Games. Gaming. Gamers.

     When I was younger, I played video games. Didn't we all?  I had a Nintendo 64 and a Play Station 2. I spent a lot of time on those little mind-killing boxes.  I've also played a few computer games like WOW and Rome:  Total War, but I was never very into those, probably because we didn't have computers good enough to play games on when I was young.  By the time I was sixteen, though, I had stopped playing video games because I wanted to go out into the real world and experience what life had to offer.

     While I understand the point that video games can help with problem solving, I think there are plenty of other ways to learn about problem solving.  Anyone read Sherlock Holmes?  There are also other ways to learn teamwork, e.g. sports, acting, debate class.  In fact in most video game scenarios in our day and age, games are played online with strangers and since people don't think about behaving themselves like they would in real life, they let their anger and other emotions fly.  Online games like Halo and WOW are breeding grounds for fowl language and degrading others.  I've been around people who play, and homophobic, racist, and sexist insults fly like crazy.  There is one game that I may approve of for problem solving, that being Portal, which is just one giant puzzle game.

The only video game that I really learned from was...you know what, I don't even remember what it was called.  This game I played in third grade, and it taught me how to type.  Very practical.  I may one day use Rome:  Total War to demonstrate to upper level Latin students how commanders would fight their battles.  But that's pretty much as far as video games have any real implications in my classroom.

Read a book.  Go outside.  Gamers generally are just awkward kids who don't know how to really act in public.