Introducing the Teacher-Gamer Handbook

The Teacher-Gamer Handbook is a resource for educators to lead Role Playing Games (such as Dungeons and Dragons) in the classroom, in homeschool and online. It contains a full semester of robust lesson plans and the pedagogical infrastructure to last years that teach 36 life-skills to players with pre-created adventure suggestions, narrative arcs and prompts.

The main premise is: you can’t learn something unless you notice it. The purpose of the RPG Skillset is to generate multitudes of continuous opportunities to notice things within at least 36 major domains of self-development. The possibilities are endless.

My name is Zach.

Here is a brief history of how the Teacher-Gamer Handbook came to be:

• 1982 played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time - my character died in the first 10 minutes, it was so fascinating and unlike anything I had ever experienced... I was hooked! I have been playing RPGs for thousands of hours and almost 4 decades. Some would call me an O.G. (Original Gamer).

• 1990’s adventuring in life, school, work, music production, becoming Canadian and starting a family steered me in new directions. 
• 2002+ raising two boys with my wife Sophie, I was teaching and studying by day, hangin' with the family and playing RPGs when I could on weekends.
• 2006 enrolled in an MA program in Education to better understand the “how” of teaching and learning.
• 2010 finished my Masters in Education focused on authentic learning and life-skills curriculum development.
• 2012 realized that role-playing games (RPGs) in Schools was an untapped resource. I began working on the Teacher-Gamer as an extension of my Distinct Self well-being program. 
• 2014-2016 brought RPGs in Schools curriculum into the classroom at Green School Bali
• 2015-present Wild Mind Training workshops blending RPGs in Schools with mindfulness ramps into wilderness trips with Wildlife Conservation Society.

• 2020 Teacher-Gamer Revolution! - happening offscreen on tabletops everywhere! Let’s get radical about balancing EdTech and AI coming into schools by bringing our teacher’s hobbies into life-skills classes that enrich youth with socio-emotional and literary skills while maintaining the distinctly human teacher-student relationships that cannot be replaced by computers.

What We Need & What You Get

I started this campaign for three main reasons:

1. It is time to put the Teacher-Gamer Revolution on the timeline, now, globally. It is so important to take what you have inside you and put it into the civic sphere. I urge all educators to make the world a better place by combining their passions with their pedagogical skills and make them available to the public.
2. Self-publishing the Teacher-Gamer Handbook (TGHB) will launch this new step of my career with all the support of my colleagues, friends and anyone who likes the idea that robust off-screen game-system-learning (engaging face-to-face life-skills development) is a viable initiative to balance the influx of technology into schools. 
3. The TGHB is my calling card, a beacon, an organized methodology that I can put into the hands of people I meet at conferences, conventions and school boards wherever I go.  

I took a calculated risk and have already borrowed the money to: 

• finish the book 
• have it typeset in the style of a role-playing game handbook 
• make videos to explain how teaching RPGs in schools works
• build a website with a private interactive forum. 

I also plan to use the momentum and connections I make with so many people around the world to take the curriculum to the next level.

My ultimate goal is to hit at least $60,000 so that I can spread the methodology online and hit the road when the world opens up again to safe conferences and in-person education.

Here's the Teacher-Gamer Revolution plan for the funds raised on IndieGoGo: 

• Hard Copy prints of the book for everyone!
• Hit our stretch goals and produce additional resources for Teacher-Gamers to accompany the Handbook.
  • Newsletters with practical activities
  • Instructional videos
  • Teacher-gamer website features celebrating educator success around the world  
  • Weekly Webinars for online outreach and support 
  • Teacher training workshop deployment to implement new full-scale RPGs in the classroom programs.
  • Head to Conferences and speaking events to grow the community and gain traction.
  • Continued customization of RPGs in Schools curriculum in community centers, school boards, correctional facilities and homeschools far and wide.
• Finish the next three handbooks full of additional lesson plans, classroom activities and teaching strategies.

Benefits for the Educators

• help schools transition into more life-skills programs that prepare youth for adulthood
• build progressive opportunities for face-to-face off-screen courses in schools
• maintain positive attitudes about the future of schools
• work to make life-skills more prominent in schools for the subject teacher who is getting pushed out by tech 
• Strengthen relationships with students through gameplay

The last thing a teacher wants to feel like is “obsolete”. There is some hustle each teacher must do to remain fresh, viable and relevant in their community, but if teachers are trying to battle incoming tech or are being asked to do more tech type roles, they will have to find ways to shift the consciousness of the institutes they work in or be moved around or pushed out. 

This is a call to teachers to take their passions- or at least an opportunity to pick up this methodology to teach games- and deploy life-skills into their learning environment.  

