No, this isn’t a raven and writing desk riddle. Teachers and game developers have more in common than you might think!
You need to assume that any instructions you give will be promptly ignored
The classroom is like a giant sandbox game. You need to think of every conceivable action that might be taken by the player/student and ensure there are some appropriate consequences in place. Preferably realistic ones too. You could go with the insta-death lava to restrict movement if you want, but expect some angry phone calls from parents.
For every hour you spend planning you wish you had three
Seriously. The difference between a well planned project/lesson is night and day. Unfortunately, I don’t think my principal will go for the 1:1 class period to prep period schedule…
For every hour you spend working, you spend another hour documenting what you did
It’s called CYA: Cover. Your. WE DON’T SAY THAT AT SCHOOL!
Would it be out of line for me to start tracking student behaviors in Bugzilla?
You refer to 60+ hour work weeks as “normal”
Veterans of the video game industry are no strangers to “crunch time”. It’s the unavoidable time period before the end of a project where “get it out the door” fever starts to set in. The title ships, you briefly reflect on what worked and what didn’t, then the next project starts and before you know it you’re back in “crunch” mode. Teachers refer to this cycle as “a school day”.
There’s a ton of little things you’d like to fix, you just don’t have the time
These are things that were probably noticed by some highly caffeinated tester in a poorly lit basement somewhere, added to the bug database, and ultimately stamped with those three fateful letters: WNF. Will. Not. Fix. “Yes, there’s a typo in question 4. GET OVER IT.”