Thirteen years of school. Thirteen years of freedom. Thirteen years of being able to decide what to do when there is no work left. All of that freedom was thrown away at the worst time, my senior year, when admin decided to make a crucially destructive decision—banning Cool Math Games.

With the new phone law banning phones in class and the start of the school year being filled with free time—having no work to do and electronics being restricted (besides the chromebook)—students like myself need something to keep them occupied. 

For years, I have used the educational program Cool Math Games to wind down after a long period of learning. For years, it has never been a problem. The website itself is very academic, offering different types of educational fun that students can use to keep them entertained during free time while also teaching them very scholastic skills. 

Some of the most educational sets of games on the platform are the Papa Louie’s franchise games. Papa’s Freezeria, Pizzeria, Bakeria, and so on. These games—which, I would not even call them games, since they are more like learning experiences—all have the same goals, to teach the player how to be employed. The player goes through many shifts, adjusting to the same stress and customer service pressure that actual jobs would have, and they learn the concept of saving and spending money and how to be the best employee that they can. 

Learning experiences like Papa Louie’s help show the player the different concepts of real life situations that will help them prepare for their time outside of high school. What could be more educational than that?

Cool Math learning experiences are also good at helping students focus. For myself, playing with something repetitive while the teacher is teaching helps me pay better attention to the topic. Hypothetically, I would play Run 3 while the teacher is talking, since I am so used to the game’s mechanics that I could play it on auto-pilot and better focus on the topic on the board. I am not sure why it helped me focus more, hypothetically, but it did, and it kept me from sleeping.

Now, I understand how the original title of Cool Math Games may come off as noneducational because of the word “games” being inserted. However, many people focus on the wrong detail of the title, while the most important but underrated section is left unnoticed. Math. Before there were games, there was math. Take 2048 for example, a learning experience about combining numbers to create a bigger number. 2048 teaches its players basic math skills as well as strategies that help the player memorize values of addition. 

The main aspect that I am most concerned about is why? Why now? I would understand if Cool Math were blocked in elementary school, perhaps even middle school, but during my thirteenth year of school—high school, never being banned before—they decide to ban it now? 

I say this decision was made to minimize how students learn life skills outside of the classroom. Cool Math was made to help its audience, specifically students, adapt to real life needed skills; this includes learning many job-based tactics, memorization, decoding strategies, and even geographical knowledge. The only reason that admin would feel the need to ban these learning experiences is if they wanted to minimize what students are learning outside of school, which is a very disappointing realization. 

Bring back education. Bring back freedom of expression. Bring back Cool Math Games.