Part 2 of How should video games and computers be handled in Adventist boarding academies...
In generally I can probably more easily identify with the people lamenting strict standards in our schools. I have seen first hand the problems caused by teachers who lack proper classroom management skills. While the classroom may still work well for half or more of the students, a significant number will not be served by teachers who do not know how to command the respect of the students. Notice I say command, because it may be impossible to earn with those students who need a stiff guide but do not receive it because of hesitancy on the part of the teacher. But given that our private schools operate under scrutiny of the state, and parents quick to find fault and run to a lawyer over any perceived slight, I wonder if even our own schools are lost to the (wimpy, namby-pamby, ever-yielding, self esteem means all, let's run to a psychologist instead of the Bible) ways of the world.
Ellen G. White is clear that our schools should be preparing students for citizenship in heaven, and a certain part of that requires instilling the understanding of the majesty of God and his just laws that may not appeal to our carnal natures. EGW counselled us that our higher schools should teach practical missionary skills. Those who want to have a profession in worldly skills (for example Chemistry) are probably better off to go to a worldly college, than for us to emulate the worldly courses in our own schools.
The blog posts talk about the lack of redeeming value of competitive sports in our schools. EGW warns us that competitive sports create winners and losers, and are a part of Satan's system. God's system is to have us emulate Jesus example, and continually strive to do better than we've done before, relying on Jesus help. While some sports might instill physical fitness, there are plenty of practical physical activities that can make us more fit. Personally, I've always thought that sports like baseball, where many kids spend lots of time standing on the side lines, or standing in the outfield with nothing to do, are pretty colossal wastes of time. And one has only to look at some parents to see Satan's influence in shining example. The only sports game I really liked as a kid was kickball or soccer, otherwise at recess I was off in the woods exploring nature, building forts, making dams in the creek, catching crayfish, grasshoppers, and ants, and putting them in aquariums to observe them, and experimenting with burning things with magnifying glasses and coils of wire hooked to lantern batteries.
What about video games? My history goes back to the earliest consumer video games in the local bowling alley. (Gasp! An Adventist teenager allowed to sneak into the bowling alley? My mom and grandfather used to a great time walking to the bowling alley every night to play Pacman and Galaga. My mom taught herself all the patterns and could play most of the games much better than I could.)
When I got my first taste of a computer, I was in high school. The computers had 8,192 bytes of memory, were programmable in Basic or 6502 assembly language, and used Memorex audio cassettes for data storage. One of the ways I taught myself computer programming was to try and recreate then classic video games like Space Invaders, and Pacman. My games were just A's for the player being chased by asterisks in a field with walls made of equal signs. But I learned a lot about strategy from such pursuits. I learned about logical thinking in many different ways:
- I had to break down a broad objective (move player figure and creatures at the same time, or have the creatures chase the player) into very small steps
- I had to learn the given language, whether it be Basic or assembly language
- I had to accurately specify the steps to the computer
- I had to figure out how to debug the program when it didn't do what I wanted
- I had to test my program and make sure I'd handled every possibility, and if some situation wasn't handled, I had to figure out a way for my program to detect the situation, and then deal with the situation in a better way.
This kind of logical thinking, to be able to specify procedural processes, is a very important process. I think many people are handicapped by not learning this skill in a rigorous way. The computer offers a unique way to teach this skill, since once the computer is bought, no additional materials are needed (other than a few cents of electricty.) I had several other friends who were similarly interested in exploring the computer. Many of us have gone on to support our families for decades off the early skills we learned. A lot more than can be said for our friends who spent all their free time playing in the Catholic school football league and ended up as Coca-Cola truck drivers with union pensions, or as building contractors. (Wait, most of us techies don't have pensions, and feel more at home with phillips micro screwdriver than a hammer. Some of the jocks did get rich in the trades...)
In our day, not many businesses had a computer, so there wasn't a lot of practical outlet for us to practice learning programming. These days with the internet, practically every program I write is somehow related to the internet, because it is such a kick to create something dynamic that people all over the world can visit and interact with.
- Please continue on to My collection of early calculators and video games I like...