At Conlee Elementary School in Las Cruces, NM, students now start off their school day by playing five minutes of
Just Dance, a Nintendo Wii video game. On average, this new strategy has succeeded in fewer tardies, but it looks to do more. Researchers are experimenting on whether to incorporate video games into other aspects of school, like PE, and some even believe that an active video game before math and spelling may improve performance. They argue that these games are better than sitting, children learn better when they are having fun, and that it allows students without the space or means to exercise.
Despite these beliefs, I wonder if increasing video game time is really better for future children. Video games are part of the problem of obesity and a sedentary life style, so shouldn't they be discouraged instead of promoted at school? Might video games in school teach children bad habits that they would have avoided otherwise?
What do you think? Will video games in school be helpful or hurtful for students? Will this effort raise or lower the rate of obesity?
9 comments:
Hmmmm, this is truly an interesting dilemma. While I took an initial interest in this because the number of tardies went down, I think eventually the excitement of video games will die down and will just be another thing that kids do at school.
Video games are more likely to encourage a sedentary lifestyle, leading to the beaten-over-the-head diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes. While this is a really cool approach to school, encouraging kids to play video games to improve their health is a short-term fix to a long-term problem.
The real solution would be to educate these kids on why fitness and healthy eating are important. Merely giving them the facilities to exercise is not enough. Education, however "meaningless" or "boring" it may seem, is the best bet for long-term memory and application. Take Health, a semester class required at Aragon. As much as we all grumbled about the insane "easy-ness" of that class, we still learned things, if prompted, we could remember today.
This is a very unique idea! I can imagine how effective the use of video games can be on getting kids to become more enthusiastic about learning and school. But apart from the decreasing tardies and possible performance enhancement, I do believe that schools should not be using video games as a means of encouragement. It seems good in the short run, but bad in the long run. By promoting more video game playing at that early age, the children will most likely continue to play as they grow up, therefore increasing their chances of developing a sedentary lifestyle. I suppose a remedy to this would be to include a health course in the curriculum to lessen the chances of students such an unhealthy lifestyle.
Schools should not use video games. If they want to decrease tardies, there are plenty of other ways, like harsher punishments. If they want better exercising, maybe have them run less and do more sports. Encouraging kids to exercise through an activity that doesn't encourage exercise, except for the Wii slightly and ever so slightly, does not work in the long run.
I think that video games can be instrumental in helping children learn in a more effective manner, but I don't think that it should be excessively used at school.
With PE, I do not think that video games should be incorporated into it. Playing the Wii is a little similar to playing a sport but obviously not the same. Children need to learn how to play sports outside with real equipment that exists outside of a video game. Learning how to play tennis on the Wii is very different from learning to play it in real life. Also, playing video games also takes away from key values (like teamwork) that are seen in the gym or on the football field.
Since the general consensus seems to be video games are bad for school, what do you guys think about the invention of the Wii? One one hand it makes kids exercise a little, but on the other hand it might make kids spend more time on the TV and on still another hand, this may not increase TV time for extremely sedentary kids... ?
I think the Wii is a good means of exercise, but I think it does more damage than good. Although there are Wii games such as Wii sports that encourage kids to do more physical activities, most Wii games now do not require much exercise. Wii games have branched out to include action and fighting games and more, which doesn't increase exercise. The increase of games that do not require exercise will just lead to more TV time, which defeats the school's purpose of getting kids to exercise more. Therefore, there is a likely chance of extremely sedentary kids becoming less active.
I think it is a good idea to bring certain video games into school activities. Although classic video games do not require kids to move around or interact, the newer video games have been trying to reverse this trait. With basic Wii games and Wii fit, and many other different interactive new video games, they are actually becoming beneficial to health. In school, it is important to change up the pattern of teaching in order to keep kids interested. We should be taking advantage of the new technologies offered in present society. Although many video games do promote a sedentary lifestyle, the schools would only be introducing those that are active, or help you learn a subject. I know that I would have participated with much more enthusiasm in PE if we had been doing the "Just Dance" program. For PE in general, with more interesting games and different activities, more people will be willing to put in the effort.
Every situation has its pros and cons. However, While the statistics show that this effort has decreased the number of tardies doesn't mean it's all that good. Just because kids seem more motivated to get to school on time to play a video game, doesn't mean they are motivated and ready to learn. Furthermore, by starting their day off with a video game will lead to bad habits, because the kids will get in that mindset of "oh I play video games at school everyday, so I must be able to play them at home everyday." This will ultimately lead to a higher obesity rate, because the other video games kids play may no be as interactive and stimulating as "Just Dance"
~Emily Zelter
I think that including video games at schools can help kids, but I think that the video games that are included at the schools should ONLY be the type of video games that require kids to move around like the Just Dance video game for Wii Nintendo. I think that if kids get to play video games, even if just for five minutes at the start of the day, then they will be less likely to play video games at home (this is just my opinion). Or maybe they'll want to play video games at home after school, BUT they might want to play video games that require them to move around, just like the ones they play at school. They might want to play this type of video games because they enjoy being able to move around freely even if just for a few minutes instead of sitting on their bottoms all day long.
An alternative to this issue might also be to teach kids how to stay healthy and active, starting when they're young so that when they start getting older, they'll continue to be healthy and active, therefore teaching future generations the things they've been taught when they were kids. I think this is the best alternative to active video games because for the most part, video games have an infamous reputation for causing health problems in young kids.
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