Dungeons and dragons: The key to student voice and empowerment

Introduction

As of the 17th of July, a Dungeons and Dragons group has been formed as an elective, in which once a week, the group of six students, from year 10 and 11 and one teacher go to another classroom area and spend the last period of the day exploring and playing in a mystical fantasy world, that mixes fun with learning and teambuilding. This elective was made from the student’s own volition, deciding amongst themselves that they’d want to do it, before going and getting permission from staff. From here, who would participate and all learning and preparation was organised by the group, both inside and outside of school hours.

The experience is run by a student, from scheduling and planning to the execution of the play session. The game motivates players to learn many new skills which they may never have had to put into effect until that time, often pushing players out of their comfort zone, making them engage with new concepts and possibly new people around them.

This elective is held at SMYL (South Metropolitan Youth Link) Community College which currently has six campuses across the South of Perth. The college is an independent, referral only Curriculum and Re-engagement in Education (CaRE) school offering an alternative approach to education for young people who have disengaged from mainstream schooling. Most students struggle with engaging in their schoolwork, and thus the school puts a heavy emphasis on keeping classes and schoolwork engaging, especially via involving the students.

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CaRE schools

Youth at CaRE schools are often seen as “young people at risk” of disengaging from mainstream education. These schools provide a flexible approach to education which often centres around a modified or alternative curriculum (such as project-based learning) to address the needs of students. Many students face significant issues (for example, intergenerational trauma, anxiety, bullying, learning difficulties etc) which need to be addressed alongside engagement with teaching and learning. Many of the students who attend CaRE schools have also had large gaps in learning and as such, numeracy and literacy levels are often low.

The success of CaRE schools – apart from offering an alternative curriculum and philosophy – is the amount of support staff available (teachers, youth workers, community liaisons, career counsellors, education assistants etc). As such, CaRE schools have a low student to adult ratio – for example: 8 students to 1 teacher and auxiliary staff - which provides a holistic and robust student-centred approach.

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Numeracy

Since the game is primarily played through roleplay and strategy, it implores that players think, and use critical thinking as well as risk assessment, to know what may or may not affect them and their fellow teammates. On top of the strategizing of the game, there is also the mathematical component, as most actions are determined by rolls of various dice which generally consist of a set of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided dice, that always need to be modified in some way. This gets the students both used to, and quick at simple mental mathematics. It also teaches them to think about probability, they may not want to take the risk if it may affect not just themself, but their entire group. This will teach them to carefully assess the probability of the risks.

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‍Team Building

This group-based game encourages each player to work together and work off each other’s strengths. The game also has them grow their social skills, having to actively communicate with other players, helping them with actions, suggesting better solutions or even just voicing their concerns with a plan that was made. The game makes player’s talk to each other and consider everybody else’s perspective, as well as the practicing of empathy as they do not want to debilitate their fellow players, due to poor decisions on their side. Especially since harm to the team is harm to themself. With all these skills, they also must learn patience, as the turn-by-turn nature of the game may leave them waiting for a decent amount of time, and in that time, they are to plan and prepare what they may do when it does come to their turn, generally involving the other waiting teammates to fully flesh out and execute a plan.

Effects

One player who struggles with writing in detail and length generally takes notes every session, leaving with almost two pages worth of work every time. Two of the players are dyslexic and despite this, have written information on their characters, as well as researched, studied and learnt how to work around this struggle. A student who would be seen once a week was coming in almost three days a week, to discuss, plan, and learn. Another player who struggles to get along with some of the other players is learning how to set aside their differences and work as a team nonetheless. The Game Master who runs the session has learnt how to manage their time, plan meetings, and work with people who may not get along, as well as how to manage a small group of people. Comments from the students include ‘who thought that with so much laughter and fun going on, that there would be learning too’, ‘I am feeling like I am going on an adventure when I am playing DnD!’, ‘It was fun, very yippee’, and ‘The Game Master is very good at leading/being in charge as our DM’.

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Curriculum links

The benefit of this elective is that it is cross-curricula and extends across all general capabilities outlined under ACARA (Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology (ICT) capability, Critical and creative thinking, Personal and social capability, Ethical understanding, and Intercultural understanding). At any given time, a student could be making a decision around financial literacy (making a decision whether to buy a magic potion as part of their tool kit), critical and creative thinking (problem-solving and assessing risks when caught in a situation that they have got themselves into), and using ICT and building digital literacy skills to complete research around characters, spells, and other information that may be needed to help with decision-making. Socio-emotional skills are being built through developmental relationships and leadership skills across year groups, as well as intercultural understanding as all group members have diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and identities.

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Personal reflection from the Game Master

As the Game Master, I never expected my little elective to go as far as it did, when it started, it was expected to have maybe four people join, if even. After the first day, there was 11 or so people that all wanted to participate! While it felt bad to have to turn down some people, it was amazing to see the engagement that the elective brought. Neither the teachers nor I had seen so many people from campus all come together to try and learn and participate, which made the first few sessions a little hectic, but it was quickly tidied and turned into an official program.

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Conclusion

All these features outlined above combine to make Dungeons and Dragons a genuinely fun activity that all participants look forward to in advance. This activity makes an excellent learning and engagement tool where many participants have improved in weak areas through the game without even realising. This shows how powerful student’s voices can be, and how with a little initiative they can start to make change. The positive effects are incredibly apparent, and I genuinely believe it to be an incredible thing to implement for a school.

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Amber Galbraith

Student

Contact: manaia@chou-lee.com