Teaching kids and MMO

They seems to be unrelated, yet related in some way.

I have became a voluntary teacher for kids in Sunday schools, in the morning is 4 year old, and in the afternoon 9 to 11 year old. Here I am talking about the 9 to 11 old kids.

First I watched and learn from the previous teacher. She try to teach the kids by let them repeating or act the lesson out. While there are some success, the kids are not that interested, even during acting. Because the lesson are generally boring.

So before my first class last week, I did some preparation. I go for the internet, find some more interesting teaching material, and tried my best to make them a bit changeling as well (by rearranging them in a way that the answer will only show up indirectly, or some other unconventional way).

I can feel my last Sunday's teaching experience is an success. I could grab most of my student's attention, and they are eager for their homework!

So, I think if you pay attention to teaching, even learning can be fun! There is no way to totally avoid the boring part, but there are ways to make learning exciting. You can let your students by break down and manipulate the boring parts to make them challenging and interesting (usually if something is challenging to a certain degree, it is interesting).

The same can be said about MMOs. If the designers change the boring grindings to a bit more challenging, a bit more indirect, the game will be interesting. It is hard to do that, but if you put your mind into it, most things are possible.