Violent video games are more educational than school, stimulating children to be more critical, constructive and reflective than conventional classroom teaching, says one of the world's leading educational experts.
Children trying to escape a maze, find a hidden treasure or blast away an enemy with a high-powered rifle in a fantasy world make greater cognitive leaps than they do in the classroom, Professor James Paul Gee believes.
'Better theories of learning are embedded in video games than many children in primary and secondary schools ever experience in the classroom,' said Gee, author of What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy, to be published next week.
'Violence is just a way of grabbing the child's attention. What's important is that the more violent the game, the more strategic modes of thinking the child has to develop to win - modes of thinking that fit better with today's hi-tech, global world than the learning they are taught in school.'
The computer industry makes more money than the film industry, despite producing games that are long, hard and challenging, often taking 50 to 100 hours to win. Using games as diverse as Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Arcanum, Gee argues that, while the computer game industry motivates children by stretching them to the limit of their abilities, schools often alienate and bore students when they try to push them to make similar efforts.
'Game designers could make them shorter and simpler, but they make them longer and more challenging, and still people are prepared to learn the game and enjoy it,' said Gee. 'If schools want to engage their students in the same way as computer games, they need to drop their snobbish antipathy and begin learning from them instead.'
Children gain deeper learning experiences playing video games, Gee believes, because they are being given knowledge they can use immediately. School learning requires them to sit passively and listen to facts or complete learning-orientated tasks.
Gee identifies more than 36 different learning tools computer games require children to master to triumph in the fantasy world, such as learning the value of consistent effort and practice, while teaching them to read complex systems incorporating images, actions, symbols and artifacts. Players also develop fantasy characters, encouraging them to reflect on their real-life capacities.
Simulation games, so-called 'God Games' such as SimCity, The Sims, Railroad Tycoon and Tropico, stimulate children to develop an interest in science.
'I've seen seven-year-olds going to libraries to take out historical and mythological books way above their level after playing a games like In the Age Of Mythology, where different historical tribes fight each other,' said Gee. 'That's the sort of thing you don't hear about in this anti-computer game age.'