once when visiting a lower-income school
James had students play the original
Super Mario Brothers as they played he
watched the kids try and fail and then
try something new and succeed he was
planning on talking to them about the
scientific method about hypothesis and
confirmation but the conversation that
evolved was much much different this was
the sort of school where students didn't
think of going to college where
pregnancy was just something that
happened this was a school where many
students lived completely in the present
without too much being spent on goals or
thoughts for the future and I don't mean
that to sound harsh this wasn't the
students fault and it wasn't the
teachers fault Society had failed these
kids and so had their communities even
though they both often have the best of
intentions when these kids started
playing Mario they did what everyone
does when they play games try something
and if that doesn't work try something
different but instead of this leading to
a conversation about the scientific
method it led to a conversation about
agency about the fact that their choices
mattered and it wasn't all pre-written
that what they did now affected who
they'd get to be this is an incredible
empowering thing it's something that we
all need to recognize to hold our own in
the modern world and while that
classroom session was nowhere near
enough it was a first step that talk
wasn't gonna change the reality of these
kids being in poverty or change who they
were but no one takes control over their
life without first realizing that it's a
possibility so one of the most valued
uses for games in education maybe one of
the most overlooked the fact that they
can help impart agency in a game all of
your choices are your own and you get to
see their consequences on a compressed
scale in the real world you may have to
wait weeks or months to see the
ramification of a choice heck in the
real world you may not even be able to
connect a choice to its real
consequences or the choice might be so
small that its impact can't be seen but
compounds over time say I just ate a
candy bar instead of a balanced meal
what are the consequences who knows it's
one out of ten thousands of eating
events I'll have in my life what I even
really put together the cause and effect
if I made the same choice hundreds of
times if I did what I even feel like I
had the power to change it well in games
you have none of that abstraction you
make a choice and you see its results
for right away often in a few seconds
never more than in a few hours
your choices are often very casual and
very concrete you lived or you died you
made numbers go up or you made them go
down these things train us to think
about our choices to understand that all
of our actions have ramifications what's
more by letting us remake our choices
over and over
in games let us see just how variable
these ramifications can be they teach us
that minor changes can be the difference
between glorious success and abject
failure and in this way they get us to
care about the decisions we make games
take us away from being solely rooted in
the present even in games that many
people may not associate with planning
you always have a goal and you always
have a route that you think will take
you there even in Call of Duty or in
Mario you're always thinking about the
thing you're trying to accomplish and
crafting strategies for how to do so
even if that thing you're trying to
accomplish is just getting over a pit or
racking up another kill unlike in life
in games we never do something without
having a reason even if that reason is
just to mess around or amuse yourself in
life you may observe a website or choose
a restaurant to have lunch or even take
more serious actions like saying things
you can never take back to the one you
love without forethought without
consideration and that's the abandonment
of agency games trained us to not act
this way the other half of agency is the
feeling of being empowered of not taking
choices off the table because you don't
think they're possible for people like
you and actually our schools are pretty
good at this even though they may not
have a plan to get there go to any
school in America and you'll have kids
telling you that they want to be an
astronaut or a president or a rap star
or an athlete and video games can help
reinforce that games let you tell your
own story they make you the hero or the
one who has to save the world what's
more a well-made game can help channel
this away from turning into ego and
towards becoming a healthy empowerment
that helps kids escape the idea that
it's not their place in the world to do
better than their parents their
community or even their peers that's an
amazing thing
it's a magical thing that our games can
give and our schools can give this
feeling of agency this idea that you
have some control over your destiny it's
something that is every person's right
and something that we can without a
doubt achieve in a world as prosperous
as ours so as we draw this series to a
close and as we for the last time
responds to that all-too-frequent
question why should we have games in
schools I'll just say this one of the
most important gifts we can give
children of tomorrow is the freedom to
choose for themselves the world they
want to live in and to let them know
that they have the power to make that
world to know that there is greatness in
us and that only by thinking that we
don't matter that we don't have a choice
that we can't affect their influence
things do the greatest evils get
perpetrated you should allow games in
schools because when it comes to the
young when it comes to learning and the
future it is a shame out of bias to
dismiss any tools we might bring to bear
but more than that you should allow
games into schools because they help
reinforce one of the greatest lessons
our schools teach that in the end
it is up to us to make of this life what
we will see you next week
[Music]