South Africa’s education system is all over the place at the moment, mostly due to the inequalities of the past and then the incompetence and stumbling of the present administration. We have some of the best education in the world in our private schools and then some of the absolute worst in poor rural schools.
There is no silver bullet to resolve these issues but one aspect that is very easy to implement with no resistance from the students and with long lasting benefits would be gaming.
No I’m not talking about those educational games that pretend to be a game but are really an education. Those are fantastic and should continue to be used but rather I’m talking about making your class play an hour of Call of Duty (or the like) multiplayer once a week.
Insanity? What if I told you there was academic proof that playing such action games increased your ability to multitask, think about abstract shapes and make fast decisions. And that these improvements lasted for at least 5 months after your session.
TED is a worldwide phenomenon where really smart people put forward ground breaking ideas and if proven to be academically sound they are then given a platform to share their ideas with the world.
This video by Daphne Bavelier showcases the improvements that a 2 hour session of Call of Duty had on her subjects and how that improvement can be replicated.
It’s an incredible find really and one that I just wish the stuffy bureaucrats would pay attention to… but you just know they won’t.
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