Unschoolers' View of Online Gaming

You will often hear of advocates of unschooling embracing video games. This is because children want to play video games and unschoolers allow their children to be in charge of the curriculum they use. While this may surprise you, what may surprise you even more is that everything from math to social skills can be learned as these children play these video games. This is especially true of those video games that are set in a virtual online world. These worlds actually encourage children to learn real-world skills.

The Skills Learned From Online Gaming

Unlike a lot of games that don't have an online component to them, multiplayer online games require players to spend time thinking about the character they create before they participate in the online community. The game is centered in this community where social activities occur. An example of this is a group of players getting together to go on a quest or accomplish a mission.

There are also websites and forums where strategies are discussed for such missions. Whenever people post on these forums they use reasoning, persuasive arguments, hypotheses that they must then back up and statistics. Steinkuehler and Duncan, 2 researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discovered this was true in 85% of the conversations that were posted.

Unschoolers And Online Gaming

You will find lots of unschoolers who allow their children to play online games whenever they like. One such mother has even created a guild called "The Horde Of Unschoolers" on World Of Warcraft, which she plays alongside her children. She has actually traded in the traditional textbooks and the formalities of education for encouraging her children to follow their own interests. This mother says that her son has actually made real life connections with the online games that he plays. For instance, he has shown interest in the mathematical concept of exponential increases thanks to an encounter within the gaming world.

Another unschooling mother has noticed her children's literary ability increase because of the online games they play. Of course, besides learning math and reading, you can also learn sociology, economics, creative writing and communications while playing these games.

Fighting Stereotypes

A lot of people who read this may be in disbelief or grow hostile. This is because whenever you think of gamers you probably think of overweight people who are sloppy. However, since this is only one of the many things that unschoolers do, this is not the case at all. The key factor has to do with the fact that parents take an active role in their children's lives and don't allow them to just sit around and watch TV or play games all day. Whenever this is done properly, children really can benefit from online gaming.