10 ms·

Dallas school district starts video game teams on 64 campuses

105 points by danso 7y ago

huherto 7y ago
I rather have my kids play sports outside. But I guess this is a case of "if you can't beat them join them"
- mensetmanusman 7y ago
  Best e-competitors need body training, this could be motivating.
- dmix 7y ago
  Why not both?
- kkwak 7y ago
  considering that this is organized, I would think you'd get the best of both. Where kids will learn about rsi and how to mitigate, also how to keep their body in peak condition, etc. Much better than just gaming at home without guidance.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
Competition of the mind, yes!
- KirinDave 7y ago
  I get the sentiment, but I don't think video game competition isn't deeply physical in nature. Sure, experience and kinetic intelligence matter a lot in video games, but as any fighting game player can tell you: some folks just have fast reflexes and can train their bodies to react to even your best setup. Games build in cooldowns, frame locks and combos to help smooth out these ability curves but there is a lot of raw physical ability in pro gaming. But I have to ask, isn't the pointless, manufactured competition actually the worst part of all this? Games could recreate any universe we can imagine. Worlds without scarcity, worlds without conflict, worlds deeply simulating fantastical aspects of an alternative universe where any experience is possible. Weirdly, all those games end up with people pointing guns at one another. Even a lot of AR games try to recreate all the "fun" of urban warfare by manufacturing. It's pretty depressing, if you ask me.
  - CDSlice 7y ago
    > Games could recreate any universe we can imagine. Worlds without scarcity, worlds without conflict, The thing is, all that is _boring_. If there is no scarcity, there is no progression. This can be OK if there is other sources of conflict like in Kerbal Space Program sandbox mode where you have an unlimited amount of parts and Kerbals to build with but you have to overcome environmental challenges inherent in flying a ship to another planet and back. Even so there are people (like me) that find sandbox KSP not very fun because there is no progression/scarcity. If there is no conflict of any kind there is nothing preventing you from achieving your goal immediately without having to do much of anything, which isn't exactly very fun. > worlds deeply simulating fantastical aspects of an alternative universe where any experience is possible. This is a description of the environment of a game, not a game itself. Very few people want to play "games" that are solely experiencing the environment with no real goals. The only games I can think of that are like that are sandbox games like Minecraft, and TBH I don't think sandbox Minecraft really counts as a game anymore than building a stick fort does in real life. (Also, survival mode in Minecraft is very popular. And guess what it has? Conflict with the environment and players) > Weirdly, all those games end up with people pointing guns at one another. Because (most) people need to have goals to work towards both in real life and in games. If you don't give a player goals, they will make their own, often being "make the most money" or "be the best at combat." Combat as a game is far from modern, the only modern thing we've added is making it virtual combat.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      > The thing is, all that is _boring_. If there is no scarcity, there is no progression. That's just false. One of the most popular games in human history, Minecraft, completely destroys this notion. Every resource is infinitely renewable and available in great supply. > This can be OK if there is other sources of conflict like in Kerbal Space Program sandbox mode where you have an unlimited amount of parts and Kerbals to build with but you have to overcome environmental challenges inherent in flying a ship to another planet and back. This sentence seems contradictory. The challenge is in the doing of a thing. That's not conflict OR scarcity, it's simply your experience. And it's a fun and famous game with a huge following. > If there is no conflict of any kind there is nothing preventing you from achieving your goal immediately without having to do much of anything, which isn't exactly very fun. This is that "cultural lens" thing I've referred to in other posts. You're defining this as conflict, but it's not really conflict. It's overcoming hardship. The way you define this matters for how you think about it. > Very few people want to play "games" that are solely experiencing the environment with no real goals. So I submit the majority of gaming time on the most popular gaming platforms (mobile) are in fact exactly like this. There is no forced conflict in Neko Atsume or Candy Crush Saga. Roguelike games do model violence conflict, but largely do away with specific goals and simply let you revel in an environment that is new and surprising each time. > Because (most) people need to have goals to work towards both in real life and in games. Why does this require repeated and somewhat authentic modeling of fatal violence? > If you don't give a player goals I'm trying to work out how you're immediately equating "slaughter each other in PUBG while rolling around in a jeep for now reason" is "goals" but "build a pyramid with your friends in minecraft" is not. In terms of hours and copies sold, the later absolutely annihilates the former, and yet here you are arguing that the former is the only fun option.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Nah, that's still Model UN and Math Olympiad. Video games goes more under "sports".
invalidOrTaken 7y ago
I hope this spreads. Team games---LoL, DotA, Overwatch---have been twisted and distorted by their respective companies to try to fit the wishes of their playerbase, who generally play these games solo. Thus team games steadily become less and less team-oriented, or more team-oriented, at the cost of ham-handed algorithmic authoritarianism (e.g. role queues). But if stuff like this takes off, maybe companies will be more true to their vision and less pliable.
