Hi all! My name is Justin Walters, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

I joke of course, but I wanted to

start out by referencing TED Talks because it was a TED talk that really germinated the reason for my
being here with you right now, and indirectly the genesis of the proposal I want to share with you. Years
ago, when I was an intern with a nonprofit organization called Teen Advisors and living with four others
involved in working with youth, I saw a talk by Ken Robinson entitled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” I
began to consider my philosophy on education as part of the work I was doing with youth, and what Ken
Robinson was saying resonated with me. As someone working with young people in a mentoring
capacity I wanted to expand what I was doing to help them grow, and I began to hit upon the idea that
inasmuch as social gatherings could be turned towards a religious purpose so too could social gatherings
be used as the impetus for other aspects of personal growth and development beyond the spiritual. I
decided at that point that I wanted to get into Higher Education, which would later evolve into a desire
to get into Residence Life generally, and Student Affairs more broadly. I believe education is best when it
targets the whole person, when it engages in creative ways, and puts into practice the skills it purports
to teach. So, with that in mind what I am going to be pitching you today is an exercise in imagination
that simulates the gamut of Human (Dwarven, Elven) experience in a safe, collaborative, and yes,
educational way. What I am talking about, of course, is Dungeons and Dragons.

Let me hop right in by asking the question you might be asking yourself right now, why Dungeons and
Dragons? Well, there’s a phrase that I believe appears in the auditorium here that has enchanted me
since I first saw it on the website and it says, “Dedicated to the promotion of world friendship through
the universal language of the arts.” I bring it up here because the essential nature of D&D is the idea
that one of the most broadly enjoyable group activities, we, as humans, can do is sit around with one
another and tell stories. We do this very thing when we sit down to watch a movie or a play, when we
sing a song or contemplate the meaning of a particularly poignant lyric we heard, or even when we go to
an art gallery and discuss with one another how a specific piece of art speaks to us. What we do in D&D
is create friendships in all their rich complexity through the shared experience of storytelling, an
underlying reality of all artistic endeavor, a universal language of the arts if you will allow.

For me personally, it is a hobby that I’ve enjoyed since I was in elementary school first as a player, and
now as a Game Master. I currently GM for a group of around ten or so people some of whom were once
young people I mentored when they were in high school or worked with as college age volunteers as
part of my internship. I asked the folks in my group if they could give me a quick word about how they
might make a pitch like the one I am attempting to make and a couple of their responses are on the
current slide. D&D is a game for all ages. It’s the type of programming that has broad appeal because it
is literally a game where you can do anything, be anyone, experience anything your imagination can
dream up.

As part of this presentation I was asked how my programming idea specifically dealt with a few different
educational concepts, only one was needed, but as I looked on the list of categories I was immediately
struck by how D&D addressed each and every one of the given categories. So, I am going to briefly run
through each of them with accompanying slides.

Let’s start with mental health. I am no psych major, far from it, but some of you have might have heard
about something called Drama Therapy. Well, from what I can tell Drama Therapy and D&D have a
variety of shared elements, and on the slide behind me there is a link to a few great youtube videos that
makes the connection between mental health and D&D more thoroughly than I have time for here.
Suffice it to say, because the game reflects life in all of its variety it can be presented in innumerable
ways. You could run a session where the player character has to deal with the death of a loved one, the
consequences of bad decision making, interpersonal conflicts, or as an outlet for aggression and other
negative emotions. The possibilities are endless because the medium is the imagination. These issues
can be brought up in a safe environment where friends are there to help you (or your character) through
issues in a supportive and collaborative way. Not to mention that the role of the GM is to facilitate a
safe, fun, and wholesome experience for all involved.

Next up is the concept of identity, which as a political science guy is near and dear to my heart, and is a
topic I almost wrote a Master’s Thesis on. D&D offers a no risk way to experiment with a variety of
identities. The player is able to be anything or anyone they want to be provided they can work it out
with the GM. What’s more the identities you deal with in game are useful in that they teach everyone
involved to deal with alternative or marginalized identities that they may not otherwise encounter (in
the real world or in the fantastic one). In this vein you are also given a way to practice creative writing
coming up with backstories for your character, and fleshing out who they are (and by extension
exploring who you are). No matter how hard you try you are always in some sense going to be playing
yourself, but D&D allows you to explore the parts of your self that you may not be aware of or
comfortable with. Not only do you get to experience different identities on your own you get to interact
with the identities of others, which is particularly important with this generation of young people who
have been raised around screens and often have difficulty with the sort of interpersonal social cues and
interactions that typically characterize face to face engagements.

