Since the invention of the first video game in 1958 gamers have grown up with their favorite games and continue to play throughout their adulthood. Despite video games being characterized as a hobby for teens and children, many of these “gamers” also include adults and teachers.
History Teacher David Hartford
Favorite Games: “Fallout”, “Skyrim”, “Breath of the Wild”, “Minecraft”
Q. What are your go-to kind of games?
A. “Predominantly, I really like larger, open-world story-based games but those take a lot of time and during the school year, I don’t have a lot of time. So during the school year, I like to play games that are easy to pick up and put down.” Hartford said
Q. How did you get into gaming?
A. “My family had an original Nintendo and original Sega Genesis [that] was just kind of there. I didn’t really start playing a lot until basically when the original Pokemon games came to the United States, there was a huge explosion of the Pokemon frenzy, and I think that was the area where I got into it.”
Q. How does gaming affect teacher-student relationships?
A. “I feel like a lot of being a student, especially when you have a new teacher is trying to develop some form of trust with that teacher. And academically, there’s always going to be that hierarchy between teachers. Whereas when you start talking about things that they’re doing outside of school, you have that common connection and it becomes a little bit easier to bridge back.”
Science teacher Eve Kenyon
Favorite games: “Dark Souls”, “Monster Hunter”, “World of Warcraft”, “Apex Legends”, “Stardew Valley”, “Subnautica”
Q. How have video games affected your social life?
A. “A lot of my friends, especially for video games, are on Discord servers, and we play games on our Discord servers. Even when we’re not playing games, we’ll just hang out on the server anyways and just kind of chill and talk so even though we’re not gaming, gaming is what a lot of times brings us together and then just gives us a place of community.”
Q. How can gaming benefit your relationships with students?
A. “[Gaming] creates a lot of good conversation and you kind of get to know their personalities a little bit better whenever students are just talking about school stuff, they tend to be a bit more shy, they don’t talk about it as much. But if you can get them talking about something we really like they open up a lot more and you see more of their personality and if they like you better they also want to get more into what I teach.”
History teacher Carlos Villa
Favorite games: “Baldur’s Gate 3”
Q. How does your knowledge of video games affect your teaching?
A. “I mean, it helps that I have a nephew that’s a similar age [to the students]. A lot of these students play [games] like Fortnite and all that so I can get some of the terminology [from my nephew]. I have used some of that terminology when we’re doing an assignment where I’m able to connect it to them, so it’s easier to engage those [students] who like playing.”
Q. How do you manage time management with gaming?
A. “I think it’s just, I don’t allow myself to play a game until I do what I need to do. I’ll have a list and I stress that with students to where it’s okay to game as long as you take care of your other responsibilities.”