- JRKrause 7y ago
  At least in the case of Overwatch, role queue feels more like an attempt to assure a minimum level of viability for each team and less like an authoritarian approach to controlling how the game is played.
  - a_t48 7y ago
    Basically this - it reduces variance in the games you play, along with increasing MMR accuracy. There’s some unfortunate side effects (it’s a long wait to solo queue as DPS, some strategy options are reduced), but overall I’m happy with the results.
    - invalidOrTaken 7y ago
      Sure, it reduces a certain kind of variance for the solo queue experience. It increases it other kinds, though. Removing player choice decreases flexibility and ability to react to changing conditions. So your team is guaranteed to fit a certain design---but it might very well be that that design is ill-fitted to conditions. It's Waterfall for video games. There were other, cleaner ways to work toward the same goal, that didn't violate the core design and cripple player freedom. I'm a Lisp guy, so you can probably guess my opinions on whether it's "worth it" or not to aim for The Right Thing. And one thing I've found in my career is that the teams and individuals that make the best use of Lisp are fairly disciplined about it---they care a lot about functional purity, documentation, interopability, etc. In other words, they're still operating under restrictions, but they're self-imposed rather than incidental. This foundation of order lets them do crazier things on top of it. Reducing variance in one's play is the equivalent of writing code without side-effects---it's the fundamental principle of playing nicely with others in its respective domain. Just as this is best achieved by developer education and discipline in the programming sphere, there needs to be a player ethic of reducing variance (which is why I'm glad to hear about Dallas). And without that, the problem will persist, showing its face in one form or another. MMR accuracy is probably true, but sheesh, only in a Goodheart's Law kind of way. If it was inaccurate before, that suggests a problem with the statistic, not the game! In a complex game like OW, MMR was always going to be most accurate when applied to teams rather than individuals.
KirinDave 7y ago
I don't see a problem with this if there is demand. If anything, this is schools catching up with reality. Kids share their gaming experience with one another. It is a social thing, and they've been using Twitch and Youtube to create alternative media choices for some time. Kids even stage up Roblox and Minecraft videos to tell stories and present shows. Still, I do think it's sad that the bro culture has completely erased every other kind of competitive video games. Most of our top competitive games (particularly those made in the US and Europe) replicate some of the worst aspects of human society. Lethal conflict, industrialized warfare, conflict over scarcity, imperialism simulators, and a view of science as a tech tree with resource unlockables. It's a fairly toxic view of the world and it taints a lot of kid's viewpoint of the world.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Violence is entertaining on some level. Even cutesy games like Mario have him stomping on mushrooms and turtles and avoiding deadly obstacles. I've also heard it said that all good stories involve conflict. It's a part of human psychology for better or worse. It's why we watch sports. It's why we play video games. It's why dogs play fight. It's deeply embedded in our chemistry.
  - learc83 7y ago
    Conflict doesn't require violence though. It's just that physical conflict is the easiest kind of conflict to represent.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      It's also the easiest to fund, what with several western governments funding games that train basic tactical skills that mimic modern urban small-scale warfare.
      - learc83 7y ago
        The games you're talking about aren't particularly useful for training, their only real use if for recruiting. And the number of games being funded by militaries is so small compared to the size of the market, that it basically has no impact as far as ease of funding goes. That's not to say that violent games aren't easier to fund. As I said, they are certainly easier to make, easier to market etc...
sneak 7y ago
This should not be something cash-strapped schools are spending $450,000 on. This is just public-private transfer into the coffers of Blizzard, Nintendo et al. If it has merit, it has merit with free software.
- soared 7y ago
  There is no mention of being cash-strapped in the article, unless I missed it?
  - sneak 7y ago
    Public schools in the US are almost universally cash-strapped. Regardless, my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games. There are plenty of cheap/free games that could serve the purpose just fine, if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt).
    - CDSlice 7y ago
      Are there cheap/free games that kids actually want to play? It's not like this is a mandatory class, it is an elective like joining the football team. If the kids don't want to play the games the team competes in they won't join in the first place. View this more like schools spending lots of money on football teams, not as an educational experiment.
    - learc83 7y ago
      How is this any different than public schools buying baseballs from Rawlings (co-owned by the MLB). Or football pads, basketball goals etc... I guarantee that the district in question spends far more than $450k purchasing sports equipment from corporations. And since public schools are mostly locally funded, some districts aren't cash strapped. >my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games. This decision is made at the district level, if the people don't like it, they can very easily vote in a different school board. The local voters are the ones who get to decide what they "should" spend their tax money on. > if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt). Participation in after school activities has been shown to positively impact educational performance.