The next category was so obviously related to D&D when I first thought about it, I couldn’t help but
crack a huge grin. Resilience. Resilience is the name of the game. Dungeons and Dragons, the name itself
evokes the challenge that forms the core of gameplay. D&D is all about putting yourself, and your
fellows into challenging situation after situation. The adventures you go on might not put you in actual
danger, but through the medium of role-playing you learn an approximation of what it is like to go
through tough circumstances and emerge from the other side of things stronger, literally so in game
terms. Although the medium is a fantasy the successes are real, and in many cases the experience of
overcoming a challenge in D&D can be a catalyst for overcoming similar challenges in real life.

I touched on this next one a bit earlier when I referred to one of the ways this generation is different
from previous ones, but to say a few more words about socio-emotional learning I want to state the
obvious: D&D is a social game. There are no winners or losers, there is simply a team working together
to overcome challenges and tell a story. Much of that story telling is done through collaboration, the GM
facilitates but the players react to one another and exercise autonomy in making choices all while
picking up on social cues, thinking on their feet, and learning the importance of playing well with others.
The entirety of D&D game play is structured to get its participants to set and achieve goals, feel and
show empathy, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make sound decisions both in the
moment and for the longer term.

Finally, there is this concept of Diversity and Inclusion. This too immediately stuck out to me because
until recently D&D had primarily been viewed as a game for certain socially marginal strata of our
culture, “nerds”. D&D has evolved over time from an extremely niche hobby, mostly involving white cis
males to the current incarnation of D&D which has made a real commitment to diversity and inclusion.
In fact, many of the most popular d&d streams in popular culture feature players that are themselves
minorities, women, LGBTQ or are playing characters that identify in those ways. Parties of player
characters are generally encouraged to be diverse, and by their very nature are inclusive. Currently, I run
a d&d group with multiple campaigns that feature such a diverse array of characters as a Yuan Ti
(snakewoman) Bard, an androgynous flirty elf, a gray dwarf luchador, an old man who is secretly a
reincarnated Gold Dragon, a good natured tabaxi (catperson) fighter with a French name and borrowed
story elements from the Thundercats cartoon, and I even have a few characters of my own like my
Kobold (tiny dragon man) Deekin Redscale who was saved from slavery by a great warrior and has
dedicated his life to emulating him in protecting his adopted city. Not only are these characters being
played, they are the heroes of our stories!

In addition to these concepts there are multiple more traditional academic disciplines and concepts that
d&d touches upon which I have tried to highlight in the slide behind me along with the learning
outcomes that may be expected to go with this sort of programming.

One last thing I want to go over with the time I have left to me is the nuts and bolts of how this would
work, at least as I imagine the initial meeting. We would begin by teaching the basics of play. Run
through the concept of what is called a session zero. Have stations where you do mock ups of how an
actual session would work, whether that is a sample combat encounter, a puzzle, a social situation the
players must deal with, or how to run a game, etc. I would probably spend the first 15 minutes going
over the basics before breaking up into smaller groups based around these stations where the
participants would run through training materials to get a feel for what an actual session entails.

If there is recurrent interest this could blossom into an organized activity or club that the students could
learn to run on their own or under the supervision of a Resident Coordinator like myself. It works best
with groups of 4-6, but you can run the game with as little as one player and one GM or as many as your
GM can keep track of. It doesn’t take a monetary commitment or a large amount of resources beyond
some time and the creativity you bring into it. As with many things in life you get out what you put in. A
GM who puts effort into creating an immersive world for their players can expect to increase their
players enjoyment, while the same is true of players who devote time to their characters. The current
edition of the game is easy to pick up on, and most of the rules of the game can be learned through play
alongside the helpful instructions of a knowledgeable GM. D&D has never been more popular than it
currently is, and I suspect many of the students would find it as enjoyable and impactful as I have in the
course of my life. I would love to share this experience with the people of the Interlochen community,
and would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have with this particular activity or
about my candidacy for this position. Thank you!