More Than Just Learning Games. For a Sound and Effective Pedagogy of Play

One of the most interesting and at the same time intrusive modalities of the pedagogical valorisation of play in the modern age has been found in the forms of \u0022didactic games\u0022. Intriguing because it is in this direction that the research and production of play materials has developed with the aim of strengthening the link between play and learning: the ancient Latin expression Ludendo docēre, dating back to Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (1st century AD), is transformed into Ludendo discĕre, shifting the centrality of the function of teaching to the more natural one of learning. This is disturbing because the expansion of the market for the production of educational games over a period of about two centuries has led to a de facto colonisation of the pedagogy of games, which raises a prejudicial question: on the basis of what assumptions can a game be defined as \u0022educational\u0022 and, by extension, which games are \u0022educational\u0022? A game that is labelled as \u0022educational\u0022 or

\u0022didactic\u0022 would then be considered to have some kind of \u0022added value\u0022, making it suitable to be used in schools. But is this really the case? How many of us would include educational games in our ludo biography, among the games that have contributed the most to our education? It is likely that there is an unresolvable conflict of interest in the relationship between school and play. [Publisher's Text]

18339 characters.