helloSirMan 7y ago
I really like this idea. I bonded with friends over video games in highschool. I would have probably benefited if a coach were involved - informing and teaching me and my friends about teamwork, strategy, and training skill/tactics. The competition and comradery of playing against other teams in the area seems to me like it would make for higher stakes (involving pride and an in-person level of gamesmanship). I'd argue these are important skills in living a social life. I also think that including some level of physical exercise, even if just as an ante to participate under the school's charter of the sport, would make students more healthy. I don't know if any research or statistcs exist correlating cardiovascular health to markers associated with better video game performance. But it would not surprise me if a lap or two around a track before a practice or competitoin would sharpen minds, reflexes, nerves, etc. If nothing else, it would reduce apprehension to adminstrators sactioning kids playing video games.
- arminiusreturns 7y ago
  When I was in the Marine Corps, I developed a "gaming workout routine" to keep in shape and still have time to play video games where I didn't even have to leave the desk, and it worked wonders. I have always thought it would be awesome to somehow make it a more popular thing. For a while I have thought VR might be the killer app that makes it a reality. For those interested, it was mostly just bodyweight exercises, eg between counter-strike rounds do crunches at desk, pushups, dips, etc. When I finally buy a house I have this idea that I want to design my computer desk to also be a workout desk... pullup bar and everything.
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    Desk treadmills for office-style work are fairly common (the main downside is the extra background noise from the belt), but I'm not sure how well they work with the twitchier focus of gaming stuff.
  - kbar13 7y ago
    my friends and i used to play workout games (similar to drinking games) where if you die you do x pushups, if you get a kill everyone else does pushups, if your team loses everyone does pushups, etc
soared 7y ago
Quote pulled for critical context - The schools want everyone involved in an extracurricular activity. This solves tons of issues - bad home life, gangs, loneliness/depression, etc. > Finding a niche for all students to participate in an extracurricular activity is one of the DISD’s key goals. Trustees made extracurricular participation a major priority in 2017, setting a districtwide goal of 78% participation by the 2021-22 school year.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  >This solves tons of issues - bad home life Not at all. It's just more excuse to babysit teens. Bad home life will only be fixed by raising living standards, by reducing number of hours parents need to work, providing vacation time, etc. But that would require redistributing wealth instead of raising property taxes a couple percent.
  - jungturk 7y ago
    It seems like there's an awful lot of useful improvement in the space between "doing nothing" and "redistributing wealth", so I commend the DISD for not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
  - anon1m0us 7y ago
    Babysitting does improve home life.
  - nameless912 7y ago
    Hey so I'm all with you on the fact that inequity is the real problem here. But I also volunteer at an after school program at the school my wife teaches at because these kids often don't have a stable home life to go to after school. It does make a difference, and in my experience it's been very effective at helping the kids (elementary age) in this school get their homework done on time, it's reduced behavior problems, and it gives them a reason to like school. Ours is a 2 day per week program where the kids can choose to be in one of about 25 different special interest clubs (I run the computer science club) and the kids get snacks and two extra hours of time they can be safe at school instead of (often) alone at home.
tpmx 7y ago
The headline made me think it was about creating some kind of competition to create video games, rather than playing them. Alas, not. I still think that could have been an exciting idea.
chess93 7y ago
Hopefully this helps make video gaming a more community oriented activity instead of something done at home alone.
point78 7y ago
Something that makes you think "Why the hell didn't we have this 30 years ago!"
shawndumas 7y ago
“Interscholastic sports spread rapidly from the 1930s through the 1950s, at a time when the medical and physical education communities were opposed to competitive sports for elementary and junior high, and occasionally high school, students.” — https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2443/Sports-School.html https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2443/Sports-Scho...
duxup 7y ago
I would really like to see them emphasize sportsmanship and in a small way help try to make the gaming related community on the internet a bit nicer.
codesushi42 7y ago
Makes sense, given that American kids are now overweight and obese. So this legitimizes gaming as an extracurricular activity. What it really means is more fat butts in chairs doing nothing. FWIW I don't think highly of team sports, either.
baby 7y ago
Finally a college team I can get behind!
markus_zhang 7y ago
I'd say it might be more educational if they are on C64 machines.
wgerard 7y ago
This is a really interesting phenomenon we noticed as started doing some research into esports: There's a ton of interest in organized game teams as perhaps an alternative to traditional sports for students with different proclivities. This is just one example, but I suppose what I'm trying to say is that this will likely become the norm not the exception.

