Competitive video games, or esports, have been making their way into high schools across Canada, though most middle school students have been left out of the game. This chapter will examine the identity and role of the various shared stakeholders at the middle years level, highlight the benefits of scholastic esports for middle school learners, and examine obstacles that may hinder the implementation of such programming, leaning on the experience of one such program in central Canada. The author will examine data collected over a span of four years on the impact of both coed and girls-only gaming environments in middle schools and how to support young female learners through gaming. Finally, this chapter will highlight the current landscape of K-12 scholastic esports with recommendations on how and why scholastic esports should have a place in Canadian schools.
TopIntroduction
The rise of professional esports in North America and the rapid growth of its viewership has had a profound impact on the development of scholastic esports over the past decade. In Canada, there has been a gradual shift in culture from individual high schools engaged in league play through organizations founded in the US, such as the High School Esports League, Star League, and the North American Scholastic Esports Federation, among others, to the formation of the first provincial league founded by educators, Manitoba High School eSports Association (Manitoba High School eSports Association, 2021), the first esports academy school, Académie Esports de Montréal (Académie Esports de Montréal, 2021), and more recently the emergence of esports companies angling to establish a foothold in the scholastic field.
Though traditional sports are introduced in most Canadian public schools around grade 6, esports are left largely unexplored until students move on to their local high school, save for casual in-school gaming that may be introduced as a lunch time activity during the colder months. The field of scholastic esports, with a focus on skill development and competition, has been severely overlooked due to a lack of knowledge, exposure, and understanding within the larger school community and its shared stakeholders. The possibilities of curricular content have yet to be explored at a provincial level, leaving programs such as the Académie Esports de Montréal and the occasional school-initiated course (SIC) as outliers, with courses often monetized through esports companies that have capitalized on this gap in the market (Esports Academics, 2021). Insufficient infrastructure, lack of access to training on the implementation of esports programming, and inadequate data to support its practice in publicly funded schools have negatively impacted esports programming growth and stakeholders' attitudes towards esports.
Scholastic esports at the middle school level (grades 6-8) comes ripe with its own unique set of successes and challenges, but the potential for cross-curricular 21st Century skill development and connections in Social Emotional Learning and digital citizenship have yet to be fully unlocked at the school-based level. “Deep learning is not about one particular model of teaching but is fostered by a wide range of learning practices” (Fullan et al., 2018, p. 46). This chapter will explore the identity and roles of shared stakeholders in scholastic esports, the landscape of middle school gaming in Canadian schools, identify some of the challenges in establishing such programs, the benefits esports provide middle school learners, and the possibilities for growth in esports as both an extra-curricular and curricular option in Canadian middle schools.