Dilemmas of Becoming in Searching for Bobby Fischer

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Reel Education: Exploring Issues of Learning, Teaching, and Schooling in and Through Film

Abstract

We analyze the film Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), specifically focusing on what we call the “dilemmas of becoming” of the protagonist, Josh. That is, our analysis focuses on the tensions the protagonist must negotiate over who he is and who he might become in the different social words in which he participates. Throughout the film, Josh is active in two different social worlds of chess: Washington Park “speed chess” and formal competitive chess. The two forms of chess are not necessarily mutually compatible, and Josh must learn different skills, strategies, and values to be successful in each. This introduces tensions between Josh and significant adults in his life: his parents, who have different views of what is good for Josh; and his two “mentors”—Vinnie in speed chess, Bruce in formal chess. Throughout, what it means to “learn” chess is inextricably tied to trajectories implied by the two forms, and the different kinds of person one must be to participate in the different communities. Resolving such dilemmas, we suggest, is a major part of what it means to learn in general.

Our analysis of the film allows us to connect with, and push back against, recent ways of conceptualizing learning. Since the foundational work of Lave and Wenger (1991), many learning researchers have conceived of learning not only in terms of cognitive abilities, but also—even primarily—in terms of how one develops an identity within a “community of practice.” We discuss this process of learning as “enculturation” (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989), as becoming a member of a community of practice. However, many of those who have conceptualized learning in this way have treated communities of practice as overly benign, bounded, and stable (Lave, 2008; O’Connor, 2003; O’Connor and Allen, 2010), with the effect that tensions and controversies over what it means to participate are not addressed. Our view is that this has backgrounded questions of the telos of learning and development, that is, the ideal toward which learning and development are aiming, from research on learning (O’Connor and Penuel, 2010). The overt tensions and resultant dilemmas in Searching for Bobby Fischer allow us to focus attention directly on the need for researchers to attend questions of telos and associated values.

We also draw out connections between learning in the out-of-school settings that are the focus of Searching for Bobby Fischer and learning in schools. At the end of the film, Josh is able to integrate the practices of his different communities into a resolution that retains central values of each. While this Hollywood resolution is perhaps all too easy, it does point to the importance of hybridizing practice (e.g., Gutiérrez and Larson, 2007) in schools, and in particular in settings in which participation in school practices is potentially at odds with participation in other forms of practice, such as those of home, community, and peer group.

Authors

• Kevin O'Connor, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Lisa Comparini, Texas A&M - Corpus Christi

• Skip Dine Young, Hanover College