Are Computer Games Educational?

I realized just how far behind on the household chores we are when Master8 walked in the back gate this afternoon and announced to his sisters, “Yay! We’re growing wheat!”

“We grow wheat in Minecraft,” he explained to me.

You’d be surprised what kids can pick up playing computer games. 

I remember when Master21 was in high school and came home one day excited because his 400 hours of playing one particular computer game on the Playstation had suddenly payed off big time.

“I think you’ll find you owe me an apology,” he said in that fifteen year old tone you want to snatch out of the air and return back down their throats.

“Based on what?” I wanted to know.

“You told me I’d never learn anything playing games and I just owned my religious studies exam naming Hindu deities because Fanal Fantasy VII is full of them.”

I remember he also refuted my ‘you can’t make a living playing computer games’ by sighting an American gamer who apparently earned a million dollars winning some tournament or another. Not that he’s been able to produce a flashy cheque for me to ogle, but that’s probably my fault for stifling his ‘training’.

My point is, I’ve come to realize computer games aren’t all gloom and doom, and can offer kids more than just a few hours of mindless entertainment.

Even Minecraft has something to offer young minds.

“We use the wheat for feeding the animals,” Master8 explained to me. “Like the sheep. The wheat attracts the sheep and then you feed them and they kiss and make a baby sheep.”

I didn’t even correct him on the kiss makes babies thing. Who knows? Maybe he’ll ace a biology or animal husbandry test in years to come based on this.

And as a show of my growing respect for the educational benefits of computer games I confirmed to Master8 we are indeed growing wheat in our back yard.

Actually, that isn’t quite the reason. Maybe I’m over thinking it, but what I really don’t want him doing is going to school and saying his parents are growing grass.

And on that note, it’s time to mow the lawn.

When not over here, Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’  Facebook Page.

 ’raising a family on little more than laughs’