Monday, March 10, 2014

Call of Duty

I work with fifth graders at my church. As I sat in a circle with five boys (two of which were new to the group), can you guess their common ground? No, it wasn't the love of Jesus or basketball.

It started when Silas started talking about playing Call of Duty over the weekend. Very quickly the conversation started spinning around teleporting hell hounds and how best to knock of guys with riot shields.  And I was lost.

While I don't advocate 10 year old children playing first person shooter games, I couldn't help but think that we're missing something in our education system.  I haven't gotten on the gamification bandwagon, and I am fairly certain I will be run out of town chased by torches and pitchforks if I suggest it, but I got to wondering.  If we asked our students to honestly tell us what their favorite thing in all the world, what would it be?  Studying history? Reading a fiction book? Doing math problems?  Sure. There will be a few who lean that direction.  However, I daresay that the vast majority will answer with video games or sports.

All this to make me ponder... How do we meld the two worlds?

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