Gamer School Lures Dropouts
Wataru Yoshida had had enough. He was not going back to school. He disliked his teachers, chafed against the rules and was bored by his classes. So in the middle of 2020, as Japan’s schools reopened after pandemic closings, Wataru decided to stay home and play video games all day.
“He just declared, ‘I’m getting nothing from school,’ ” said his mother, Kae Yoshida.
Now, after more than a year out of the classroom, Wataru, 16, has returned to school, though not a normal one. He and around two dozen teenagers like him are part of the inaugural class of Japan’s first e-sports high school, a private institution in Tokyo that opened last year.
The academy, which mixes traditional class work with intensive video game training, was founded to feed the growing global demand for professional gamers. But educators believe they have stumbled onto something more valuable: a model for getting students like Wataru back in school.
“School refusal” — chronic absenteeism often linked to anxiety or bullying — has been a preoccupation in Japan since the early 1990s, when educators first noticed that over 1 percent of elementary and middle school students had effectively dropped out. The number has since more than doubled.
Japanese schools can feel hostile for children who do not fit in. Pressure to conform is high. In extreme cases, schools have demanded that children dye their naturally brown hair black to match other pupils’.
Making matters worse, counselors, social workers and psychologists are rare in schools, said Keiko Nakamura, an associate professor of psychology at Tohoku Fukushi University. Teachers are expected to perform those roles. As they struggle to address school refusal, educators have experimented with different models, including distance learning. Frustrated parents with means have turned to private schools. The E-Sports High School students, however,
A place to learn math, science and Street Fighter.
mostly found their own way to the school. For them, it seemed like a potential haven.
Once the school realized it was tapping into an unexpected demographic of absentee students, it invested considerable effort in soothing parental concerns. At an information session in February 2022, it explained that its lesson plans met national standards, and administrators addressed concerns like video game addiction and career prospects.
Two months later, at the start of the Japanese school year in April, 22 boys, accompanied by parents, gathered for an entrance ceremony at the campus — a sleek pod, with glass floors and a ceiling of green neon tubes. The ceremony offered reassurance to both students and parents. The principal — in the form of a glitchy avatar — delivered a speech from a giant screen, then led students in a programming exercise.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, pros instructed students on strategies for popular games like Fortnite. On one such day, students gathered around a whiteboard for a lecture about the merits of Street Fighter characters, then put the lesson into action. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students studied core subjects like math, biology and English.
Unlike most Japanese schools, classes started later, at 10, and there were no uniforms. One day early in the school year, only two boys showed up for the start of first period, a lecture about information technology. There were four teachers. As pupils straggled in, the teachers offered a cheery hello or simply ignored them. By third period — biology — five students had arrived. Only two stayed through the day’s last class, English. The teachers were happy they came at all.
“Kids who didn’t come to school in the first place are allergic to being forced,” said Akira Saito, the principal, an affable man who had spent years teaching troubled students in public schools. The philosophy was to draw them in with the games and then show them that “it’s really fun to come to school, it’s really useful for your future,” he said.
In truth, few students will become pro gamers. And careers are short anyway: Teenagers — with their fast-twitch reflexes — dominate. By their mid-20s, most players are no longer competitive. The academy encourages students to seek other paths into the industry — programming or design, for example — and to make pro gaming a sideline, not a career.
Wataru, however, is focused on making it big. By midsemester, he still was not getting to class much, but he was commuting over an hour three days a week, for practice. He was less reserved, more eager to goof off with his new friends.
In November, Wataru and a team of classmates made it through the first round of a national competition for League of Legends. They won their first match. Then a group of older players smashed them. Defeated, they sat quietly.
“I should probably go home,” Wataru said. He turned back to his monitor instead. He was part of a team. And he was getting better at that, too.