Kids and Call of Duty: a teacher’s report
Kyle MacKinnon January 8, 2012 - 10:00 amBlog: To what extent should teachers be advising parents about whether their children should play Call of Duty? And how might an understanding of a child’s gaming choices help parents and teachers to better co-operate? Journalist/teacher dual-classer Kyle MacKinnon recounts his own experiences…
“Who are you to tell me how to raise my kid?” says the father of one of my fourth grade students, scoffing at me from across the table. Let’s call him Mr Scott. “You’re just a kid,” he adds.
Mr Scott is replying to my suggestion that mature-rated videogames perhaps wouldn’t be the most appropriate entertainment for his nine-year-old child. But he’s right, of course. Relatively speaking, I’m just a kid too.
So, who am I to tell him how to raise his son?
***
After some university preparation on my part, and a month of adjusting to a return to school by my students, it was time for my first day back to school in a new role: that of teacher. A cursory inspection of my classroom later, I waited in the staff room until my supervisor was ready to introduce me to my new class. In the meantime, I consumed far more coffee than any human should.
The time had come. A vague introduction as to who the stranger was standing in front of the buzzing children was issued. I took in a lot of information: there were nearly 30 students present, representing a range of social classes and ethnicities. More than this, I noticed that nearly every student had something videogame-related on their person.
Angry Birds: The most popular game among these kids.
Three brands dominated their school supplies and clothing: Pokemon, Mario, and Angry Birds. But somewhat more surprisingly, two boys were wearing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 t-shirts.
***
180 hours is a long time. That’s more than a week consecutively. It’s also the amount of time I spend with students in a single month (and doesn’t account for the amount of time spent lesson planning, evaluating, in meetings, etc). Needless to say, that’s ample time to learn the ins and outs of my students.
I used what I observed on the very first day in front of the class – that many students had videogame swag – to build a connection with the kids. But first, I wanted to know what they were playing.
I employed exit slips to figure out what my students were playing. Exit slips are a great way of getting feedback from students as well as gaining some semblance of control over them before they storm out into the hallways. Basically, before a student is allowed to leave at the end of the day, teachers ask them to give a simple response to a question, which could be anything from class review (“Who is the leader of our country?”) to personal (“What did you do at the weekend?”).
My question was: “What is your favourite videogame?”
My colleagues wondered why I was asking about ‘Nintendos’. For them, videogames were long ago written off as simple playthings. I saw something more.
NHL 12: Also popular.
18 of 25 students fit into a nice theme of three games. Unsurprisingly, given that I’m in Canada, the NHL games were among the most popular, coming in at third. Angry Birds was the single most popular game, with seven of my students naming it. But the Call of Duty franchise was the second most popular.
And I noticed another theme the students whose behaviour proved most problematic all named Call of Duty as their favourite game.
I repeated the survey with my two other classes, who I see only a couple of times a week. The results were similar in both cases: Angry Birds was the overall most popular game from my students, and the most problematic students to deal with named Call of Duty as their game series of choice.
***
When I’m not teaching, I’m a freelance writer covering videogames, so I’m no stranger to the constant claims that violent gaming create violent criminals. Having covered countless violent videogames, I’m glad to report that I’ve yet to commit any violent crimes. Before going into education, I unequivocally deemed any correlation between videogame violence and real-world behaviour to be nonsense.
I’ve sort of re-evaluated my stance.
Videogames are a major part of modern culture and, as such, it makes sense that when consumed, videogames make an impact on one’s cultural understanding. To definitely link the students who made offensive gun gestures in the midst of a Remembrance Day ceremony to playing too much Call of Duty, or the student who called my support staff a ‘bitch’ after playing through Arkham City, would be fallacious. But that’s not to say we should ignore any patterns we observe.
The root cause of misbehaviour is multifaceted. Bullies aren’t simply mean people; they often suffer from their own issues at home or elsewhere. Violent games aren’t necessarily the cause of misbehaviour, but they can serve as an indicator of other things.
The Call of Duty games were surprisingly popular among nine-year-olds.
In my experience, there is a range of attitudes toward videogames from parents. There are no hard-and-fast rules determining who possesses which attitude – they can be young, old, single or married, but their gaming views don’t especially follow a pattern. However, where children are distant from their parents, violent videogames often seem to find their way into a child’s life.
