I assume that if you’re here on Gypsy Gameschooler, you are convinced of the educational benefits found in games. However, what many people don’t know is that there are many educational video games, too! Now, I’m not a video gamer myself, but my husband and kids are. So I asked my husband to write a series of articles on gameschooling with video games.
Chris Wright has been a gamer for longer than he can remember, playing games on a variety of consoles and platforms. In fact, when we left to travel in our skoolie, one of our conditions was that he bring his big gaming PC with us (though he’s since switched to a gaming laptop). He writes about our travels on his blog, Dadding on the Road.
Without further ado, here is the first article of our Gameschooling with Video Games series:
Educating with Video Games: 101
There are many video games with educational value. I don’t mean edutainment games like “Number Munchers,” “Reader Rabbit,” or “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” These aged titles from the ’80s and ’90s spent way more time on the “edu” and not nearly enough on the “tainment.” When I’m talking about the educational opportunities in video games, I’m referring to modern games, built for entertainment, but still with educational value.
While there is a lot of sentiment against video games, this is no different than the sentiment against other forms of entertainment throughout the years. You can see this in the following quotes (I removed the media). I encourage you to try to guess what each quote is about.
A pernicious excitement to learn and play [Redacted] has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages . . . [Redacted] is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. [Redacted] has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship.
Scientific American
July, 1858
That one was about Chess. Widely regarded nowadays as a great intellectual exercise and we highly encourage kids to pursue it.
The free access which many young people have to [Redacted] has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?
Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, Reverend Enos Hitchcock
1790
The demon in this quote was “Romance, Novels, and Plays.” All arguably “high-brow” entertainment that we ask kids to consume more of.
And finally this poem from William Wordsworth:
Up! Up! my friend, and quit your [Redacted]!
Or surely you’ll grow double.
Up! Up! my friend and close your [Redacted]
Why all this toil and trouble?
The missing word here was “books.”
Video Games: Don’t Believe the Negative Hype
You’d have an easy time replacing the media in all the above quotes with “video games” and find similar sentiments in any number of parenting blogs, social media pages, and other such media.
The truth of the matter, the science, actually shows us that video games, like all things in moderation, are a net benefit.
Look at this graph, hosted on The 74.org, a news site dedicated to the American Education system:
The correlation in the data is pretty clear. If people are given a safe outlet for violent thoughts or tendencies, they will take that. Humans are violent. We have thousands of years of recorded history to back that up. Giving our inherent violence a safe outlet is a net positive for society.
The “Dangers” of Screen Time
Let’s talk about screen time for a bit. Screen time has almost become a swear word in the parenting community, a “he who must not be named”-esc boogie man. A lot of parents are afraid that their kids will be harmed by too much “screen time” and will assign limits based on “expert advice.” A lot of this advice misses a huge point: Not all screen time is the same! An hour spent scrolling through “let’s play” videos on YouTube is significantly different than an hour spent building a castle in Minecraft. One is mindless distraction, while the other engages the user in spatial reasoning, resource management, abstract thought, and hand-eye coordination. Furthermore, arbitrary limits on anything in a child’s life can cause major issues when it comes to life without supervision. It’s the freshman 15, but instead of sugar cereal, it’s daytime TV and Cookie Clicker.
Educating kids with video games is not about limiting our kids, but teaching our children to regulate themselves. We do this by talking to them about what they’re doing. What YouTube videos are they watching, and what games have they been playing? We can go a step further and also play those games and build a common topic to chat about with them. If they are spending all day on low-value videos, redirect them to something more valuable. Also, watch your kids’ behavior. We’ve noticed both our kids get a little squirrely if they don’t get enough outside time. If they’ve been gaming all morning, we kick them out. Most importantly, we tell them why. It’s not because they “had enough,” it’s because they need to get some other activity as balance.
This isn’t to say there isn’t any value in “brainless” games. Sometimes an active mind needs to turn off for a bit to process things in the background. Simple games are an amazing low-cost distraction.
Help for Maintaining Healthy Screen-Life Balance
Moderation in all things, right? Well, mostly. There’s generally no need to diligently track minutes or even hours spent on different activities. We like to make sure that our kids are usually getting some time outside, some time on academics, some time on favorite activities (like playing with LEGO, dolls, or video games), and some family time. If we have a run of wet, cold weather, sure, we’ll spend more time on screens playing games, watching movies, and watching documentaries. But once we get some better weather, we’ll balance that out with extra time outside.
(I’d like to make the caveat that this works for our family. You will need to experiment to determine exactly what works for your family, as every family and every child are different. Also, kids change as they age, so what works one year might not work another. Restrictions that are needed when younger can be relaxed as kids get older.)
Something that has really helped our family is Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship curriculum. This is a free K-12 curriculum (with something different each year) about online safety that emphasizes balance. We dedicate a week each year to going through it. Paired with frequent conversations as they come up, it has served us well.
Stay tuned to read about devices to play video games on, where to purchase video games, and games for social studies, science, hand-eye coordination, socialization, English/language arts, and math!