Founder of the seminal video game studio Electronic Arts, Hawkins now co-leads If You Can, a small group of developers and educators working to bring a subscription-based iPad adventure game to life. Based on the concept of "emotional intelligence," made popular in the mid-1990s by journalist and author Daniel Goleman, the new game is called simply IF…
Hawkins says the game will debut at the end of January and be aimed at kids ages 6 to 12. The first chapter will be free to play, but after that he hopes to entice parents to sign up for a monthly subscription.
Goleman's best-selling 1995 book Emotional Intelligence popularized the idea that a child's ability to control his or her impulses, delay gratification, persist in the face of setbacks and generally be a more empathetic person could be bigger factors in his or her success than raw intelligence. More recently, educators — including the influential KIPP charter schools — have focused much of their college-completion efforts on kids' ability to show "grit" in everyday life.
Hawkins, a father of four kids aged 9 to 20, says the lessons are valuable, but that teaching them in a classroom isn't so easy. And he doesn't expect to see parents asking their kids to study the concepts after school.
"You have to meet people where they're at," he says. "Where are our kids right now? They've got their fingers on a device."
While players work through each level, the game assesses 20 skills behind the scenes, including self-awareness, resilience, empathy, the ability to listen and to manage emotions, among others. From time to time, game characters even encourage players to put down the game and try out their skills in the real world.
IF… looks like your typical colorful adventure title, with players dropp! ed into the imaginary village of Greenberry and given the choice of playing as a dog or cat. But in this particular world, something isn't right. The village is a mess and everyone's fighting. Hawkins likens it to the scenes in It's a Wonderful Life in which Jimmy Stewart sees what his hometown would be like if he'd never been born.
"We start out with the town being trashed," he says. It's up to players to set things right.
Trash actually plays a role in the game — players are encouraged to pick up trash in the game world, something Hawkins has done, with little fanfare, for years in real life. As an illustration of how small acts can have big effects, he recalls that at a recent presentation at his daughter's school, she surprised him by telling the crowd how her dad picks up trash, even though he'd never called attention to it or asked his kids to follow his lead. She loved the idea, she told the crowd, and had started doing it herself.
Hawkins actually gets a little emotional in the retelling, saying, "I had never heard that — and here it was radiating out to this group. It's one of those things where you realize that every little bit you can do makes a difference and creates these ripple effects that are much bigger, and possibly more profound, than you had imagined."
If You Can website: http://www.ifyoucan.org
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