For instance, a child whose parents’ work conflicts with their child’s schedule is often more likely to be playing such games. This could mean the parent works the night shift or even travels a lot. Their explanation when speaking with me is that they wish to make their son or daughter happy. To them, censorship is less important.
***
Mr Scott leers at me. He spends the majority of his time working in the oil fields in Northern Alberta. He was home for a week before returning to his work camp, and tracking him down to speak with him about his child’s behaviour was difficult. Now that I’ve finally done so, he’s flipped the situation around, and he’s questioning me on my qualifications to help him raise his child.
So I form a response.
“I don’t doubt your abilities to raise your child,” I begin. “But you and I both are part of the problem. For you, being more engaged in what your son consumes will help you bond with him even more in the time you have together. And for teachers? We need to become better equipped to talk about new technology and the role it plays in shaping our children. Teachers and parents are in this together.”
There’s a pause that feels like it lasts a lifetime. Then I win my first victory as a teacher. Mr Scott stands up and, earnestly, shakes my hand.
Comments (16)
I think you’re right that young children playing videogames may be an indicator of problems at home, rather than necessarily being the cause of problem behaviour themselves.
As far as I know, there isn’t stringent research that investigates anything similar – and I’m now thinking there really should be. It’s not entirely unfeasible – measure children’s behaviour (scales already exist to do this), measure what videogames they play and how long they play them (a simple questionnaire like the one you used would be fine for this), and then a measurement of parental style and parent’s attitude towards videogames. Hypothesis being that young children playing violent videogames is an indicator of inattentive parenting (that phrase sounds slightly too negative, but I can’t think of another way to word it). Could end up with an interesting result pointing towards parenting being a moderating variable between violent videogames and poor behaviour/attitudes that the media/studies all too often don’t consider.
Wonderful. I’ve been in a similar position in the past when I spent a number of years working as a till jockey in a GAME and EB store. When I have politely advised an ignorant parent that Leisure Suit Larry, SIN, or Soldier of Fortune may not be the best choice of stocking filler for their 10 year old son, I have been met with expressions that echoed your ‘Mr Scotts’ “who are you to tell me…?” stance.
I wish one of the parents I challenged had the testicular fortitude to nod and agree (possibly a shake of the hand was asking a bit much), but in most cases they just shook their head and walked out with their sociopath fuel-in-a-bag muttering something about “just for kids”.
I’ve jockeyed many different types of till in my time and more recently I sold cigarettes and alcohol. In these cases, if the cashier merely *suspects* that the age restricted items *may* be intended for someone too young to enjoy them, then the cashier is obliged, legally so, to refuse the sale based on that assumption.
I wish that law was around 15 years ago.
Well done to you, Kyle. These kids are sponges and easily conditioned. There needs to be more responsible voices like yours in schools so maybe kids will be less inclined to beg mum and dad for Death War Shooter 4.
You will undoubtedly make a brilliant teacher.
I liked this piece very much, but I do have concerns about some of the things you say in it. Particularly statements like this:
>For instance, a child whose parents’ work conflicts with their child’s schedule is often more likely to be playing such games.
Is as bad as any other claim made about the topic, if it comes with no backing whatsoever. Is this your observation? Is it something you’ve heard from other teachers? Is it the result of a research study?
You write in a way that feels aware of the issues surrounding topics like violent videogames affecting people, but at the same time we can’t just nod to correlation/causation and then declare that they are an “indicator of other things”. We need to know what those things are, otherwise we’re as guessing just as much as those who claim videogames create murderers, and just as much as those that claim videogames have no effect whatsoever.
It sounds like you’re going to be both a terrific teacher and a fair journalist though. I really enjoyed reading the piece.
I come off sounding like I expect you to go and conduct national studies yourself. I obviously don’t expect that at all! Rather, I meant that we should avoid sweeping statements, whether they be broom-sized or one of those smaller, handheld brush things you use to clean corners and small rooms.
Let me start by playing the blame game: this is a blog post first and foremost (and under the blog/opinion section) so there is a giant “I think” or “in my experience” in everything I’m saying. So no, I haven’t gone out and done a nationwide (which nation?) study, though I’d love to.
