Gaming to reengage boys in learning Ali CarrChellman

so I’m here to tell you that we have a

problem with boys and it’s a serious

problem with voice their culture isn’t

working in schools and I’m going to

share with you ways that we can think

about overcoming that problem first I

want to start by saying this is a boy

and this is a girl and this is probably

stereotypically what you think of as a

boy and a girl if I essential eyes

gender for you today then you can

dismiss what I have to say so I’m not

going to do that I’m not interested in

doing that this is a different kind of

boy and a different kind of girl right

so the point here is that not all boys

exists within these rigid boundaries of

what we think of as boys and girls and

not all girls exist within those rigid

boundaries of what we think of as girls

but in fact most boys tend to be a

certain way and most girls tend to be a

certain way and the point is that for

boys the way that they exist and the

culture that they embrace isn’t working

well in schools now how do we know that

the 100 girls project tells us some

really nice statistics for example for

every 100 girls that are suspended from

school there are 250 boys that are

suspended from school for every 100

girls who are expelled from school there

are three hundred and thirty-five boys

who are expelled from school for every

100 girls in special education there are

two hundred and seventeen boys for every

100 girls with a learning disability

there are two hundred and seventy-six

boys for every 100 girls with an

emotional disturbance diagnosed we have

324 boys and by the way all of these

numbers are significantly higher if you

happen to be black if you happen to be

poor if you happen to exist in an

overcrowded school alright and if you

are a boy you’re four times as likely to

be diagnosed with ADHD attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder now there is

