At today’s Learning of Tomorrow Online Lunch Symposium, Mr. Naito from the North American School Esports Federation (NASEF) spoke about esports and education.

NASEF aims to promote “educational esports”—the use of esports as an effective tool to foster learning and education. Players form teams with their peers, set goals, and work toward them through trial and error. By leveraging games—which many children already enjoy—to reinforce what they’ve learned through sports, the arts, and other activities, might we be able to reach a broader audience?

NASEF focuses on three areas: “community building,” “curriculum development and delivery,” and “revitalizing and supporting school clubs and extracurricular activities.”

When examining the educational benefits of esports, it was initially assumed that they would improve logical thinking and problem-solving skills, but it is said that, in fact, they led to improvements in social and emotional learning. This refers to the soft skills involved in achieving goals while communicating with friends. Simply put, it is described as “communication skills.”

In the United States, there appear to be growing instances of incorporating esports into existing academic subjects. For example, in California, ELA (English Language Arts) classes—which correspond to Japanese language arts in Japan—reportedly follow a four-year curriculum. In the first year, students explore the nature of games. In the second year, they examine ways to solve social issues through esports.In the third year, students develop a plan to bring those ideas to life. Finally, in the fourth year, they put their plans into practice in the community and gather feedback. It is said that this type of project-based learning is being implemented.

We also held seminars for coaches to teach them how to address concerns such as gaming addiction.

We received many questions from viewers asking, “What game titles are being used?” While the games are certainly popular with children, the tournament titles are reportedly selected based on standards set by third-party organizations—such as whether the games have educational elements that allow players to take on different roles in team-based gameplay, and whether they contain any violent content.

It is reported that NASEF already has more than 900 member schools across 48 U.S. states, 16 clubs in 4 Canadian provinces, 6 clubs in 5 Mexican states, and over 5,000 student members.Mr. Naito is already participating in the Interacademic Esports Education program, which is jointly promoted by the Learning of Tomorrow Association and the Japan e-Sports Union (JeSU). Working in collaboration with NASEF, we are committed to building a strong community of schools, experts, and researchers, and we will strive to develop and provide curricula, conduct research on educational outcomes, and revitalize club activities.