Video games
This cool teacher got over 30 Game Boys for a “video games as literature” high school class
Think you had cool teachers back in school? This high school teacher got Game Boys for each of their students to let them play and learn literature with them.
Video games have always been one of our favorite ways to unwind from the stresses of daily life. For some, that means playing something after work, but for many, it means (or meant) forgetting about school by diving into untold worlds and fantasies. And as many adventurous and brave kids might know, playing while in the classroom is usually a good way to get into trouble. For this one specific class though, playing IS part of the studying.
Reddit user AnonymousCerealBowl shared the photo below on r/gaming, which shows a large amount of pockets on a wall each holding a Game Boy. With the quote “Okay class, grab your Gameboys!”, the user revealed that they’re a teacher at a public school in rural Oregon, in the US, and that they spent a long time searching for and gathering all of these handheld consoles in working conditions to teach a specific class.
“I teach a video games as literature class for the seniors at my high school”, said the redditor. “I worked really hard to find gameboys over the summer and finally completed a class set of working ones.” As they revealed, their school has a variety of interesting classes for senior-year students in which they teach literature, poetry, creative writing, mythology and more as seen from popular and modern points of view. This one that looks at literature by way of video games was approved by the teacher’s district school board and parent council recently, and for the past 2 years it has been in development.
A different kind of class, for the modern era
According to the redditor, in total their classroom is equipped with 32 Game Boys, which is more than enough for the different groups of students that get the class. The entire class chooses a game to play together and discuss it in class, and afterward, they get a week dedicated to doing creative writing about the game they’ve played. As such the class is all about analyzing and studying the games in detail, including characters, themes, and stories.
But it’s not only Game Boys that are a part of the class: the teacher also obtained a variety of modern consoles, including Xbox Series S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch consoles. Some of the games they’ve already covered in class include Hades, The Stanley Parable, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and of course, Pokémon Red & Blue.
Games are considered by many its own kind of art, even beyond being just entertainment. So as a former student and a current enjoyer of video games, I can only say that I wish I’d had this class back when I was in high school.