Games for learning or fun?

The subject of games and gaming has been in my thoughts and conversations often over the past few months. Which games benefit kids; which ones can 'make learning fun'?

When people first find unschooling, a common theme presented is that we learn through games or that unschooling is about finding ways to *make learning fun* .  I get that saying we have fun learning is to counter the idea that we spend our days forcing our kids to learn a curriculum around the kitchen table. I understand the appeal of games as learning tools to make the point that learning need not be drudgery, that even when it looks like all we do is play all day, learning really is happening.  Sometimes, it's tempting to make that argument to convince others -- extended family, in-laws, friends who kids attend school, neighbors, etc -- that we really are responsible parents.

Today I was part of a conversation about learning games; someone asked about 'fun games to help learn grammar'.  At first I groaned, because I'm a lover of words and a lifelong grammar geek.  Around our house, words are fun, whether we're making puns (Gary is the master of bad puns!) playing with double entendres, singing songs, or telling stories or bawdy jokes.  The very idea that one would need a game to make grammar fun is laughable!

I understand how people get confused about the topic, though.  Anyone who went to school got the idea that some particular subject was both essential and no fun to learn.  For me it was math.  Really, though, that makes learning much more complicated than it needs to be, and we risk sucking the fun out of playing games.  Games are designed to be fun. When learning happens to happen along the way to enjoying or becoming good at a game, that's a bonus.  I say when not if, because you will learn something, even if it's not about the actual game -- we're big story tellers while games are played and many own childhood memories, as well as my kids' current stories, are shared over games.

Learning as the purpose of a game? I think that's just plain dishonest.The idea of *games that teach (insert subject here)* has always bothered me. When we do that we're separating out certain parts of life into subject matter, and assuming that one or another is hard to learn, so it's necessary to *make it fun*.  We're saying that this particular subject is not only hard to learn, but it's no fun at all, so we need to invent a *game* to sneak some learning into our kids.  We're saying that we don't trust our child will embrace learning something new.  Usually, that's a sign that what we think our child needs to learn isn't truly necessary to his life.  After all, if you're enjoying the way you spend your days, and you hit a point where you need more knowledge to continue your enjoyment, why wouldn't you want to learn that?

Several years ago, when Andy was 8 and Dan 4, I bought a couple of Mad Libs books, before a road trip thinking it would make a fun ice-breaker for the cousins (my sister's kids were 12 & 7 then).

We were at my sister's when I asked if anyone wanted to play Mad Libs with me, because I LOVE Mad Libs. Andy asked, "what's Mad Libs?" Before I could answer, my sister said "it's a game that helps you learn parts of speech." Gee, thanks. I could feel the fun being sucked out of the room. And with it my kid's trust. It was no surprise to me when no one wanted to play Mad Libs.

It was several years before I found anyone who would play Mad Libs with me. Andy had no interest in playing a *game* created to teach him something. We are people who love words, and we're grammar geeks, so words are fun in every other part of our life, but he wasn't going to play that game.

About a year ago, Dan discovered the Mad Libs books, and his best friend's Mom also had some around, so the kids played those. Now we play Mad Libs every so often, and even Andy joins and has fun.  It makes me sad to think we missed 3 yrs of Mad Libs fun. Sadder, though, is that for some time after that day, Andy was suspicious of any new game I tried to introduce, worried that each one was just a pretext for some kind of learning I thought he needed.

Life is fun! It's also messy, complicated, easy, challenging, confusing, and brilliant, in so many ways. Along the way, while living a full life, we learn whatever we need to know to navigate the life we make. If grammar or math or chemistry or history is necessary, and a person finds it's not just absorbed without effort, then be honest about making the effort to learn what you need to know to have the life you want.

If something comes naturally, then just let it flow and along the way other necessary learning will follow, just like a big sticky ball of knowledge -- often wrapped up with exciting trivia from our full day-to-day lives. It's dishonest to construct or choose a game specifically to teach a child a particular skill that you or someone else think a child needs to know.  Be honest, be real, play games for the fun of it.