On Friday, October 11th, a press release announced that 25 teachers were chosen to be “high school scholastic fellows” for the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF).
Out of these 25 fellows selected nationwide, two came from the state of Florida — one of them being our very own Peter Melton, Miami Lakes Educational Center’s programming teacher and general manager of the brand new eSports Club.
“Mr. Melton learned of the opportunity to become a fellow when our school was selected to pilot eSports and become part of NASEF. He applied to be a fellow, and he was selected,” said Lourdez Diaz, the Principal of MLEC.
This fellowship program, which is a new implementation by NASEF, has as a single end goal at its center: to promote education in the tech field.
NASEF is planning on carrying out this milestone by drawing inspiration from students. By using the different aspects that go into eSports, the organization will ultimately help educators understand how to encourage students into STEM— specifically, how to incorporate that into classrooms.
Through eSports Mr. Melton is already doing this.
The club goes beyond playing video games. It’s institution comprises an amalgam of intricacies— from programming to analysis, and even music-making. In every event before the team can participate, there are myriad individuals contributing to making said gaming event possible.
“On the content side, you have people that are doing art for fandome, people the do social media, people who are streaming these games and edit the video later on… There’s ten people that are playing the game, but there are hundreds of people bringing you that game,” said Peter Melton.
As a high school scholastic fellow, Mr. Melton, along with the 24 other fellows, will collaborate to create Career and Technical Education (CTE) curriculum that can be used in some of the classes at MLEC.
“Mr. Melton will be helping to develop the very curriculum we will be utilizing in several courses of our Programming strand. It is very beneficial for us because he will have input and first-hand knowledge throughout the process,” said Diaz.
Mr. Melton’s position as a scholastic fellow will not only be beneficial for the classes at MLEC, but will also be beneficial for its eSports Club. Being a fellow will help him become a link between the organization and the eSports club.
“Since Mr. Melton is also the coach, or general manager of the eSports club at this school, he has a direct align from our club to NASEF itself as being a fellow. When the discussions come up with the other fellows, we can remain up to date and Mr. Melton can give his two cents on the concerns that he’s heard from the kids and so forth,” said Eddy Jimenez, President of MLEC’s eSports Club.
The program is fairly new, but the people within it aim to make an impact in the classrooms, lives, and careers of students.
“I’ve been teaching for twenty years and I have been involved in a dozen standing projects,” said Mr. Melton.
“I’ve never been more excited about anything more than this.”