Stretch Goals

$25,000 - First Stretch Goal 

$35,000 - Second Stretch Goal (TBA)

$45,000 - Third Stretch Goal (TBA)

$55,000 - Fourth Stretch Goal (TBA)

$65,000 - Fifth Stretch Goal (TBA) <--- This is our ideal goal to hit and we have LOTS of goodies when we hit this level! This is the amount needed to really get this campaign rolling!

$80,000 - Sixth Stretch Goal (TBA)

The Impact

By contributing to the Teacher-Gamer Handbook, you are doing more than just buying a book or helping it get printed, you help:

• establish the printing, distribution and sale of the book
• the off-screen Teacher-Gamer Revolution gain traction and take flight
• bring viability to the TEACHER-GAMER profession 
• subject teachers to collaborate with their peers to build robust game systems into learning opportunities
• wilderness survival teachers establish classroom simulations of safety and role-playing through authentic learning narratives
• bring a whole new piece of curriculum to holistic education
• make in-roads for RPGs in Schools to become a discipline unto itself that helps youth process the multiverse of systems, franchises, worlds and cultures that are coming at them at high-speed through the internet and media.

The Story

The Teacher-Gamer Handbook has been over 8 years in the making! 

The RPGs in Schools program was originally developed as an extension to a Personal and Social Development Local Programme course cycle in Canadian public school – a well-being curriculum program of life-skills electives at The English Montreal School Board in Quebec. Since then, the RPGs in Schools program has been adapted into the Wild Mind Training resiliency program for youth, 10 years old and older in schools and camps in Indonesia and the UK where I have been working over the last 6 years.

Starting in 2014, Green School Bali was an early adopter of the RPGs in Schools Program where I ran Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons as an English literacy course (creative writing) in high school and as an English literacy course (communication thematic) in middle school.

Every child surveyed in Green School reported that they liked the RPGs class and over half of them considered it their favorite class!

As I went along, I started realizing that all the life skills (21 basic and 15 advanced) that I was teaching could be dialed in to meet various curriculum goals and that if I put learners on a narrative cycle such as the Hero’s Journey, they would begin to recognize so many more thematics, symbols, motifs and literary forms as they relate to so many of the stories, books, films, TV series, mangas and other sagas that they follow.

Re-branded as Wild Mind Training, over the last 4 years. I have been experimenting with more mindfulness, wilderness conservation and improvisational theatre elements. As a home school aggregate on the weekdays and a weekend workshop for day school children, I have ironed out the kinks of three different levels of Introduction to Life-Skills through 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons courses. 

As with any pedagogy delivery system, the context and content (ie. role-playing game being used) can be adjusted into the area of study or subject. What matters most is that the learning system is authentically motivating and delivers opportunity after opportunity to acquire literacy, socio-emotional and life skills.   

When teacher-gamers, homeschool parents, mindfulness trainers, socio-emotional counselors and wilderness survival instructors get a hold of this book they will find it easy to use and with plenty of insight around teaching and practical techniques of classroom management. 

Not only is the book $10 cheaper through the campaign, access to the book’s forum is half price and if we meet our initial stretch goal will be boosted an additional 6 months.

Risks & Challenges

Getting the book printed is only the first step. I’m taking a huge financial risk of my own even if the project does not get funded. In order for it to succeed, I have to get out there and hit the road to show people how the methodology really improves the learning experience for the students and teachers.

I’ve got to hit trade shows, book speaking events, and still create workshops to help teacher-gamers really kickstart this program. 

Let’s keep it real: this is an alternative learning method that requires adaptation. There may be backlash as conventional school systems are entrenched in “standardization”. I have to keep pushing this body of work as a complement to curricula by expanding the resources for teachers. 

Gamification has brought games into education, but have also made the teachers gatekeepers to the computer. The negative result is that kids will be on their best behavior just to be allowed to get on screen. We need to bring value back to the teacher-student relationship, also making the teacher-gamer an exciting part of education - off-screen!

The Teacher-Gamer Revolution is on!

And I am ready. The time is NOW. If not us, then who?

As a network of early adopters it is YOU that will help me carry this forward and YOU that by belief in this project, will help extend the reach of the Teacher-Gamer Revolution. 

We have some goals to hit, and time is of the essence. There has been so much learned by going for it and I am so excited to turn this guerilla-style launch of getting the first Handbook off the ground and into teachers hands everywhere.

• We will try to get questions answered as soon as possible, just know we are also trying to get the book to print BEFORE the end of the campaign and have a lot going on.
• That being said, we are GOING TO PRINT and get your copies to you as SOON as possible. Depending on your location this could take some time as we are a GLOBAL movement with community around the world, but can only afford to print in ONE location at this time. 
• Print and delivery is scheduled for June 15th and getting copies in your hands by July 1st. But again, your patience is much appreciated and we will update you every step of the way!

Thanks to you for all your patience and getting involved.

Zachary Reznichek

Life. Skills. Adventure! 

Please copy the links and share them in your community and with teachers everywhere.