And as a political science student – I wear many a hat – thoroughness should rightfully be expected. At a later time I do intend on more thoroughly investigating the topic. But that doesn’t do anything for the article today. Right.
Sweeping statements aren’t doing anyone favours. I could (and should) write about these indicators. It’s with intent I’m not saying what those are – but in my experience and after consulting others in the field – figuring out conditions at home are a lot easier knowing what media a child consumes (with exceptions in everything); in political science, a similar indicator that prima facie seems to be a red heron is internet usage.
More than anything, the intent of this piece is to offer a cursory glance from the eyes of someone in the rather unique position of writing about video games *and* at the head of a classroom. Given the nature of the article, there are many things jammed in there. One of my biggest concerns is how ill equipped teachers are to deal with video games as media. I merely touch on this point in the blog despite seeing it as a primary concern. So much can be said.
I’ve accomplished what I set out to do: inspire a discussion on the matter. Thank you for being a (phenomenal) part of that discussion.
Can we get some real statistics on your study instead of general statements?
How many boys vs girls liked COD. How many of the boys that liked COD were also good students? How would you define misbehaviour?
This debate has been going on for decades… kids that played mortal kombat are now grown up productive members of society. There has been no proven case of violence attributed to people playing videogames.
It seems you are trying to project your own moral ideas on others when there is not proof that videogames cause these behaviours. You also do not understand bullies (they are usually highly confident).
Not in defence of myself but this is a blog post, not a dedicated research study. It should be noted that even with a sample of 80, that’s a tiny amount of respondents. It’s also highly localized (hence NHL 12 beating out, say, PES) so rather than questioning the specific numbers (which I can provide) of gender, good behaviour, etc. I think it is adequate to say that I am concerned about the correlation I observed.
More than this, I am not claiming violent video games lead to violent crimes. I believe that’s said in the body above. What I am suggesting is that there is a problem with kids playing these games, and that there are broader implications (for parents, for students, and more) that should be addressed.
Finally, I completely and totally challenge your assertion that bullies are “highly confident”. Bullies are generally insecure and, in some way or another, the victims of abuse themselves. Confident people are comfortable with who they – and others – are.
Calling bullies insecure is such a cop-out. Almost everyone is insecure! People that are not insecure are the ones that are dysfunctional as they overestimate their level of knowledge/abilities leading to poor decisions/mistakes and since they cannot recognize these poor choices they are unable to corrective future actions.
Since you are a teacher and challenge my assertion, I would recommend you read this:
http://www.parentingscience.com/pure-bullies.html
Bullying is prevalent in most schools and workplaces. It is a way to move up the social ladder. It is the ability to recognize the root causes that will help you be a better teacher instead of repeating old, debunked studies that have proven to be false.
I am not trying to be combative, but I just do not want false information being perpetuated through the school system and society.
Looks like you can’t do four-deep replies, but this is to Kyle:
Great reply, and really interesting to hear more about your background. You’re right – this is a personal standpoint piece and it does a great job doing everything you mention. Your position is unique and very interesting, so let me say I can’t wait to see what else you write on these topics (and others, presumably).
Also, I didn’t know that about media consumption/internet usage, so thanks for that, too.
Are you a permanent teacher now, or is it a placement within the political science stuff?
Cheers!
Very interesting article and subsequent responses. My daughters are 7 and 9 years old, and I regularly hear of classmates who’s parents allow them to play games unsuitable for their age, mainly those rated 18 (by the BBFC in the UK). One particular 9 year old regularly plays GTA IV, the entire CoD series and now Saints Row the Third.
I understand the argument that us mature gamers played the likes of Mortal Kombat, Cannon Fodder etc and yes the visuals have moved on, but it’s not so much the guns/violence that concerns me personally, but more the explicit language, sexual content and online interactions/conversations with adult gamers.
Your insightful post reminds me of my own experience growing up as a gamer. Early on, my parents made an effort to keep me away from ‘violent’ video games, before eventually realizing that I was much more interested in X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and STUN Runner than Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter and backing off on their stance. I realize now that they trusted me, and while I was an avid player of DOOM, Rise of the Triad, Quake, et al, the violence had an effect on me, as part of the drama of the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a LOT of fun with these games – I enjoyed figuring out the puzzles, developing a strategy and following the story. The violence added tension and drama, but it was only a small part of the fun. The same was true for many of my friends, but there were certain kids in my peer group who reacted very differently.
