Cool Math Controversy

Ryleigh Hinkle, MVC writer

Many students between the ages of 11-18 have heard of Coolmathgames.com. It is a website that claims to have relevance to math, but, as we know, it is just games. Sadly, MVHS has this website blocked because kids play it during class instead of focusing on work. But many kids disagree with this and think they should be allowed to play it because it has math in the name. Coolmathgames.com was made in 1997 and has been played by people for 25 years.
While at home, I searched through cool math for educational games or games that could teach me something. Though there were not very many, lots of the games involve reading or are calming in a way.
Sometimes school can be stressful, and students need a way to calm down. I think that they should be allowed to play games, even for ten minutes, at the start of class before starting a lesson. We have to sit in school for seven hours, not counting after school activities, so we need a break.
When playing games, students are not forgetting everything we learned in class, in fact students are developing new skills. A useful skill children may learn from these games is problem solving; this skill is used in lots of real life situations.
Parents sometimes agree with teachers that games fry children’s brains. I am not saying kids should be allowed to play games all through the day, but I do think they should get about ten minutes in class or maybe during SRT time, to have a break and play some games. It can get them feeling calm and focused on whatever they will be doing in class that day.
If it does become a problem and kids get too rowdy, I would encourage teachers to lower the amount of “game time” they get instead of just taking away games from all students.