If you read the title of this post and wondered why I misspelled the term meaning a period of two weeks… it might be time to crawl out from under that rock. If you hadn’t noticed… kids love Fortnite. Do you?

I firmly believe that teachers need to reach out to our students where they are. And, let’s face it, a bunch of them are on the island in Fortnite. Now, this is not a post about the merits or flaws involved with kids playing the game, or the game itself. Instead, I am proposing you do something that might just be a stretch for some of us…. accept it and utilize the kids’ love for a game.

Whether kids love it or hate it, they have all heard of it. With just over 5.5 million followers on Twitter and 11.6 million on Instagram, it’s obvious the kids are into this game. They talk about it online and off. They talk about it everywhere. Imagine a class where they could talk Fortnite, and still learn the content…

In fact, I have a personal story about just how this game can be integrated into the classroom. Last year, when my daughter was in eighth grade, she had an Algebra 1 teacher who could have played the Fortnite relationship with school in one of two ways. She could have squashed it, or run with it. Thankfully, her teacher, being one of the great ones, ran with it. A question apparently came up in conversation about finding the area of circles and where the center of the Fortnite Storm would end up with each shrinking of the storm.

Instead of squashing it, Ms. Cornelius ran with it and challenged the kids to find the areas of the storm at each point. They also had several class wide discussions about how the center of the storm might be determined. The students decided that the center was based on population density, and the storm centered itself in the center of the most populous portion of the map. 

Is this how it is done? I honestly have no idea. The important thing here is the sheer amount of work these kids did willingly, and on their own, to try to figure these things out. They worked at home, they had group chats discussing it, they came up with theories. Of course, they had to test to see if they could accurately predict the centers and play the game. I was happy to get to play as my daughter watched the game and made predictions. She was right… a BUNCH of times. Far more than she was wrong. Even when she was wrong, she was close. I was impressed.

Now, what about those other subjects? I taught English last year. The kids knew I played Fortnite. We would talk about how many ‘Dubs’ we got in the hall. While teaching writing, I used Fortnite. I related the way a skin in the game relates to an essay. The neatness and originality of presentation may not change the core message being conveyed (or the mechanics of the game) but it makes the piece more enjoyable to look at, to read… like the skin makes the game seem more like it is yours.

The key here is I had instant buy in with these discussions. Kids had their opinions. They were able to relate to the topic being discussed. They actually got the idea I was trying to get across. Even better, they talked about it. Out of class. In the halls. To other kids, especially those I did not teach. 

Anytime you can get kids talking about what they learned about writing essays, that is a huge win.

Moral of these stories is simple. Fortnite is here. You can choose to refuse to allow the discussion to come up, and all you do is distance yourself from your students. News Flash… they are going to play it anyway. The other option is to embrace it, make it work for the content you are presenting. Kids will begin to interact in ways they have not before. Those gamer kids who rarely speak? Yeah, they will even participate, because you hit on something they are passionate about. 

So, weave your passion for teaching with their passion. Not just Fortnite, but whatever the current ‘thing’ is. Learn about it, ask questions, and integrate it into your lessons. Your kids will love you for it.