Key points:
- Esports is more than gaming–it helps students develop critical skills
- How esports can help students in the classroom (no, seriously!)
- 4 tips for creating an elementary esports program
- For more news on esports, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub
I first started trying to get an esports program at my school in 2011. At the time, there was a lot of resistance around the misconception that violent video games make violent kids, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Another common roadblock I faced was the idea that video games make young people antisocial. That’s not true, either. Kids love socializing through video games.
I started building an esports curriculum and, every time, I got shot down, I would add an element to the curriculum addressing the reasons I was told we couldn’t have a team. When I was told that video games cause young people to become antisocial, I added a section on social-emotional learning (SEL). Family members and other educators worried about excessive screen time leading to poor physical health, so the curriculum calls for every practice to begin with calisthenics and stretching, and we talk about the performance triad of a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, and appropriate nutrition.
We ended up with a robust and rigorous curriculum, the Esports Personal and Performance Improvement Curriculum (EPPIC), that we used in my organization, Garden State Esports (GSE). EPPIC was also recently adopted by Gameplan, which provides comprehensive STEM and CTE curricula, as well as resources for extracurricular esports programs.
A big factor in getting scholastic esports into approximately 300 schools across New Jersey was a growing acceptance of video games among students’ families. When they started gaming with their kids, they understood that, to many students, playing video games is much like playing kickball in an abandoned lot with friends.
Today, the resistance to esports has little to do with video games themselves and more to do with tight budgets. A school or district may even be excited about the idea of an esports program, but may still feel it isn’t worth the investment. One way I address the value proposition is by explaining how esports encourage development of the four Cs: community, competition, character, and college and career. Applied to esports, the four Cs are a way to leverage students’ passion for gaming to help them grow and develop into healthy human beings. Here’s how it works.
Community
For this generation, gaming is very social. They see it as a way to meet up and spend time together, even if they aren’t in the same space. When they join an esports program, they very quickly find other students who they didn’t expect to have much in common with but who enjoy the same games they do. I’m a big data nerd, so we do lots of surveys, and 82 percent of GSE students report that when they play games outside of school, they spend at least part of that time playing with teammates. About 97 percent report making a new friend.
I hear over and over that the main thing students are excited about is belonging to something: 40 percent of GSE athletes don’t participate in any other school activities but find community and belonging in esports. That transfers to school, giving them a reason to show up every day and improving attendance, behavior, and even their grades.
Another strength of esports is that, while it does have the same community-building value as traditional sports, it doesn’t have the same physical requirements. Some students playing esports have never been on a team before because they aren’t physically able to participate. Ten percent of the students in GSE have some kind of disability. Seeing students have their first opportunity to be part of a team is really special.
Esports brings them together, encourages them to celebrate each other’s accomplishments in something they’re passionate about, and offers a sense of belonging to many students who have never had the opportunity to feel that before.
Competition
I’ve coached football, track, and wrestling for more than a decade, and the sportsmanship and competitive attributes of esports are much the same. You talk about the necessity of practicing to get ready for competition. You impress upon the students that they are part of a team, something bigger than them, and that often means sacrificing. You help them understand that they need to help each other improve, because the team is only as strong as its weakest link.
In our survey, students reported that the number one thing they learn in esports is good sportsmanship. Just as in traditional sports, whether you win or lose, doing it with class is important. What I love seeing most of all if students lose a competition is when they reframe failure as an opportunity for improvement and look for how they could have performed better.
Character
In esports, students develop character first through their personal commitment to competition. When they commit to the competition, they commit to becoming someone who is able to be part of a team. They learn how to be a leader, or—and this isn’t talked about nearly enough—how to become a good follower. Being on a team often means taking on each of those roles at different moments to follow the game plan. No matter what role they play, students in esports learn to be someone who is dependable and reliable and does what they say they will.
College and career
In New Jersey, 36 of our 42 colleges have an esports team. It’s easy to find a place for talented gamers to compete at the college level. What’s more interesting to me—and more realistic, because not everyone can compete at the highest levels any more than everyone can play D1 college football—are the related opportunities students have to prepare themselves for college and career through esports. Video games are a bigger industry than the movie industry and North American sports combined, and a lot of jobs in the industry are STEM-related.
When esports teams hold matches against rivals, I encourage them to broadcast those matches and stream to Twitch. Suddenly, you have “team casters,” students in charge of the virtual production and running of the stream. You have students who are marketing the event to their peers and classmates, you have students working as team statisticians. Being part of this “team behind the team” prepares students for jobs related to esports in the real world.
There are tangentially related fields as well, such as video game journalism and esports management. In New Jersey, we are unique in that our state allows gambling on esports, which itself opens up potential career opportunities. I have been working on pathways with the state in areas such as cybersecurity and managing online payments.
Esports has a great deal to offer, particularly for students who haven’t had opportunities to be part of something bigger than themselves. If schools can offer students the chance to be part of a team and to develop and grow personally, academically, and professionally simply by taking part in something they already love, that’s an investment well worth making.
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