Education is important, and with the start of September, it’s likely that many of us will be going back to school. You might not love taking courses about calculus, macro economics, or marine biology, but you’re laying the foundation for a better understanding later in life. Besides the actual curriculum, you’re also gaining much-needed experience in social interaction, time management, group dynamics, and public speaking. These formative years are important--and if all we did at this age was play games, we’d probably all die in our early 20s.

Then again… gaming has taught us quite a few valuable lessons. In fact, the more we think about it, the more there is to say about video games as an educational platform, in terms of both hard facts and character-building virtues. We certainly retained these teachings better than those of our first period meteorology lecture, or the nonsense that is nutritional science (apologies if that’s your major). Here are the precious disciplines and life lessons we learned just by playing video games…

UPDATED with your suggestions! Is there anything video games can't teach us?!

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Those are the life skills that come to mind when we reflect on what we've learned from all the games we've played. But that can't be it - what teachings can you recall from your favorite video games? Leave 'em in the comments below - there's no time like the present to up one's knowledge, especially if it involves gaming.

For wistful reveries of the summer past, we recommend remembering the Top 7… Game characters we (seriously) fell in love with, and 13 video game alternatives to boring summer activities.