Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

At TEDxPSU, Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video games that teach as well as entertain.

So I'm here to tell you
that we have a problem with boys,

and it's a serious problem with boys.

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 essentialize 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.

So the point here is that not all boys
exist 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 335 boys
who are expelled from school.

For every 100 girls in special education,

there are 217 boys.

For every 100 girls
with a learning disability,

there are 276 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.

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 lower,

even when controlled for 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 three 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 too

in their younger years.

Even in their older years,

what we find is that
there's still a problem.

When we look at the universities,

60 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 70 percent
female population in 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, "Ugh. 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."

Guess what?

Video games are not the cause.

Video games are a symptom.

They were turned off a long time
before they got here.

So let's talk about
why they got turned off

when they were between the ages
of three 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.

A 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.

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.

But here he stands as 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
allowing guns and knives in the school.

But when we say that an Eagle Scout
in a high school classroom

who has a locked parked car
in the parking lot and a penknife 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 writing?"

"Now I have to write
what she tells me to write."

"OK, 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."

"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."

"All right. OK."

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.

It's not OK to write these kinds of things
in classrooms today.

So that's the first reason:

Zero tolerance policies
and the way they're 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 14 percent to seven percent.

That means that 93 percent of the teachers

that our young men get in elementary
classrooms are women.

Now what's the problem with this?

Women are great, yep, absolutely.

But male role models for boys
that say it's all right 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

they're 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 go play video games

or 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 teachers' 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 there moms who've raised boys
around that table?

You'll see, the conversation changes

depending upon who's 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 three, you better be able
to write your name legibly,

or else we'll consider it
a 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 I special reading program.

And if you ask Title I 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."

The teacher's salary depends
on "No Child Left Behind"

and "Race to the Top"
and accountability and testing

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."

That's what she tells them.

Indirectly, that's what she tells them.

And so this is a very serious problem.

Where is it coming from?
It's coming from us.

(Laughter)

We want our babies to read
when they are six months old.

Have you seen the ads?

We want to live in Lake Wobegon
where every child is above average ...

but what this does to our children
is really not healthy.

It's not developmentally appropriate,

and it's particularly bad for boys.

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

are really flashcards.

They're 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 --

the New York Times
just talked about a school recently.

A game designer from the New School

put together a wonderful
video gaming school.

But it only treats a few kids,
and so this isn't 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,

and World of Warcraft has quite a budget.

Most of the educational games do not.

Where we started:

my colleagues Mike Petner,
Shawn Vashaw, 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 they 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 that they get.

And they're always talking
about this stuff."

And they say these things as if it's OK.

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're 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 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 just
a place for girls, it wasn't for me.

So 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 reengage boys in their learning,

they will leave the elementary
schools saying, "I'm smart."

Thank you.

(Applause)