My Son's Math Homework Is Essentially Just Pokémon
A parent expresses concern that his son's math homework involves playing Prodigy, a gamified learning platform that resembles Pokémon and other commercial video games. While these platforms engage students with game-like features, the actual time spent on educational content is minimal and lacks instructional support for mistakes. The rise of such ed-tech tools, accelerated by pandemic-era remote learning, blurs the line between education and entertainment.
- ▪Prodigy is a gamified math platform used in classrooms that intersperses multiple-choice math questions between cartoon monster battles.
- ▪Students spend significantly more time on gameplay than on answering educational questions, with little feedback provided for incorrect answers.
- ▪Platforms like Blooket and Gimkit use addictive game mechanics, including in-game currencies and rare rewards, to keep users engaged.
- ▪Blooket has spawned a subculture of YouTube content where users share tips and celebrate rare in-game rewards.
- ▪These gamified learning tools have become common in schools due to the widespread use of Chromebooks and increased reliance on technology in education since the pandemic.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
TechnologyMy Son’s Math Homework Is Essentially Just PokémonEducation games are taking over American classrooms.By Will OremusIllustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.May 16, 2026, 7:30 AM ET ShareSave One afternoon earlier this year, my 11-year-old son was sitting at his laptop and working quietly on his math homework. At least, that’s what he was supposed to be doing. When I glanced at his screen, equations were nowhere to be seen. He was controlling a monster in the midst of battle, casting magic spells to outduel an opposing player.“That’s not your math homework!” I told him. But it was. His fifth-grade-math teacher had told her students to spend time on Prodigy, a site that looks and feels like a video game.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Atlantic.
