I may be sermonizing to the saved here, but I gotta get this off my chest:

I just finished reading a lament about the ever shrinking wall of boardgames at places like TRU (inside a larger thread about hot clearance deals.) Like the poster, I grew up going to a TRU and KB where there was a whole wall or aisle of boardgames, and it was not All Monopoly All The Time. It was Axis & Allies, it was DIPLOMACY, it was games that made me the geek I am today. (This was, of course, long before the present board game renaissance and the ubiquity of so many great FLGS's.)

But I began pondering this decline of the board game section in TRU and noticed that it was proportional to the growth of the video game section.

That makes me sad.

Not because I hate video games. But because as a public school teacher, I see kids absolutely STARVING for social interaction with adults. And as fun as video games are (I've been addicted to WoW like everyone else), they just do not provide even remotely the same level of social interaction as a board game. Metaphorically, it is the difference between playing the video game Rock Band, and playing in an actual rock band in my garage. In the first, I am interacting really only with colored blips on the TV. In the second I am playing collectively, collaboratively, and creatively with my friends (and FOR an audience.)

The decline of the board game section and the rise of the video game section at the local mega-store is because people have voted with their dollar, and like any sane business the local mega-store has adjusted. Many of those voters are parents. After all, it is so much easier to let Johnny isolate himself in front of the PC or the TV or the portable hand-held than to sit down with him for the two hours it takes to play Settlers of Catan.

Granted, this is more endemic than just the social versus anti-social nature of board versus video games. I see kids with so many ways to isolate themselves from each other - they are so plugged in, so wired up, that many of them don't even know how to have a normal conversation. And academically, if you can't have a normal conversation, you can't have an intellectual discussion. You can't write a coherent sentence, much less a compelling analytical paper.

One of my solutions, as a teacher, is to bring out the games.

In my classroom I use games constantly as teaching tools--not just board games, to be clear. We role-play, we simulate, we get down to the nitty-gritty what-ifs, and we compete and cooperate. I think learning is the ultimate act of play, and I think the more playful I can make something, the less it seems like a struggle, the more lasting an impact it will have on my kids. Games create experiences, and experiences are far more profound conduits of new learning than a lecture or a worksheet.

But every year the highlight is when I whip out the Diplomacy (while teaching Art of War and Machiavelli), and it spawns a sudden interest in board games. Then, a chain reaction: all sorts of kids (not just the geeky, socially awkward ones) bring in games from home to play during conference period ( our version of study hall).

"Scriv, I have this great Jurassic Park game where you are chased by Velociraptors, can I bring it in?"
"Scriv, have you ever tried Apples to Apples?"
"Yo Scriv, I'm gonna pwn you in this game!"
"Hey Scriv, my mom got me this Star Wars game a long time ago and I never opened it. Would you be interested in trying it?"

And we play.

And here is the most amazing part. I have been keeping an unofficial tab on those kids who have been gaming with me regularly this school year, and have noticed a marked improvement in their grades.

Now obviously, I can't attribute this necessarily all to board games... I mean there is not a lot of intellect or academic wherewithal to be gained by playing Sucking Vacuum, (which was out in my room this morning.) But there is something to be said for the SOCIAL impact of board gaming. Because I sit down with them and play too (when I am not giving make-up tests, or conferencing with a kid about his writing.) And suddenly there is this adult laughing and joking with them in a way they had forgotten is possible.

And I hear things like,
"Man, I wish I could get my Mom to try this game."
and
"Yeah, we used to be a pretty big game family, but for some reason we just stopped when my sister went to college."

They WANT to play! They LOVE interacting with each other! Kids are social! They don't want to shut themselves in their room and be ignored! They want to think they can beat their dads at wargames, and get their mom to giggle at silly card games! They want our attention! And every time they don't get it, they put their little white earbud headphones back in their ears, flip out their cellphones to check for text messages, and withdraw from the world just a little more.

Again, I suspect most of you on here who are parents or teachers get this and don't need to be told. And I don't want to be didactic. So consider this more of an overall cultural plea - a very small arrow shot in a larger war for the hearts and minds of the kids of this country. (And I really do only have a bow and a sword in comparison to the mega-arsenals I am fighting against.)

