How to better support school clubs?

Quote from Mr_Helix >>

Best practice for school kids would actually be to NOT use D&D Beyond.  Physical books, dice, and paper character sheets will let them practice reading and math skills in a much more solid and meaningful way.  

I don't think the intent behind this post is helping kids learn through D&D, but simply providing D&D as an extracurricular activity. D&D Beyond is a much more resource friendly means of doing this—physical books are more expensive, prone to damage, and a digital tool set helps remove barriers for kids that may exist due to handwriting skills, time constraints, etc.

I'm not saying there aren't benefits to readying physical books and practicing writing as learning mechanisms, but I don't think that's the intent here

Quote from GnollitAll78450 >>

Quote from StonyMac >>

However, ultimately I think the ability to stretch our imagination, to understand the social concept of helping other people have fun (and the deeper aspects of empathy involved in that), practice problem solving, appreciate good story telling, etc... are all more important than the knowledge gained of medieval life and warfare.

 I think kids should just get to play, but often times I have to convince a school that there is educational merit for it, while the Chess club gets a pass because of the 'chess is a smart person activity' perception. Even though D&D uses way more of the brain than chess, a lot of faculties don't give it the same grace.

  
Over here the legal field, D&D is increasingly getting recognition as a mechanism for training attorneys - including recognition by the American Bar Association, several law schools (at least one which offers a D&D and law elective), Harvard Law professors, etc.  When one thinks about it, this makes sense - there is a lot of overlap between the skills needed for D&D and for being an effective attorney, particularly a litigation attorney.  These skills include, but are not limited to, the ability to rapidly process data and immediately begin looking for solutions, knowledge of rules system and interpretation, the ability to work collaboratively with a group, the ability to be persuasive without being “difficult”, etc.

While a lot of academic focus has occurred on D&D and the legal community, a lot of those skills are transferable to other fields amd life generally.  Pretty easy to do some searches for “Dungeons and Dragons lawyer training” (need a word like “training” to filter out “rules lawyering” results) and get some sources espousing the academic benefits of the system. 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from GnollitAll78450 >>

Quote from StonyMac >>

However, ultimately I think the ability to stretch our imagination, to understand the social concept of helping other people have fun (and the deeper aspects of empathy involved in that), practice problem solving, appreciate good story telling, etc... are all more important than the knowledge gained of medieval life and warfare.

 I think kids should just get to play, but often times I have to convince a school that there is educational merit for it, while the Chess club gets a pass because of the 'chess is a smart person activity' perception. Even though D&D uses way more of the brain than chess, a lot of faculties don't give it the same grace.

  
Over here the legal field, D&D is increasingly getting recognition as a mechanism for training attorneys - including recognition by the American Bar Association, several law schools (at least one which offers a D&D and law elective), Harvard Law professors, etc.  When one thinks about it, this makes sense - there is a lot of overlap between the skills needed for D&D and for being an effective attorney, particularly a litigation attorney.  These skills include, but are not limited to, the ability to rapidly process data and immediately begin looking for solutions, knowledge of rules system and interpretation, the ability to work collaboratively with a group, the ability to be persuasive without being “difficult”, etc.

While a lot of academic focus has occurred on D&D and the legal community, a lot of those skills are transferable to other fields amd life generally.  Pretty easy to do some searches for “Dungeons and Dragons lawyer training” (need a word like “training” to filter out “rules lawyering” results) and get some sources espousing the academic benefits of the system. 

 
Now i want you to step into this time machine with me and we can go back to 2003 and tell this to the club organizer.....

For real though, that is pretty cool. I wish more places would be open to that type of thinking. Would give a lot of people a place to learn or hone skills that schools seem to not want to teach.  

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from GnollitAll78450 >>

Quote from StonyMac >>

However, ultimately I think the ability to stretch our imagination, to understand the social concept of helping other people have fun (and the deeper aspects of empathy involved in that), practice problem solving, appreciate good story telling, etc... are all more important than the knowledge gained of medieval life and warfare.

 I think kids should just get to play, but often times I have to convince a school that there is educational merit for it, while the Chess club gets a pass because of the 'chess is a smart person activity' perception. Even though D&D uses way more of the brain than chess, a lot of faculties don't give it the same grace.

  
Over here the legal field, D&D is increasingly getting recognition as a mechanism for training attorneys - including recognition by the American Bar Association, several law schools (at least one which offers a D&D and law elective), Harvard Law professors, etc.  When one thinks about it, this makes sense - there is a lot of overlap between the skills needed for D&D and for being an effective attorney, particularly a litigation attorney.  These skills include, but are not limited to, the ability to rapidly process data and immediately begin looking for solutions, knowledge of rules system and interpretation, the ability to work collaboratively with a group, the ability to be persuasive without being “difficult”, etc.

While a lot of academic focus has occurred on D&D and the legal community, a lot of those skills are transferable to other fields amd life generally.  Pretty easy to do some searches for “Dungeons and Dragons lawyer training” (need a word like “training” to filter out “rules lawyering” results) and get some sources espousing the academic benefits of the system. 

 I did Mock Trial club in High School - I can only imagine arguing the pros and cons of some D&D optimization interpretation of the rules.

Quote from Mr_Helix >>

Best practice for school kids would actually be to NOT use D&D Beyond.  Physical books, dice, and paper character sheets will let them practice reading and math skills in a much more solid and meaningful way.  

 exactly. also grounds the activity in the class room. 

you can also make cheat sheets of larger lists to deal with info overload. 

Yes, for sure... This is how they are playing. I printed up a spell book along with information on various magic items, his construct familiar (a Clockwork Observer), some key rules (like how helping, flyby, immunities, etc... work - since they pertain to his familiar), etc... for him to have with him. I am hoping that he reads the spells and other stuff in his downtime and learns them better.

My son had lots of fun in today's session and is really liking D&D. Last week someone less experienced tried to do a 1-shot but it was too overpowered for the Level 1 characters. This week they moved to another 1-shot with a more experienced DM (probably the only person in the club with experience playing D&D besides the teacher).