Working in a school certainly has its benefits. Seeing children progress from such a young age; from the moment they enter secondary school to the moment they leave is a wonderful journey to spectate. I’ve spent the last couple of years of my life drowning in the waves of data, tracking and monitoring that goes into ensuring that a child is ready to go outside into the real world once they’ve finished.
Having based my career in education, the role that video games play in childhood is certainly a bone of contention. In my own schooling, video games certainly facilitated social development as they effectively acted as the lynchpin for my friendship group. Despite this, video games definitely were not cool.
But has this preconception changed amongst today’s schoolchildren?
Let me take it back a decade or two. During primary school, where one’s self-awareness is virtually non-existent, no-one cares what you like. I liked playing the recorder, attending Beavers (although I have to admit, I never took the logical and almost-Darwinian evolutionary step towards the Cubs). No-one commented on these ‘hobbies’. No-one judged.
Three years and a couple of puberty-driven steps later, secondary school arrives. In the initial years, I’m eagerly discussing my traversals across Metroid Prime’s Phendrana Drifts; making it clear that Space Pirates are only able to outsmart me on the odd occasion. But was I whispering? Did I talk about this with anyone but a close circle of Phazon Suit-equipped friends?
A couple more years and I can laugh at Sam’s lack of pubic hair. Despite him only existing to me in a derogatory statement scribbled on the back page of a textbook, I’m pretty sure I’m better than him because I’m sixteen and I am not restricting the growth any hair, irrespective of anatomical location. I’m Burning-Crusade-deep into World of Warcraft, and now I realise I am whispering. But this time it’s consciously. People can’t be aware. Even I know that’s social suicide.
Fast-forward to the present and in between lapses in teacher organisation or the freedom of speech during work, I hear the faint mumblings of ‘360 no-scope’ and ‘FIFA’, and my ears prick. Later on in the week and two lads are discussing Grand Theft Auto V’s heists and how enjoyable they are online. Like an antelope grazing on the Savannah I can feel the predatory social suicide is ready to pounce.
And nothing happens. Don’t these kids have any shame?
The startling normalisation of video games was clearly evident in a Science lesson just yesterday.
‘I can’t watch Netflix any more, as the Wii U won’t connect to the Internet’.
Her reference to using a Wii U for Netflix was simple. It was casual. Granted, it’s not quite admitting to playing video games, however she could clearly differentiate between the Wii U and the Wii – something that I struggled with for at least 3 months.
Obviously, the video game industry is nothing short of titanic. In conjunction with this, regular television advertisement and the expansion of online communication and sharing allows today’s technological-driven generation to become engrossed in a medium which, I at least, saw to be socially taboo in the past. Furthermore, even today’s curriculum encourages the development of video games through programming and coding, as well as educational games such as WordShark that allow students to develop their literacy skills.
As video games become more prevalent within children’s culture, we are undoubtedly going to be shadowed by overblown studies hinting towards the apocalyptic downfall of today’s youth, such as this, instead of celebrating the flourishing nature of children’s culture, driven, at least in part, by the video game medium.
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