Teachers are usually smart individuals

Fun, games, and education are three peas in a pod. Specifically, a technologically modified organism for a pod. For the longest time, games have been a valuable learning tool from the analytical strategy used to weigh move probabilities against each other used in chess, the basic real estate and financial lessons from ​Monopoly, to the problem solving required in newer games like ​A​ngry Birds, ​Sid Meier’s Civ​ilization VI, an​d ​Sim City. Now, with games like M​ath Blaster​, ​Minecraft, and flight simulators, among others, games are being created with education in mind, combining the best of both worlds: developing mental acuity while having fun.

Developing mental acuity while having fun is easier for games compared to books and lectures, because games, even those that incorporate technical skills,​​ are immersive for people who find books underwhelming. Personally, I have never fallen asleep on a game, but I have fallen asleep many times on books, and I mean on them literally. Between the fast action, captivating visuals, and stories driven by player decisions and actions, games are a very involved activity. Unless the book I am reading is exceptionally fascinating, I often find myself drifting off into thought, especially when reading history or political science books. This would not be the case with Fusion and Hitc​ents’ game R​igged, which teaches the player about gerrymandering congressional districts for elections through its gameplay.​ ​By gamifying otherwise uninteresting topics, to the unimpassioned, normally dry and boring concepts can be brought to attention with invigorating results. This is because games can bring out the creativity required in topics like mathematics to find the most efficient ways to the right answers.​

Such revelations are critical given that 74% of K-8 teachers are now using digital games in their curricula. ​Teachers are usually smart individuals, and there is no denying that educational games must have a significant beneficial impact on their students if 74% of teachers employ said tactic. This is evident in the growth of the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum regions of the youths’ brains seen in functional magnetic resonance images (MRIs) conducted by the MIND Research Institute.​ ​Thus, it can be stated with confidence that games do not rot your brain. Television may be another story. When you have experts suggesting that games help the players train higher order skills (for example: thinking, complex problem solving, in-depth interaction through media and language), it is clear that educational games are not a fluke.

I leave you with the outlined facts above and my sentiment that, as a lifelong gamer and education enthusiast, infusing education with fun, by implementing games, is a win-win situation for both students, parents, and teachers. Games, literally and figuratively, speak to students in different ways that books and teachers cannot, and allowing students to control the narrative in them is allegorical to giving them ownership of their education paths.

Image: Max Pixel