The San Diego County Office of Education has taken up an unusual approach to engaging students in school — encouraging more video games.
The county office recently held its first esports competition in Fashion Valley Mall involving several school teams around the county. It’s part of growing trend of schools who hope that by creating esports teams these video games can become catalysts for learning, socialization and career development.
Esports refers to the growing national phenomenon of organized competitive gaming. Esports clubs have opened in uncounted K-12 schools across the country, including at least 17 in San Diego County, and in some colleges nationwide.
Nearly 200 US colleges offer about $15 million per year in scholarships, according to the National Association of Collegiate eSports. The esports industry has grown to nearly $ 1 billion in revenues, including marketing, recruiting, coaching, dedicated arenas and media contracts, according to the Wired website.
In La Mesa, at Helix Charter High School, the esports club draws up to 100 students weekly. That’s up from a year and a half ago, when the school’s video game club consisted of three students, organizers said.
Every week last year students would place a Wii and a projector atop a stack of textbooks and play “Super Smash Bros.” Now the group plays a variety of games in an old cafeteria with a projector, computers and TVs set up.
English teacher Angelique Gianas took over the club and transitioned it into the official Helix Esports Club. Instead of dismissing video games as an unhealthy pastime, she ensures the club embraces each student’s passions in a new, more productive way, she said.
“They’re going to go home and play video games anyway,” Gianas said. “So I’d rather have them be here with their friends and, you know, learning about the opportunities of how to turn this hobby into possibly getting a scholarship.”
Gianas has become a fellow for the North America Scholastic Esports Federation, based in Orange County, a program that works to integrate video games into curriculum. Her students analyze video game story lines in their English classes, for instance.
For those who excel in esports tournaments, scholarships and other cash prizes are becoming more common, she said.
Alicia Gallegos Butters, director of educational technology for San Diego County, said the county’s new esports initiative hopes to instill inspire students to loook into careers in the industry.
“(Esports) does lend itself to our society today and what careers are out there,” Butters said.
According to the North America Scholastic Esports Federation, San Diego County schools are home to at least 17 esports clubs. That is a small fraction of the roughly 550 clubs operating in the United States and Canada under the federation, which is in its second year.
With a new chapter recently launched in Japan, a spokeswoman for the organization said its vision of implementing esports into schools has gone international.
Games in the Classroom
On a recent Friday night, the first San Diego County competition kicked off in the Microsoft store at Fashion Valley Mall. Students sat at 10 computers facing one another below a large, nine-screen monitor projecting the popular game “League of Legends.”
This was the first time many of these students shook hands and faced their competitors in real life.
“They normally don’t play face-to-face like this,” said Mark Rounds, manager of the esports club at Monarch School downtown, one of the competing schools. “It’s usually they’re all set up at our school and they play some team from somewhere else and they never see each other.”
About 50 students, club advisers and supporters filled the Microsoft store, huddling among shelves of brand-new computers and tech accessories. Frequent chanting from students when teammate’s avatars popped up on screen and continuous screaming throughout the matches made it clear this wasn’t a typical day at the mall.
Students from six local high schools competed. The winning team, Westview High School in Poway, received two top-of-the-line gaming chairs from the county Office of Education.
It’s in a county’s best interest to invest in video games because esports can encourage positive behaviors at school, said Tom Turner, chief education officer for the esports federation and executive director of educational services with the Orange County Department of Education.
“For students that want to compete, they do have to have a certain GPA, they do have to have good attendance and they can’t have discipline issues,” Turner said.
Though GPA requirements vary by school, Turner said many schools see improvements in attendance, discipline and GPA after they launch esports programs. He didn’t provide specifics.
Beyond after-school clubs, Turner said, his organization has been successful at working esports into classroom curriculum. For instance, some schools are linking video game production and other online content creation to conventional English Language Arts standards in schools, he said.
Inserting adults and teachers into video game culture also helps teach students how to be better citizens online, said Constance Steinkuehler, who studies links between video games and learning at UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics.
A lack of oversight and mentorship in online spaces has led to “a real erosion of basic respectfulness for ourselves and others online,” she said.
Esports in schools can help reverse that, she said.