105 points by danso 7y ago

huherto 7y ago

I rather have my kids play sports outside. But I guess this is a case of "if you can't beat them join them"

mensetmanusman 7y ago
Best e-competitors need body training, this could be motivating.
dmix 7y ago
Why not both?
kkwak 7y ago
considering that this is organized, I would think you'd get the best of both. Where kids will learn about rsi and how to mitigate, also how to keep their body in peak condition, etc. Much better than just gaming at home without guidance.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

Competition of the mind, yes!

KirinDave 7y ago
I get the sentiment, but I don't think video game competition isn't deeply physical in nature. Sure, experience and kinetic intelligence matter a lot in video games, but as any fighting game player can tell you: some folks just have fast reflexes and can train their bodies to react to even your best setup. Games build in cooldowns, frame locks and combos to help smooth out these ability curves but there is a lot of raw physical ability in pro gaming. But I have to ask, isn't the pointless, manufactured competition actually the worst part of all this? Games could recreate any universe we can imagine. Worlds without scarcity, worlds without conflict, worlds deeply simulating fantastical aspects of an alternative universe where any experience is possible. Weirdly, all those games end up with people pointing guns at one another. Even a lot of AR games try to recreate all the "fun" of urban warfare by manufacturing. It's pretty depressing, if you ask me.
- CDSlice 7y ago
  > Games could recreate any universe we can imagine. Worlds without scarcity, worlds without conflict, The thing is, all that is _boring_. If there is no scarcity, there is no progression. This can be OK if there is other sources of conflict like in Kerbal Space Program sandbox mode where you have an unlimited amount of parts and Kerbals to build with but you have to overcome environmental challenges inherent in flying a ship to another planet and back. Even so there are people (like me) that find sandbox KSP not very fun because there is no progression/scarcity. If there is no conflict of any kind there is nothing preventing you from achieving your goal immediately without having to do much of anything, which isn't exactly very fun. > worlds deeply simulating fantastical aspects of an alternative universe where any experience is possible. This is a description of the environment of a game, not a game itself. Very few people want to play "games" that are solely experiencing the environment with no real goals. The only games I can think of that are like that are sandbox games like Minecraft, and TBH I don't think sandbox Minecraft really counts as a game anymore than building a stick fort does in real life. (Also, survival mode in Minecraft is very popular. And guess what it has? Conflict with the environment and players) > Weirdly, all those games end up with people pointing guns at one another. Because (most) people need to have goals to work towards both in real life and in games. If you don't give a player goals, they will make their own, often being "make the most money" or "be the best at combat." Combat as a game is far from modern, the only modern thing we've added is making it virtual combat.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    > The thing is, all that is _boring_. If there is no scarcity, there is no progression. That's just false. One of the most popular games in human history, Minecraft, completely destroys this notion. Every resource is infinitely renewable and available in great supply. > This can be OK if there is other sources of conflict like in Kerbal Space Program sandbox mode where you have an unlimited amount of parts and Kerbals to build with but you have to overcome environmental challenges inherent in flying a ship to another planet and back. This sentence seems contradictory. The challenge is in the doing of a thing. That's not conflict OR scarcity, it's simply your experience. And it's a fun and famous game with a huge following. > If there is no conflict of any kind there is nothing