Could video games inform education policy?

Games' fundamental principles -- such as rewarding success, removing the sting from failure -- could

How do you mime ringing a doorbell? Go on, it’s not a trick (although I’ll let you off if you’re reading this on public transport). Did you — as I and every adult I know did — reach out your index finger in the hope of eliciting an imaginary ding-dong? It seems as natural as men wearing trousers, or cooking a steak before eating it. But ask a child and he or she might reach out for that phantom button . . . with a thumb. Years of texting, or playing handheld game consoles, you see.

That rather unscientific example shows once again that many of the things we regard as “natural” and immutable are, in reality, culturally contingent. It also demonstrates how easily our brains react to a change in stimulus, effortlessly adapting to a changing world. It’s what has made humans so successful.

Which brings me to computer games. Read the popular press and you might think that they’re frying children’s brains, rendering them drooling imbeciles bent on murderous destruction. That’s tosh. For a start, according to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, only 5 per cent of games released last year had a “mature” rating (for sex, drugs or violence). And does it matter that western children spend so much time in front of screens? Are we afraid it will leave them ill-equipped for their future lives as hunter-gatherers, chimney sweeps or nomadic goatherds?

Once we’ve got over the idea that games are a menace to society, perhaps we can have a proper conversation about how to make them work for us. One of the current buzzwords in nerdy circles is “gamification”, where games’ fundamental principles — such as rewarding success, removing the sting from failure — are applied to other pastimes. Yes, there is a dark side to such incentivisation: who hasn’t bought two of a product they rarely use just because it was on special offer? But that’s no reason not to harness these ideas for good: for example, in education policy.

Thumbs up

What would a “gameful” school look like? No need to imagine, because one exists already. It’s called Quest to Learn, it’s in New York and it caters for pupils aged 11 to 18 (its website is at q2l.org). Instead of taking tests that brand them a success or failure based on a single performance, its students continually “level-up” by accruing points. They are also encouraged to tackle tasks as a group, sharing out roles such as explorer, historian and writer.

Peter Hyman, a No 10-strategist-turned-teacher, wrote in this magazine this year that we are “educating children for the middle of the 20th century, not the start of the 21st”. It’s true — who needs to learn dates by rote, when they’re just a google away? Who needs to slave away on their cursive script, when touch-typing is a far more useful skill? And why do we assume that fun and learning must be mutually exclusive?

Like it or not, most children find their Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable or mobile phone an irresistible draw. So, instead of regarding games as a distraction from more serious fare, how about trying to combine the two? Even if you can’t give your child a gameful education, you can at least encourage them to play educational games. And it’ll put those hyper-developed thumbs to good use.

Five educational games:

1. BBC Schools — a range of game, searchable by age range and category.

2. The map game — think you know where Azerbaijan is? This drag and drop puzzle will show up the gaps in your geography knowledge.

3. Food Force — billed as the “first humanitarian videogame”, it’s a simulator from the World Food Programme.

4. Selene — a NASA-funded game to teach you about the moon.

5. Global Conflicts — an award-winning game about war, designed for use by teachers (£).