Mason Hartman

“The central argument is not that higher education is all wrong, but that it is only half right. Our predominant pedagogical system — rational, hierarchical, individualistic, and well-ordered — often ignores aspects of the self relating to emotion, mischievous subversion, social engagement, and creative disorder.”
― Mark C. Carnes, Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

“Senior faculty nowadays similarly squirm when former 'dunderheads' return to campus to lecture on their prizewinning screenplay or to cut the ribbon for a building funded by their entrepreneurial acumen. How did such dullards metamorphose into geniuses?”
― Mark C. Carnes, Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

“Reacting students also indicated that they would be less likely to take future Reacting-type courses. The explanation, the researchers learned, was that Reacting students had worked much harder than their peers in regular seminars.”
― Mark C. Carnes, Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

“Students relished times when Reacting games careened into absurdity, such as when a young woman, as a Ming scholar, delivered a persuasive speech on why women should not speak in public, or when a disciple of Gandhi denounced modernity while referring to notes on his iPad.”
― Mark C. Carnes, Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College