preventing you from achieving your goal immediately without having to do much of anything, which isn't exactly very fun. This is that "cultural lens" thing I've referred to in other posts. You're defining this as conflict, but it's not really conflict. It's overcoming hardship. The way you define this matters for how you think about it. > Very few people want to play "games" that are solely experiencing the environment with no real goals. So I submit the majority of gaming time on the most popular gaming platforms (mobile) are in fact exactly like this. There is no forced conflict in Neko Atsume or Candy Crush Saga. Roguelike games do model violence conflict, but largely do away with specific goals and simply let you revel in an environment that is new and surprising each time. > Because (most) people need to have goals to work towards both in real life and in games. Why does this require repeated and somewhat authentic modeling of fatal violence? > If you don't give a player goals I'm trying to work out how you're immediately equating "slaughter each other in PUBG while rolling around in a jeep for now reason" is "goals" but "build a pyramid with your friends in minecraft" is not. In terms of hours and copies sold, the later absolutely annihilates the former, and yet here you are arguing that the former is the only fun option.
bilbo0s 7y ago
Nah, that's still Model UN and Math Olympiad. Video games goes more under "sports".

invalidOrTaken 7y ago

I hope this spreads. Team games---LoL, DotA, Overwatch---have been twisted and distorted by their respective companies to try to fit the wishes of their playerbase, who generally play these games solo. Thus team games steadily become less and less team-oriented, or more team-oriented, at the cost of ham-handed algorithmic authoritarianism (e.g. role queues). But if stuff like this takes off, maybe companies will be more true to their vision and less pliable.

JRKrause 7y ago
At least in the case of Overwatch, role queue feels more like an attempt to assure a minimum level of viability for each team and less like an authoritarian approach to controlling how the game is played.
- a_t48 7y ago
  Basically this - it reduces variance in the games you play, along with increasing MMR accuracy. There’s some unfortunate side effects (it’s a long wait to solo queue as DPS, some strategy options are reduced), but overall I’m happy with the results.
  - invalidOrTaken 7y ago
    Sure, it reduces a certain kind of variance for the solo queue experience. It increases it other kinds, though. Removing player choice decreases flexibility and ability to react to changing conditions. So your team is guaranteed to fit a certain design---but it might very well be that that design is ill-fitted to conditions. It's Waterfall for video games. There were other, cleaner ways to work toward the same goal, that didn't violate the core design and cripple player freedom. I'm a Lisp guy, so you can probably guess my opinions on whether it's "worth it" or not to aim for The Right Thing. And one thing I've found in my career is that the teams and individuals that make the best use of Lisp are fairly disciplined about it---they care a lot about functional purity, documentation, interopability, etc. In other words, they're still operating under restrictions, but they're self-imposed rather than incidental. This foundation of order lets them do crazier things on top of it. Reducing variance in one's play is the equivalent of writing code without side-effects---it's the fundamental principle of playing nicely with others in its respective domain. Just as this is best achieved by developer education and discipline in the programming sphere, there needs to be a player ethic of reducing variance (which is why I'm glad to hear about Dallas). And without that, the problem will persist, showing its face in one form or another. MMR accuracy is probably true, but sheesh, only in a Goodheart's Law kind of way. If it was inaccurate before, that suggests a problem with the statistic, not the game! In a complex game like OW, MMR was always going to be most accurate when applied to teams rather than individuals.

