Member of the Month: Jared Fishman
The Member of the Month feature periodically highlights our amazing membership and the things they’re doing. If you know someone who should be featured as the Member of the Month, email our Communications Minion and we’ll make it happen! July’s Member of the Month is Jared Fishman, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS) Next Gen, Inc.
What kind of work do you do?
I’ve been a history teacher since 2004. Some of my experience was at the university level, some of it was in the public sector. But largely since 2007, I’ve worked in independent schools. I worked at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY from 2007 to last year, and I have a new position doing something similar at a place called Brunswick in Greenwich, CT. I teach mostly high school, ninth graders to be exact, and I teach a series of electives on war and conflict to juniors and seniors.
Why are you a NASAGA member?
I’m a gamer that has always embraced using games for both fun and professional purposes. I started with tabletop miniature games: war games and sci-fi games, fantasy settings, things along those lines. As I got older, I branched into board games and role-playing games, which are near and dear to my heart. I am a gamer through and through.
With that as a foundation, what brought me to NASAGA was that I’ve always gamified lessons in my classroom. In 2017, I and a few other colleagues were tasked with opening up the idea of gaming in the classroom to our school (Hackley, at the time). When we were looking around for conferences, one of them found NASAGA and said, “Hey, this looks like a really interesting organization.” The conference that year was in Rochester, so we decided to go as a cohort, myself and Mike Canterino. He does a lot of the same stuff I do, except he does it in the English classroom, and in several cases, we created joint courses on gaming and taught them together. We attended NASAGA and got hooked very quickly.
What makes NASAGA such a unique organization is the fact that you have so many different people from different backgrounds, all coming together from different professions, all using games as a tool for something. Ultimately, for me, it was really about learning how to harness that tool more effectively. At NASAGA it’s almost impossible not to do that once you get in the room with so many fabulous people. You’re surrounded by brilliant people and it’s almost like you can pick and pull at the things you see, and then modify those things for whatever you’re doing. And, on top of that, someone else can look at a seminar you’re running and do the same! That’s what brought me into the organization, and I’ve been there ever since.
What’s your favorite NASAGA memory?
By far, it’s the Cold War Simulation on the Cuban Missile Crisis at the 2022 conference. That was one of the more engaging activities I took part in. Speaking mostly for myself, a lot of times, I find I shy away from digital media and technology when it comes to games. I love the tangible element of students picking up miniatures or the old school pen and paper. What was great about the CMC simulation was that it bridged the gap between technology and video games on one hand and old school pen and paper on the other. You got a nice dose of modernity, using technology for the right purposes, but it still had an old school mentality having to take notes by hand and engage people at the table. It was so cool to see news updates coming in through an app as opposed to the GM having to walk around to hand deliver them.
Along with that, at the NASAGA Chicago conference, there was a gentleman who had been designing a game centered around Greek Philosophy. The whole goal of the game was that you’d get these questions, and you would have to embody the philosopher you’re representing. What I really liked about that game was that it had such potential for classroom application. You could take the model and apply it to really anything. NASAGA is really one of those places that, no matter where you sit or what event you attend, you can find something that resonates.
NASAGA’s theme for the 2023 Conference is “Space at the Table.” What do you do in your professional practice to integrate diverse points of view?
I’ve found that a good game, run by a welcoming gamer, can create spaces where everyone can feel included. Particularly role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons give players an option to explore different identities, different roles, different sides of one’s personality, and voice opinions. If effectively organized and run, a game should support the feeling that anyone can sit down at the table, regardless of who they are and what their background is, and live within the world created by the game together. In my experience, games by their nature are community builders. I’ve seen this first hand, as I ran Hackley’s Game Club for a long time, and done tons of outreach with my non-profit, HMGS Next Gen, Inc, where we set up games in libraries, schools, and other places in the local community. A good game will bring people together.
Anything else?
I firmly believe gamification and the integration of games into the professional world is exceedingly useful, and it’s amazing to have a community like NASAGA to help foster things along. Games have the ability to bring people in, increase camaraderie, support relationships, and enable people to have fun. People can learn a tremendous amount about themselves through gaming, and I hope that more and more people have the opportunity to do so. Everyone deserves that chance!