I distinctly remember being somewhat puzzled and a creeped out several kids’ reactions to the gore of ROTT or DOOM. While it *is* quite satisfying and enjoyable to win and see your opponent’s giblets splattered rather than your own, some kids seemed to enjoy it a little too much. Despite the worries of many parents of the time, it wasn’t that they had been exposed to it more, desensitized to the violence – in fact, I played many more hours of games, violent or otherwise, than the ‘creepy’ players did.
The difference was that my parents and my close friend group had given me a frame of reference for fun, which absolutely included spraying bullets into someone’s skull or tossing a grenade down a staircase at just the right moment, but also included a lot of other enjoyable, less violent experiences, in-game and out. The creepy kids responded to the violence not because they were necessarily mean-spirited or violent themselves, but because the visceral response to the violence felt like something, and they didn’t have many other things in their lives that made them feel anything. Of course they latched on to it – they could finally feel something, and at the touch of a few buttons.
TL;DR – Violent video games can and should be great fun, just as Doritos and Ice Cream can and should be enjoyed as indulgent treats – but there needs to be more on the table to balance everything out.
@Jabroni: Let’s start by looking at your source. “It turns out that some bullies—-the so-called “pure bullies”—-tend to be confident and socially well-adjusted.” Note the word some in there: my remark is sweeping (as explained in other comments), but some is certainly not a universal remark. Nor is it all that compelling to believe it’s a significant portion given Dewar’s outlining of the bullied-bullies I’m generally referring to.
Recent journal articles support a DICHOTOMY of bullies, but not exclusion of one of the types, going so far as suggesting the “pure bullies” are leaders of groups of bullies (presumably, then, bullied-bullies). [Piotrowski & Hoot, 2008]. Others [Greunert, 2006] focus more on those that experience and/or observe violence (physical or otherwise) – again, recent enough to suggest that a major group of bullies are indeed under that classification of bullied-bullies. Even Aleude et al. [2008] who cite that bullies are higher in social strata say: “Bullies are psychologically strong and very popular among their peers. However, the peer status is important in terms of boosting their well being.” That subordinate clause suggests to me there’s a different kind of strength being discussed.
In short, I don’t deny there are “pure bullies”. But I would suggest they are: a) a minority group, and b) uniquely frail at some level and with some other social inhibitor.
This is all I have to say on the topic.
This is a great blog article, Kyle. I have noticed a disturbing trend that a fair number of current parents tend to use video games as a babysitter for their kids – without actually understanding fully what this may entail.
As an indicator, I think violent video games are a good place to start. I think that most of the detractors have it all wrong: violent video games do not lead to violent behavior; rather, those who exhibit violent behaviour tend to have an affinity for these games. Those kids wearing the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare swag may be having trouble at home*.
It took a good deal of courage to face off against a parent like that. Really, what you did was reasonable – but there can be so much pride (and guilt) associated with each person and their “method” of child rearing.
Keep it up, man. Your kids are lucky to have you.
* – Or at least, trouble choosing a good game. Everyone knows that Battlefield is better.
(It’s called levity, folks)
Great article – I’m reading from the UK and I write a games blog and make Indie games myself so I know a little about where you are coming from.
When I read these articles though I can’t help but think that games are getting a little too much attention in this regard. I believe that films are as bad as games in many respects. There are plenty of films like Die Hard and even the recent Transformers films that are as violent, if not more violent than most games. I think parents in general need to be a bit more aware of what messages films and games are telling to their kids when they aren’t watching.
Such violent video games for such young kids. No one would tell you that they think it is real life, but there are still consequences for consuming this type of media. Kids at that age are still very impressionable and in addition to the violence you will have the more-than-occasional trashtalker who uses graphic language. No one can control for that. I’m currently working towards my online Master of Education degree at this site: http://www.cu-portland.edu/ and as a future teacher I am deeply concerned about what parents are allowing their children to consume at home.