Now that our blueprint for change is in place, we come to a potential new beginning. The proposal can be stated quite simply: educational reform should proceed by teaching students (and teachers) how to play serious games as a way to promote strategic thinking and a sense of real-world and personal relevance, using incentive systems that encourage positive reasons for learning – reasons accessible to all students and which will sustain game play and learning into the indefinite future. This proposal enjoys the benefits of being closely guided by theory and well grounded in research. Moreover, it appears workable and is difficult to dismiss as merely Utopian. The practical elements are already in place, existing if not thriving in individual classrooms across America, despite the presence of powerful contrary forces. Many teachers already encourage the proper motives for learning by holding fast when possible to absolute standards of excellence, by encouraging students rather than praising them, and by dispensing incentives in ways that permit unlimited rewards, open to all, which, despite their frequency, remain undiminished in their motivational value. These recommendations come, then, not as strangers but rather as typically overlooked, often underappreciated ways of thinking about schooling.

Indeed, there is nothing new here when we consider each component singly. Rather the novelty (and value) of this approach turns on the fact that when familiar, even commonplace, ideas are rearranged or combined in new ways, they can excite new perspectives.