minecraft.
I am officially old and don't quite get what the kids are in to, but here is what I gather.
It is a video game, where you can build your own world with resources you find from walking around, cutting down trees, digging in the ground etc. You can freely create, or play in survival mode where you must protect yourself from enemies. You can also create (and destroy) with friends.
I downloaded it to see what the fuss was about.
An hour in, I had no clue what to do. This wasn't Super Mario, where I had a clear end point to reach. I was just walking around, occassionally bumping into animals, getting lost in the woods and eventually digging myself into a hole that I couldn't get out of.
I reached out to some 9 year old experts who stayed in with me at recess to teach me how to play.
They were pressing buttons I didn't know about, using lingo I couldn't follow while I sat back and was impressed by what I saw on the screen. In 10 minutes it appeared they did a lot.
What they did was not intuitive to me at all. How on earth did these kids figure out what to do?
Youtubers and just experimenting was their answer.
These boys have spent hundreds of hours researching, learning from other video gamers who pass on tips about the game's possibilities online and then go test it for themselves.
How was I supposed to know that I needed wood for a crafting table before I could build more complex things? The game itself never told me.
And that is the incredible part. #
The game itself is full of possibilities, but you aren't fed instructions within the game. Rather, an online community has arisen, which shares secrets, tips and guidance is part of the game itself.
These kids spend between 1-4 hours a day researching what to do next by listening and reading tutorials and then attempting to master the skills they have just been taught.
No one is telling them to do this.
No one is forcing them to practice.
No one is trying to motivate them with stickers or rewards for efforts.
No one is having to give them a reason to do this.
They have found something creative, which requires them to learn and master skills which are meaningful and fun to them with enough challenge and sense of connection to others that they are fulfilled. This game mimics life in the sense that there are ample possibilities to pursue whatever it is that interests you.
We can use this as a model for how to approach school. Kids don't lack motivation to learn.
We are just putting information in front of them and requesting the demonstration of skills that the curriculum writers have decided is important and then trying to find methods that work for teachers and institutions to assess the kids on.
Good teachers try to make it meaningful and at times succeed, but the system isn't set up in their favour.
Look at a child's motivation while playing/actively researching with Minecraft, the drive is there. We are just putting things in front of them that don't speak to them and challenge them in a way that is meaningful to them.
This leads to my next topic the flow of curriculum and inquiry based education as being mandatory for an authentic learning experience in school.
Those are coming soon.