“We have kids reporting this is the first time anybody has ever talked to them about how losing their temper online is a problem,” Steinkuehler said.
Esports can reach some previously disengaged students, experts said.
Gianas from Helix said many of her students have never participated in traditional sports or in other school organizations. This places her weekly esports club on the front line of teaching important life skills, such as how to work within a team.
Coming out of the Shadows
Edgar Self, a freshman at San Diego State University, said he never used to talk about his passion for video games outside of his small circle of friends. He lived in a small town in Imperial Valley, where video games were considered “dumb,” he said.
In high school, Self’s larger than average frame made him a prime candidate for the football team, which he joined, he said, but when he started at SDSU in August, the esports club was one of his first stops, not football.
“I don’t get the same competitive edge when I play football as I do here,” Self said during an SDSU esports meeting. “This makes me feel, like, so happy when I play it, so I’m so glad they’re actually supporting this stuff now.”
At Helix, Gianas said, the esports club has made an impression on some members. Some students in their senior speeches said the club was the reason they came to school every day, Gianas said.
She recently received an anonymous letter from a student that reads, “This is the only place where I feel like myself and I feel free and I feel like I can be who I am.”
Butters, from the county office of education, said that working video games into the classroom gives schools a role in students’ play and can promote positive social development.
“They’re really able to get a social network around it, an academic network,” Butters said.
“I love games and I love everything about it,” said Helix junior Katherine Bibbiani. “I want to turn it into a career so I can support my family and stuff just by playing games, and I could probably get scholarship money if I try.”
Although most students won’t rise to the level of becoming professional gamers, scholarships opportunities are growing.
UC Irvine, for instance, offers $1,000 to $6,000 scholarships to students for playing such games as “Overwatch,” “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” and “League of Legends.”
Other schools, such as Stephens College, offer esports scholarships for girl gamers exclusively.
One company, Riot Games, announced last year it was providing nearly $500,000 in scholarships for students attending Big Ten colleges.
Gianas said students who participate in esports may find themselves one day pursuing marketing, video game design, computer engineering, public relations or other disciplines that benefit from a solid knowledge of gameplay or similar skill sets.
“I could see myself having a future in video games,” said Helix sophomore Emillio Cecena. “Not necessarily playing it, but more … like designing the characters and all that. That’s something I really want to do when I’m older.”
Are esports a ‘real sport’?
But skeptics have questioned whether esports is a valid substitute for physical sports, especially when the Centers for Disease Control estimates nearly one in five school-age children is obese.
As esports programming expands, some who wouldn’t have categorized esports as a “real sport” have come around to the other side.
“I coached football for 10 years,” said Rounds from Monarch School. “All the elements that go into scouting, preparing, coming up with a game plan, critical thinking — all those skills that you use planning for ‘real sports’ goes into this as well.”
Michelle Carter, senior program manager for the national Society of Health and Physical Educators, said she agrees — mostly. Video games could negatively impact physical literacy, she said.
“Physical literacy is being confident and competent in your physical skills, so you’re encouraged to be physically active,” she said. “In terms of physical activity, I’m not sure if I would necessarily consider (esports) a sport in a traditional sense.”
Esports does include some of the same life skills that go into being a successful athlete, she said, such as teamwork, planning, organizing, communication, and it’s mentally stimulating.
Still, she said, “I wouldn’t see it in the Olympics.”
Rick Fortin, a former adviser for the Helix Charter High School video game club, said he thinks esports can be considered a sport.
“I wouldn’t have said that five, six years ago … but I drank the Kool-Aid and I feel like this is definitely legit,” Fortin said. “I mean, it’s just growing exponentially.”
Some students don’t question it.
“If people define a sport as something you do that takes skill, a lot of esports, and especially fighting games, you can’t just go in there going willy nilly,” said Marcos Ron, a Helix sophomore. “You need to actually get some skills.”
“I consider a sport something that has a real competitive edge to it,” said Self, the SDSU freshman from Imperial Valley.
“I mean, chess can get really competitive. It doesn’t need to have a ball. As long as there is a skill to be obtained and someone who can be the best, I think anything can be a sport.”
For more information about esports in San Diego County schools, go to https://esports.innovatesd.org.