I love my students. I want them to go on to become sane, happy, healthy members of the human race. Wherever they end up, I hope as they become adults they figure out how to face their fears so they can participate in cultural activity that illuminates rather than anesthetizes them. When I play board games with my studets, when we interact socially and playfully together, when we get silly, when we strategize with and against each other, when we analyze and strive for the prize of victory points, when we think, and we frown, and we grin and we toss our cards onto the table in triumph, it is then that we become more than the things we own, the identities we've adopted or been assigned by society, the players of a board game, we become more than student and teacher, than teenager and adult.

We become players in a much, much bigger game.

So those of you who have teenagers in your life, here is my challenge: It's time to play.

Wait, it takes you two hours to play Settlers?

Seriously, great post. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

I have noticed we actually have a few teenagers who show up for our three Strategicon conventions in LA--mostly roleplayers, but I have seen some of them playing euros, and have even played wargames with a couple of them. Not only are they willing to risk being tagged as 'uncool' by their piers, but they actually come on a holiday weekend!

So I certainly encourage outreach efforts to get teenagers to come play boardgames--and I encourage adults to put up with some degree of teenager behavior at these events, in order to get them even more interested in playing strategy games (which, when they focus on winning, will tend to make them less boorish--no guarantees about what happens when they win and gloat, though!).

The kids I teach love to play games. But don't. Now there is a mystery to me. They lack opportunities to play games yet never make the effort to make the opportunity. Still when I create an opportunity at lunch or after school then they love it.

On the other hand they make the effort on their own for computer games and to exchange songs on ipods.

I think this probably has to do with perception of board games. When you organise it, they just can go ahead and play. It takes very little effort from their end, all they have to do is turn up and play. Which is similar to computer games, or such 'social' activities as exchanging songs: it's fast, it doesn't take a lot of effort, you just go ahead and do it.

If they had to sort it out themselves, they'd have to:

- organise a time and place to play
- set up the board game
- play
- clear the game away

Way too much hassle!

I'd like to refine that a bit. Discovery is the ultimate act of play. When a child plays with a kaleidoscope, he is not trying to learn the patterns within the scope so that he might replicate them in the future. He's twirling it around to experience the beauty of the patterns themselves.

Yet, I don't know if we can find some panimpetus for play. Surely, when I would roam around the world of in Everquest, I would do so for the sake of discovery and excitement. But what about when I would go to Sol B and camp some goblin for his loot? I wasn't learning, nor was I discovering: I was seeking to make my character grow more powerful, perhaps to experience that sense of increased power vicariously.

And when I play BF1942, I'm not doing it to learn. I know the game inside and out. I do it for the joy of play, the animating contest of battle and the challenge of the exercise of skill.

Some games (like Rock, Paper, Scissors) we simply play to win (though there is joy in the play itself).

So, while learning can be an impetus for play, I don't believe it to be the impetus for play.

Great post. Having worked in the classroom with teenagers in the past (I teach adults now), I see exactly what you're talking about. People regardless of age want to connect with others, and games provide an outlet for that. Not the only outlet of course, but a much better alternative to some of the others I've seen. If kids don't learn those important social skills while they're kids, the affect will be no doubt be seen in their adult years. (And I'm sorry, but I don't see how playing Halo 3 online is social interaction.)

In my class, I just finished a unit on interviewing skills for young adults (ages 18 to 25) entering the working world. It was so obvious that the students in my class couldn't conduct themselves in a conversation. How they couldn't "read the situation" and couldn't maintain eye contact during the interviews. I wouldn't be surprised if they never learned how to really listen, express themselves, and communicate face to face. It's sad.

Amen.

Except that my mother, and I suspect many other people's mothers, is more likely to enjoy deep strategy games than she might giggle at a silly card game.

where were all these "boardgame" teachers when i attended school?
(or should i say, the "days" i attended.)

Great post!

I've been playing a lot of games with my kids lately. I've made it a goal to get at least one game in a week. I've noticed a little improvement in the way they interact with one another since I've started doing this - not so many arguments. Several times they've had friends over, and they join in. A couple of weeks ago a friend of my youngest stated, as we played Pandemic, "Your dad has the coolest games! My dad's games suck!"

I think this is an important distinction--thanks for clarifying it. In my mind, because of the pedagogical philosophy that underlies my entire instructional approach, I see learning and discovery as elements that are so interwoven that they cannot be separated. In that enthusiasm I often forget that learning can occur without that "aha!" spark of discovery (and sadly, in public schools, it often does.) So your revised statement is absolutely a better way of putting this.

Rightly said. Did not mean to make assumptions about gaming preferences based on gender - I had my own mom in mind when I wrote that statement. She's giggly.