another side to this and it is important

that we recognize that women still need

help in school that salaries are still

significantly lowere even when control

for the job types and that girls have

continued to struggle in math and

science for

years that’s all true nothing about that

prevents us from paying attention to the

literacy needs of our boys between ages

3 and 13 and so we should in fact what

we ought to do is take a page from their

playbook because the initiatives and

programs that have been set in place for

women in science and engineering and

mathematics are fantastic they’ve done a

lot of good for girls in these

situations and we ought to be thinking

about how we can make that happen for

boys to in their younger years even in

their older years what we find is that

there’s still a problem when we look at

the university sixty percent of

baccalaureate degrees are going to women

now which is a significant shift and in

fact university administrators are a

little uncomfortable about the idea that

we may be getting close to seventy

percent female population and

universities this makes university

administrators very nervous because

girls don’t want to go to schools that

don’t have boys and so we’re starting to

see the establishment of men centers and

men studies to think about how do we

engage men in their experiences in the

University if you talk to faculty they

may say oh yeah well they’re playing

video games and they’re gambling online

all night long and they’re playing World

of Warcraft and that’s affecting their

academic achievement right guess what

video games are not the cause video

games are a symptom they were turned off

a long time before they got here all

right so let’s talk about why they got

turned off when they were between the

ages of 3 and 13 there are three reasons

that I believe that boys are out of sync

with the culture of schools today the

first is zero tolerance right

kindergarten teacher I know her son

donated all of his toys to her and when

he did she had to go through and pull

out all the little plastic guns right

you can’t have plastic knives and swords

and axes and all that kind of thing in a

kindergarten classroom what is it that

we’re afraid that this young man is

going to do with this gun I mean really

you know but here he stands

a testament to the fact that you can’t

roughhouse on the playground today now

i’m not advocating for bullies i’m not

suggesting that we need to be you know

allowing guns and knives into school but

when we say that a Eagle Scout in a high

school classroom who has a locked parked

car in the parking lot and a pen knife

in it has to be suspended from school I

think we may have gone a little too far

with zero tolerance another way that

zero tolerance lives itself out is in

the writing of boys in a lot of

classrooms today you’re not allowed to

write about anything that’s violent

you’re not allowed to write about

anything that has to do with video games

these topics are banned boy comes home

from school and he says I hate writing

why do you hate writing son what’s wrong

with burning now I have to write what

she tells me to write okay well what is

she telling you to write poems I have to

write poems and little moments in my

life I don’t want to write that stuff

all right well what do you want to write

what do you want to write about I want

to write about video games I want to

write about leveling up I want to write

about this really interesting world I

want to write about a tornado that comes

into our house and blows all the windows

out and ruins all the furniture and

kills everybody right okay you tell a

teacher that and they’ll ask you in all

seriousness should we send this child to

the psychologist and the answer is no

he’s just a boy he’s just a little boy

all right it’s not okay to write these

kinds of things in classrooms today so

that’s the first reason zero tolerance

policies in the way they lived out the

next reason that boys cultures are out

of sync with school cultures there are

fewer male teachers anybody who’s over

15 doesn’t know what this means because

in the last 10 years the number of

elementary school classroom teachers has

been cut in half we went from fourteen

percent to seven percent that means that

93% of the teachers that are young men

get in elementary classrooms are women

all right now what’s the problem with

this right women are great yep

absolutely but male role models for boys

that say it’s alright to be smart

they’ve got dads they’ve got pastors

they’ve got Cub Scout leaders but

ultimately six hours a day five days a

week

our spending in a classroom and most of

those classrooms are not places where

men exist and so they say I guess this

really isn’t a place for boys this is a

place for girls and I’m not very good at

this so I guess I’d better you know

they’ll play video games so get into

sports or something like that because I

obviously don’t belong here men don’t

belong here that’s pretty obvious so

that may be a very direct way that we

see it happen but less directly the lack

of male presence in the culture you’ve

got a teacher’s lounge and they’re

having a conversation about Joey and

Johnny who beat each other up on the

playground what are we going to do with

these boys the answer to that question

changes depending on who’s sitting

around that table are there men around

that table are their mamas we’ve raised

boys around that table you’ll see that

the conversation changes depending upon

who is sitting around the table third

reason that boys are out of sync with

school today kindergarten is the old

second grade folks we have a serious

compression of the curriculum happening

out there when you’re 3 you better be

able to write your name legibly or else

we’ll consider the developmental delay

by the time you’re in first grade you

should be able to read paragraphs of

text with maybe a picture maybe not in a

book of maybe 25 to 30 pages if you

don’t we’re probably going to be putting

you into a title one special reading

program and if you asked how 21 teachers

they’ll tell you they’ve got about four

or five boys for every girl that’s in

their program in the elementary grades

the reason that this is a problem is

because the message that boys are

getting is you need to do what the

teacher asks you to do all the time all

right the teacher’s salary depends on No

Child Left Behind and race to the top

and accountability and testing and and

all of this so she has to figure out a

way to get all these boys through this

curriculum and girls this compressed

curriculum is bad for all active kids

and what happens is she says please sit

down be quiet do what you’re told follow

the rules manage your time focus be a

girl

so what she tells them indirectly that’s

what she tells them and so this is a

very serious problem where is it coming

from is coming from us right we want our

babies to read when they are six months

old have you seen the ad we want to live

in Lake Wobegon where every child is

above average right but what this does

to our children is really not healthy

it’s not developmentally appropriate and

it’s particularly bad for Boyd’s so what

do we do we need to meet them where they

are we need to put ourselves into boy

culture we need to change the mindset of

acceptance in boys in elementary schools

more specifically we can do some very

specific things we can design better

games most of the educational games that

are out there today our really flash

cards right there glorified drill and

practice they don’t have the depth the

rich narrative that really engaging

video games have that the boys are

really interested in so we need to

design better games we need to talk to

teachers and parents and school board

members and politicians we need to make

sure that people see that we need more

men in the classroom we need to look

carefully at our zero-tolerance policies

do they make sense we need to think

about how to uncompress this curriculum

if we can trying to bring boys back into

a space that is comfortable for them all

of those conversations need to be

happening there are some great examples

out there of schools that the New York

Times just talked about a school

recently is a game designer from the new

school put together a wonderful video

gaming school right but it only treats a

few kids and so this isn’t really very

scalable we have to change the culture

and the feelings that politicians and

school board members and parents have

about the way we accept and what we

accept in our schools today we need to

find more money for game design because

good games really good games cost money

in World War Craft has quite a budget

most of the educational games do not

where we started my colleagues Mike pet

nourish on Vashon myself we started by

trying to look at the teachers attitudes

and find out how do they really feel

about gaming what do they say about it

and we discovered that the

talk about the kids in their school who

talk about gaming in pretty demeaning

ways they say oh yeah they’re always

talking about that stuff they’re talking

about their little action figures and

their little achievements or merit

badges or whatever it is you know and

they’re always talking about this stuff

and they they say these things as if

it’s okay but if it were your culture

think of how that might feel it’s very

uncomfortable to be on the receiving end

of that kind of language they are

nervous about anything that has anything

to do with violence because of the

zero-tolerance policies they are sure

that parents and administrators will

never accept anything so we really need

to think about looking at teacher

attitudes and finding ways to change the

attitudes so that teachers are much more

open and an accepting of boy cultures in

their classrooms because ultimately if

we don’t then we’re going to have boys

who leave elementary school saying well

I guess that was really just a place for

girls it wasn’t for me you know so I’ve

got I’ve got to do gaming or I’ve got to

do sports if we change these things if

we pay attention to these things and we

re-engage boys in their learning they

will leave the elementary schools saying

I’m smart thank you