Translator: David DeRuwe Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work in a prison? In 2015, I accepted the challenge to become a teacher in a men’s prison. The students wanted to have fun, but there were countless limitations related to security: no balls, no ropes, no shuttlecocks, no almost anything.
The teachers wanted the students to write more, but students are a little resistant, and we know that, right? The solution? I inserted games that involved words into the classes.
Scattergories, crosswords, word searches, Pictionary, It was then that Mompas came out. In Mompas, I selected, for example, the letter A and the students had a specific time to write the maximum number of words possible using that letter. For the younger grades, we had “amor,” “casa,” and “bala.
” For the more advanced I’d pick up to four letters and make some challenges like, for example, the word couldn’t start with any of the selected letters. The game was so fun that we made a challenge: an internal championship. At the end of this championship, there was my student, João, and myself.
The selected letters were F, R, B, and I. Time ran out. I didn’t have anyone rooting for me, and João had written “frigobar.
” He won the championship. I was mocked for the rest of the year by the entire prison, even by people who weren’t my students. But even though I was teased and made fun of, I was delighted.
The game had encouraged the students, and they became better in Portuguese. They were writing bigger and more complex words and making fewer spelling errors. Studies show that game-based learning generates better results, even on traditional tests.
In a New York model school that took on this role in 2006 and created an entire curriculum based on games, the English proficiency level is 24% higher than the other regional schools. Now, why do teachers like games so much? A good game incentivizes the player to want to win.
And to win, they develop a strategy. The elaboration of this strategy, its follow-up, and its re-elaboration are extremely important processes for learning. Games teach in a simple way: to play, everyone needs to participate; it’s fun to overcome challenges and learn; and although nobody likes to lose or make mistakes, it’s just part of it.
In addition, games provide instant feedback of learning and can develop various capabilities: logical and mathematical, emotional and social, memory and musical. Games are wonderful, and Mompas was awarded in 2018 as the best educational game and entered the market in 2019. Today I help schools and parents teach in a playful way.
I’ll leave two messages with you: The first is there are many themes yet to be explored and many games yet to be produced. Maybe you can be the next game designer for a game publisher. The second is that if you want to learn more and better, just ask yourself: “What game am I going to play today?
” Thank you.
