A Note on Learning from Spore

After introducing the idea of teaching concepts in Spore in my last blog post, I wanted to touch on this subject again to discuss a couple of ideas I've come up with since then. During our last Games class, Devin mentioned to me that it might be interesting to look at how games are more widely accepted as teaching tools by a younger audience than an older one. This is definitely a very important subject to think about when it comes to determining the deeper significance of simulation games such as Spore.

It is easy for adults to critique Spore and say that it was a poor attempt by Will Wright to simultaneously entertain gamers while teaching them concepts of evolutionary biology and other sciences. Indeed, as I mentioned in my last post, the scientific concepts in Spore are very basic. However, I am a 21-year-old college senior and I've spent many years learning about subjects including biology, astronomy and sociology. Needless to say that most of the people who review Spore for its educational appeal have likewise been instructed in these subjects at some point in time. BUT, to an 8-year-old child who has never experienced any of these subjects before, the basic essence of science in Spore has far more of an impact. This is why Spore is frequently used in teaching environments today. For example, concepts such as sociology or Darwinism can become much clearer to young students when they see the interworkings of socialization, competition and civilization in Spore. Throughout my research on Spore, I've come across blogs and forums that have mentioned that Spore could be the Oregon Trail of its day. I definitely remember playing Oregon Trail in elementary school and loving it. Even though the teachers were using it as a tool to engage learning, I know that the main reason I (and probably everyone else) played it was to shoot the birds, deer and bison over and over again. I'd be ridiculous to say that I learned a plethora of information about the hardships of early settler life from this game when I was just a little kid. But when I look back on it now, I know that that was the first time I learned about the historic Oregon Trail; a subject that wasn't brought up again until late middle school/early high school. Spore probably works in the same way. Kids don't give a damn that they just learned the basic idea behind the Panspermia Theory, they just want to make a wacky creature with as many appendages as possible. The key is to pair this game up with an actual lesson. That way, the game will come to be associated with the subject at hand and will (hopefully) make recalling that information a little easier.

This is the idea that Wright was looking to build on as well. Wright was educated via the Montessori method of education, where you learn through interaction and experimentation with other objects. Wright has actually labeled Spore as a "Montessori Toy" several times in discussions of the game. You can hear a little more about his thoughts on the Montessori method in Spore and more about the game in general on this interesting video: Spore: A Modern Montessori Toy

One other way that kids can learn from Spore in ways that adults won't, is through questions they ask and discussions they have in the classroom. A child might get frustrated and ask why he keeps being defeated by other creatures. The teacher can then lead into a discussion about how, in order to be the fittest creature, you have to develop defenses and camouflage and realize when it is beneficial to engage in socialization versus competition. This is one way in which broader learning branches from a game a kid was simply playing to have fun. So, the next time you read a negative article about how Spore is a lame excuse for learning, look at it from the perspective of an 8-year-old and see how the game could be used in an actual classroom setting. This may or may not improve your impressions of the game, but it certainly provided me with an interesting subject for a couple of blog posts.