Thank you to the homeschool organization Baltimore Washington Home Educators for bringing the article to my attention! Here’s an extended quote.
Minecraft is played by both boys and girls, unusually. Players can join together to build worlds together: airports, castles, cave systems, roller coasters, an accurate replica of Westeros. At its best, the game is not unlike being in the woods with your best friends. Parents also join in. The Internet is full of testimonials of parents playing with their kids, of children reading their first word in Minecraft, and other milestones usually performed in the analog world. This paradise is not entirely without its shadows. There are mods and different versions that introduce weapons and all manner of “Hunger Games” scenarios. You can kill and be killed. In multiplayer mode, I’ve witnessed asinine comments get typed back and forth for hours. But the foundational experience is wholesome—shredded wheat for the mind. [snip]
But Notch should feel good, as the significance of Minecraft, ultimately, is how the game shows us that lively, pleasant virtual worlds can exist alongside our own, and that they are places where we want to spend time, where we learn and socialize. There is no realistic chance of pulling the “full Amish” and living in the past—nor is that a good idea. We need to meet our kids halfway in these worlds, and try to guide them like we do in the real world. The late Robin Williams had this right. In this video, he explains why he named his daughter Zelda after the princess in The Legend of Zelda, and what’s noticeable is how free of angst the whole conversation is. The two laugh together as they recall playing the game together. Who knows how Minecraft will change under Microsoft’s ownership, but it’s a historic game that has shown many of us a middle way to navigate the eternal screens debate.
Note that this video is also a commercial for the new version of the Zelda game — but what I like about it are the interactions between Robin and his daughter. The last couple of minutes is them cracking up together.