episode of the Teacher-Gamer Podcast, Zach chats with Shawn Thomas O'Docharty, a globally recognized creative leader and cross-cultural producer. With an impressive career spanning over 25 years and numerous countries, Shawn shares his insights into creating transformative experiences through performance, design, education, and storytelling. Discover how playfulness and creativity can empower adolescents to build life skill...
Kicking the season off with a sneak peek of the Teacher-Gamer Handbook (TGHB) audio book. Zach reads the TGHB introduction and if you like what you’re hearing: join the upcoming Teacher-Gamer training sessions.
Deep dive into using RPGs in schools as project based (PBL) and social emotional learning (SEL) through Zach’s 36 life-skills methodology and curriculum. Zach has been developing this approach over the last 12 years in stat...
High school teacher-gamers Kevin and Richard chat with me from Switzerland (Leysin American Boarding School) about using RPGs in history and social science classes, specifically "Creating History" RPGs like Pompeii 79AD, and Kevin's History's Mysteries game focusing around a rebellion in the Aztec empire and eventually the introduction of Hernán Cortés.
Creating historical module adventures with simplified rules as a way to get s...
TGPC -E06 - S02 - REAL School Budapest middle schoolers with Noan Fesnoux - Building RPGs in Schools
Welcoming REAL School Budapest kids to join the podcast and talk about their RPG "Spirits of Gaia" and Noan's "New States of Atlantis". This is how kids think and talk about games. Enjoy!
Music courtesy of the band YOU, from the album "Freedom From The Known" and John Schroeder.
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©2021-2023 Wild Mind Training Publishing
Sam The Educational DM talks to Zach about his playful and academic past, his method(s), and brings great insight into their continued debate about whether RPGs will ever make it into the public school system. Can we imagine school beyond SATs and siloed academia?
Music courtesy of YOU, from the album "Freedom From The Known" and John Schroeder.
©2021-2023 Wild Mind Training Publishing
The big themes of today’s podcast are “play”, “failure”, “improvisation”, “story” and “Eudaimonia”. How failure through play is not only creative, it creates story. Where dice meet improvisation in role-playing games we are both in first and third person at the same time.
“How do we unlock the vast universe of landscape in the imagination of each individual?”
Dr Olu Taiwo: Senior lecturer at the University of Winchester. Olu teache...
Fascinating conversation with Sanford Teacher Award Winner Maryanne Cullinan (@culliope on Twitter) about her approach to RPGs in Schools - including and beyond DnD. “Middle School itself is like one giant role-playing game.” We talk strategies for large scale RPG groups, her thesis around building content for games in education and how to make RPGs in Schools safe, efficient and empowering.
What went right this year? What changed? What were the difficulties? And other questions such as How do you find other Teacher-Gamers in your school? How can we make schools into puzzles and play environments with either device-driven or non-virtual RPGs? And how do RPGs invite opportunities to reconcile failure? And we tackle the multiheaded hydra: Can RPGs move from afterschool programs, camps, SEL and Leadership classes into tra...
We talk about the past, present and future of RPGs with a thematic focus on Challenges and Accomplishments. Joining us Aaron Vanek, Mark Hoge and Peter Jung - three professional Teacher-Gamers who develop RPGs with great care to heighten empathy, expand social emotional life-skills and champion neural diversity in their thriving communities and beyond.
Our opening episode highlights different styles of teacher-gaming.
We talk "Make Play", Mantic Games, cheap materials, MS hobby & craft time, TT vs digital culture, mini-war gaming, homebrewing
Music by John Schroeder (bandcamp) || Get the Teacher-Gamer Handbook
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