Minecraft: Building Connection and Leaders One Block at a Time
When I ran a Minecraft program for Crescent’s virtual camps last summer and the After-School Online sessions this year, I thought of it as a fun way to introduce students to coding. Students picked up the ideas quickly – they even started working with block coding, which was quite impressive. What was more surprising to me was the wonderful interaction between the older student volunteers and the younger participants. Minecraft was fostering the boys’ leadership and mentoring skills, and their ability to simply relax and connect with others.
The Grade 12 volunteers in the Minecraft program were already leaders; one of the summer camp volunteers was the 2019-2020 Head Boy. But they weren't just leaders in these Minecraft programs, they were participants too. The younger participants saw this and obviously enjoyed the older boys’ company. And that enjoyment went both ways.
This school year hasn’t been easy, and the experience of volunteering in the After-School Online Minecraft session seems to have been a real boost for Grade 12 student Fionn Lay, who worked and played with the Grade 4, 6 and 7 students. By the fifth week, Fionn said that the Wednesday Minecraft days were the highlight of his week. I asked him to take the lead on the Hour of Code Inclusion activities, which were tied into the ideas of Crescent’s Be The One initiative. Fionn went above and beyond to teach his younger Crescent brothers about inclusivity and treating others with equity and fairness. To see the younger boys hanging on his every word was a remarkable thing. The bond Fionn made with younger students is extraordinary, and that was done in five Minecraft lessons. We place so much emphasis on what might be called transferable skills. While these skills are vital, the ability to relax and connect is just as important. I think Minecraft is an excellent breeding ground for the ability to relax and connect more (Coronavirus: Making Friends Through Online Video Games).
Why would anyone say this about a game which, as Conan O’Brian says, only “looks like a world if you have glaucoma”? I suspect it's because Minecraft doesn't really force the player to think about who wins and loses. Competition isn't built into Minecraft the way it is in a faster-paced action or sports video game. When players don't have to think about competition unless they want to, and are able to create and share if they wish, it shifts their focus toward what they're doing in the game. This opens up a space for a connection between players. The ability to be involved imaginatively without necessarily having a particular goal in mind allowed volunteers like Fionn to pass on their excellent character traits as a legacy to others. Games like Minecraft, which allow more imaginative and creative thinking (skills needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution) without necessarily channelling it towards a specific result, might be one way for leaders within the school to lead others toward the excellence we are all pursuing and help those others draw their own portraits as Crescent graduates.