KirinDave 7y ago

I don't see a problem with this if there is demand. If anything, this is schools catching up with reality. Kids share their gaming experience with one another. It is a social thing, and they've been using Twitch and Youtube to create alternative media choices for some time. Kids even stage up Roblox and Minecraft videos to tell stories and present shows. Still, I do think it's sad that the bro culture has completely erased every other kind of competitive video games. Most of our top competitive games (particularly those made in the US and Europe) replicate some of the worst aspects of human society. Lethal conflict, industrialized warfare, conflict over scarcity, imperialism simulators, and a view of science as a tech tree with resource unlockables. It's a fairly toxic view of the world and it taints a lot of kid's viewpoint of the world.

chrisco255 7y ago
Violence is entertaining on some level. Even cutesy games like Mario have him stomping on mushrooms and turtles and avoiding deadly obstacles. I've also heard it said that all good stories involve conflict. It's a part of human psychology for better or worse. It's why we watch sports. It's why we play video games. It's why dogs play fight. It's deeply embedded in our chemistry.
- learc83 7y ago
  Conflict doesn't require violence though. It's just that physical conflict is the easiest kind of conflict to represent.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    It's also the easiest to fund, what with several western governments funding games that train basic tactical skills that mimic modern urban small-scale warfare.
    - learc83 7y ago
      The games you're talking about aren't particularly useful for training, their only real use if for recruiting. And the number of games being funded by militaries is so small compared to the size of the market, that it basically has no impact as far as ease of funding goes. That's not to say that violent games aren't easier to fund. As I said, they are certainly easier to make, easier to market etc...

sneak 7y ago

This should not be something cash-strapped schools are spending $450,000 on. This is just public-private transfer into the coffers of Blizzard, Nintendo et al. If it has merit, it has merit with free software.

soared 7y ago
There is no mention of being cash-strapped in the article, unless I missed it?
- sneak 7y ago
  Public schools in the US are almost universally cash-strapped. Regardless, my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games. There are plenty of cheap/free games that could serve the purpose just fine, if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt).
  - CDSlice 7y ago
    Are there cheap/free games that kids actually want to play? It's not like this is a mandatory class, it is an elective like joining the football team. If the kids don't want to play the games the team competes in they won't join in the first place. View this more like schools spending lots of money on football teams, not as an educational experiment.
  - learc83 7y ago
    How is this any different than public schools buying baseballs from Rawlings (co-owned by the MLB). Or football pads, basketball goals etc... I guarantee that the district in question spends far more than $450k purchasing sports equipment from corporations. And since public schools are mostly locally funded, some districts aren't cash strapped. >my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games. This decision is made at the district level, if the people don't like it, they can very easily vote in a different school board. The local voters are the ones who get to decide what they "should" spend their tax money on. > if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt). Participation in after school activities has been shown to positively impact educational performance.

helloSirMan 7y ago

I really like this idea. I bonded with friends over video games in highschool. I would have probably benefited if a coach were involved - informing and teaching me and my friends about teamwork, strategy, and training skill/tactics. The competition and comradery of playing against other teams in the area seems to me like it would make for higher stakes (involving pride and an in-person level of gamesmanship). I'd argue these are important skills in living a social life. I also think that including some level of physical exercise, even if just as an ante to participate under the school's charter of the sport, would make students more healthy. I don't know if any research or statistcs exist correlating cardiovascular health to markers associated with better video game performance. But it would not surprise me if a lap or two around a track before a practice or competitoin would sharpen minds, reflexes, nerves, etc. If nothing else, it would reduce apprehension to adminstrators sactioning kids playing video games.

