Photojournalism Project Games in Class | Page 3

[Cover] A student plays Running Fred

[Opposite Page] A student plays ESPN Fantasy Basketball

[Above Left] An example of games contained in Google Chrome. This computer has approximately 12 games

[Above Right] A student plays Tetris

[Right] A student plays Papa's WIngeria

Will Power

An editorial by William Parker

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” However, you definitely should not do as the Romans do in America. The same goes for school and home.

At home, many children play video games. Parents will usually accept this as long as they get their other work done as well. However, some children try to play video games in school, or do as the Romans do in America. What is disconcerting about this is that the teachers either don’t know about it or choose to ignore it. The students who play games hide it very well. They play while the teacher is talking, they play when they are supposed to be working, and they even play in APP. As they do this, they are taking away from their own learning time. It clearly states in the Code of Conduct that students should not play games in class without permission. When students ignore that, they aren’t only breaking that rule, but aren’t paying attention. This means that they don’t learn nearly as much, and thus likely do worse on schoolwork such as tests or worksheets than students who do pay attention. In an interview with a game playing student, the student stated that he did not learn as much when he played games in class. This means that he was aware of it, and yet still played games.

We need to put an end to this.The question is, how?