Bob Cringely wrapped up a three-part series on education this weekend. The series (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) provides some salient insights into our current educational system. For example, in the final article of the series Bob points out that the actual goals of the educational system don’t often match up to the lofty ideals that are often attached to it:

Part of any answer is figuring out what education is for. We use it for paying dues, for passing time until a certain level of maturity is reached. We use it for networking and finding mates. We use it for acting goofy at the expense of our parents. And we use it, to some extent, to learn what we need to know to get by.

He then wonders what education will look like in the future. One possibility he throws out is that games will replace much of what we think of as “classroom education”:

If you play a Beowulf game for 20 hours and it includes all the characters and narrative of the book, will you have mastered the material well enough to pass a test? Probably.

This is an interesting thought. My first reaction is that I don’t remember most of the story, or facts, in games. The assumption is that the details are made up and simply provide an excuse for you to shoot some aliens…so why remember them? This isn’t always true; Mass Effect has a wonderfully rich backstory and the information is well presented within the game.

Still, there is the problem of knowing when the game content is purely fiction and when it is not. Since games are an entertainment medium that is driven almost exclusively by fiction it might be difficult for players to make that distinction. I like the idea, and it will be interesting to see if things play out the way Bob envisions.

Tags: education, games