arminiusreturns 7y ago
When I was in the Marine Corps, I developed a "gaming workout routine" to keep in shape and still have time to play video games where I didn't even have to leave the desk, and it worked wonders. I have always thought it would be awesome to somehow make it a more popular thing. For a while I have thought VR might be the killer app that makes it a reality. For those interested, it was mostly just bodyweight exercises, eg between counter-strike rounds do crunches at desk, pushups, dips, etc. When I finally buy a house I have this idea that I want to design my computer desk to also be a workout desk... pullup bar and everything.
- crooked-v 7y ago
  Desk treadmills for office-style work are fairly common (the main downside is the extra background noise from the belt), but I'm not sure how well they work with the twitchier focus of gaming stuff.
- kbar13 7y ago
  my friends and i used to play workout games (similar to drinking games) where if you die you do x pushups, if you get a kill everyone else does pushups, if your team loses everyone does pushups, etc

soared 7y ago

Quote pulled for critical context - The schools want everyone involved in an extracurricular activity. This solves tons of issues - bad home life, gangs, loneliness/depression, etc. > Finding a niche for all students to participate in an extracurricular activity is one of the DISD’s key goals. Trustees made extracurricular participation a major priority in 2017, setting a districtwide goal of 78% participation by the 2021-22 school year.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
>This solves tons of issues - bad home life Not at all. It's just more excuse to babysit teens. Bad home life will only be fixed by raising living standards, by reducing number of hours parents need to work, providing vacation time, etc. But that would require redistributing wealth instead of raising property taxes a couple percent.
- jungturk 7y ago
  It seems like there's an awful lot of useful improvement in the space between "doing nothing" and "redistributing wealth", so I commend the DISD for not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  Babysitting does improve home life.
- nameless912 7y ago
  Hey so I'm all with you on the fact that inequity is the real problem here. But I also volunteer at an after school program at the school my wife teaches at because these kids often don't have a stable home life to go to after school. It does make a difference, and in my experience it's been very effective at helping the kids (elementary age) in this school get their homework done on time, it's reduced behavior problems, and it gives them a reason to like school. Ours is a 2 day per week program where the kids can choose to be in one of about 25 different special interest clubs (I run the computer science club) and the kids get snacks and two extra hours of time they can be safe at school instead of (often) alone at home.

tpmx 7y ago

The headline made me think it was about creating some kind of competition to create video games, rather than playing them. Alas, not. I still think that could have been an exciting idea.

chess93 7y ago

Hopefully this helps make video gaming a more community oriented activity instead of something done at home alone.

point78 7y ago

Something that makes you think "Why the hell didn't we have this 30 years ago!"

shawndumas 7y ago

“Interscholastic sports spread rapidly from the 1930s through the 1950s, at a time when the medical and physical education communities were opposed to competitive sports for elementary and junior high, and occasionally high school, students.” — https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2443/Sports-School.html https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2443/Sports-Scho...

duxup 7y ago

I would really like to see them emphasize sportsmanship and in a small way help try to make the gaming related community on the internet a bit nicer.

codesushi42 7y ago

Makes sense, given that American kids are now overweight and obese. So this legitimizes gaming as an extracurricular activity. What it really means is more fat butts in chairs doing nothing. FWIW I don't think highly of team sports, either.

baby 7y ago

Finally a college team I can get behind!

markus_zhang 7y ago

I'd say it might be more educational if they are on C64 machines.

wgerard 7y ago

This is a really interesting phenomenon we noticed as started doing some research into esports: There's a ton of interest in organized game teams as perhaps an alternative to traditional sports for students with different proclivities. This is just one example, but I suppose what I'm trying to say is that this will likely become the norm not the exception.