How I Turned Flappy Bird Into A Leadership Challenge & Lesson

The craze this week at school has revolved around a new app/game called Flappy Bird. The concept is simple. You touch the screen to make the bird go up and fly. If you don't keep tapping it, he will fall to the ground and crash. Your goal is to get him through two green pipes without hitting them. Everytime he gets through a pipe, you get a point. If he hits a pipe, he dies. The game has no end. The goal, get through as many pipes as possible and beat your high score. 

Students have been competing against each other during breaks, study halls, etc. It is highly addicting and a lot of fun for such a simple game. As an advocate of gamification in education, I asked myself how I could use Flappy Bird in my class? I came up with HUMAN Flappy Bird!

Before the students arrived Friday, I arranged the tables in my room in a different order for each row so it would replicate the green pipes the bird has to go through. As students entered, I had on the board that our warm-up today was "Human Flappy Bird." Students were very confused, yet intrigued at the same time. As class started, I informed the students that after playing Flappy Bird, I have discovered at least 3 things playing the game can teach us about being successful in life and that we were going to play Human Flappy Bird!

I asked for two volunteers and made everyone push their chairs in and move to the side of the room. The challenge was for one person to be blindfolded and flap their arms like a bird while their partner tried to guide them through the tables without hitting anything. All they could use was their voice. Throughout the entire day, the high score for the fastest group to make it all the way through was 42 seconds. Some teams did great because they communicated what they wanted their partner to do very well. Others crashed and burned becuase they didn't communicate what they wanted specifically and in detail.

After a few teams went, I asked the class what can Flappy Bird teach us about being successful in life? How can this simple game have meaning? Below are three of the best ones they came up with:

•  It teaches us about patience and focus. In order to get a higher score and do well, you need to be patient and focused. Just like in life, pateince and focus are important leadership traits.
• It teaches us that when we fall down, we need to get back up and try again until we succeed.
• It teaches us how to be relentless. Don't be satisfied with having a score of 20 when you can achieve a score of 25. Never settle until your good is better and your better is best!

When it comes to teaching, we always need to keep it fresh with kids and think about what will get them excited to learn. Through doing this activity as a warm-up, the students were
excited for the rest of the class and brought a lot of energy to
their ideas and participation.