Bring Games and Sports to Classrooms Already
It’s time schools acknowledge that games offer more practical and tangible value than most other subjects taught
In schools across America, games are treated as secondary to learning, even counterproductive. Unless a game has some utilitarian purpose — a math puzzle, for example — it’s given little value. We do not study games in school, nor do we practice or perfect them in class. We treat games the way we treat a pencil or paper, as a tool. But once the game itself becomes the focal point of an exercise, it’s then considered a violation, a pleasurable indulgence standing in the way of actual academic learning.
As a teacher, I spend a significant amount of time kicking kids off their video games, especially while they’re “working” on computers during class. It’s impossible to overstate just how much games have become a pervasive classroom distraction since the advent of smartphones. The most significant complaint we hear and make about kids is: “All they want to do is play games!” And it’s true. People want to play games all the time, we just don’t let them.
Games actually have more tangible, measurable, practical, and value-creating worth than most other subjects in school.
