Should kids be taught gaming in school?
Your first instinct might be to scoff at the idea. Gaming is a form of entertainment after all. And since when do we teach entertainment in schools? Teachers and parents fight endless battles to counter anything deemed to be an unhealthy distraction from learning more important skills and information.
But maybe it’s time to start looking at gaming through new lenses. In fact, there are already several spots in the world where the pursuit of gaming has won over educators enough to begin formal training programs. Most notably, South Korea even has special school and high school electives to train gamers and introduce them to the idea of going pro.
Think about it! In the U.S. today, unnumbered thousands attend university on sports scholarships, from football and basketball to hockey and tennis. With a thriving professional scene, is gaming much different? Less than you think. There are already gaming scholarships and college-level courses being offered to talented students in the U.S.
Colombia is investing in gaming in a similar fashion while gamers in Sweden and Norway can take part in several different educational options. What do these countries know that the rest of us don’t? Could gaming become an important part of the future of education? Maybe it’s time to open up to the possibility that more gaming, and not less, is the best way to prepare kids for the world of tomorrow.
The potential benefits of teaching gaming in school extend far beyond promoting a world-class professional gaming scene, though this can be justified just as easily as any traditional sport. The world is changing rapidly, and today’s high schoolers may find in 20 years that they need skill sets that school never prepared them for. Gaming may be an integral part in getting them ready for this inevitability.
Think about the traits that gaming develops: Quick decision making, lightning reflexes, team problem solving, intense focus on the task at hand and the knowledge that trying and failing isn’t failing at all. These dynamic characteristics that gaming promotes could help future generations maintain extreme flexibility in a rapidly changing workplace and job market.
Businesses are also increasingly seeing the benefits of gamification, turning just about any task into a game with some element of competition or a system of goals that keeps workers motivated. The workplace is becoming more and more like a game! Employees who are unfamiliar with this concept might fall behind those with a basic education in gaming.
But gaming in schools wouldn’t just prepare kids for work life better, it would help them learn other subjects better in school. If business can be gamified, why can’t education? Complex puzzle games could be used to teach the intricacies of Algebra or Geometry. Simulations of historical events and times could be used to make the past come alive for children. Certain games could even foster creativity — probably the last skill that robots will take away from us.
Take a game like Cities Skylines, for example. Acting as the mayor of a city, you don’t only gain basic knowledge of what’s involved in city planning, you practice playing it safe with money, reacting to natural disasters with empathy and economic wisdom to keep your citizens alive and you get to be highly creative in designing the layout of your city. Municipal staff in several places in the world use the game as a simulation to test traffic scenarios and inform real decisions about the developments of their cities.
Add a system like BUFF to the mix and it’s almost hard to understand why gaming wouldn’t be integrated further into education. BUFF rewards gamers for gaming with a currency that can be spent across games and platforms but can also be exchanged for other currencies like dollars and Euros. Schools could gain extra funding when kids game on school computers. Alternatively, kids learning how to game could earn their own allowance by learning… and gaming… at the same time!
