Caine’s Arcade: Lessons for Educators

10-year old Los Angelean Caine Monroy has enjoyed more than his 15-minutes of fame thanks to a short film about the elaborate cardboard arcade he constructed in his father’s used-auto-parts shop. If you haven’t seen the video, stop reading and watch it first. Finished wiping away the tears yet? Well, the story only gets better. The internet release of Nirvan Mullick’s film in March and subsequent viral spread set in motion yet more heartwarming events. In the days immediately following the video’s release, strangers donated more than $150,000 to pay Caine’s college expenses. His story was national, and then international news within a matter of weeks, and at last count, Caine’s Arcade had more than 7 million combined Youtube and Vimeo views.

The business world quickly took an interest in Caine, with a Forbes magazine blogger predicting he will be a billionaire by age 30, and the University of Southern California’s business school inviting Caine for a speaking appearance. And indeed the arcade has turned out to be an entrepreneurial success for Caine. But this is as much an education story as it is a business story. Caine has received invitations to a summer program at MIT, and an offer from UCLA to customize an academic track. The Caine’s Arcade Facebook page includes postings from elementary school students inspired to create their own cardboard engineering projects. Another group, Caine’s Arcade School Pilot Program for Inspired Educators, is testing curriculum ideas inspired by the cardboard arcade, and already more than 100 schools in nine countries have had students participate in related project-based learning activities.

Educators can take away several messages from Caine’s story. In addition to the many uplifting elements of this tale, it should also provoke serious reflection upon the kinds of learning opportunities our schools provide to students. George Monroy’s East LA used-auto-parts shop proved fertile ground for Caine’s learning. Like many young boys, he is a fan of arcade games. The garage was a space where he could indulge this interest, and his imagination. The combination of cardboard boxes, office supplies, and free time allowed him to follow flights of fancy, to solve problems, and to tinker with and improve his creations. Caine also benefitted from adults who believed in his talents and supported his explorations, even when he did not have any customers. 

How often do students at school encounter learning opportunities like Caine has experienced? Not often enough, as standardized-testing-dominated curricula threaten to squeeze out space for individualized and uncharted pursuit of topics of interest to students. The combination of factors – space, resources, time, freedom, support, and fun – that allowed for Caine to produce his cardboard masterpiece is not a regular part of school for many students. Instead, they are bombarded with classes that do little to cultivate their instinctive desire to learn, innovate, and create.

Teachers feeling accountability pressure may believe they do not have time to help their students to imagine and explore. But powerful learning rarely happens without a motivated learner – despite teachers’ best efforts – so taking the time to cultivate students’ interests is worth it in the long run. The stale, disjointed, test-prep dominated curriculum and instruction a disappointing number of students experience has indeed left many unmotivated by school, but most all youth are motivated by something. Schools simply do too little to discover and build on the motivation which is there, even though kids who are inspired by something happening at school are probably more likely to end up passing those pesky tests.

In our schools, more emphasis must be placed upon the search for personal passion and purpose. Caine has clearly found something to which he can dedicate himself, and when students develop such a drive, it can make quite a difference in how they approach learning of all sorts. Furthermore, Caine’s passion has resulted in experiences outside of school that have broadened his perspective on the world, and have surely strengthened his general sense of self-efficacy. 

Good teachers recognize ways in which they can tap into passion to motivate students to learn in their content areas. Caine’s passion for arcades offers educators many ways to hook him into their curricula. Tasks or classes that before might have lacked clear relevance in Caine’s mind could become more relevant if connected to his excitement about and dedication to his arcade.

As a Latino male living in Los Angeles, Caine belongs to a demographic that has a 50% high school graduation rate. It’s not too far-fetched a scenario to imagine Caine, who has struggled some in the past with reading, being labeled “at-risk” and subjected to a remedial curriculum that fails to appreciate and build upon his many strengths. Given his newfound fame, the financial support for his education, and the now global appreciation for his talents, this stifling fate will probably not befall our precocious protagonist. But it is what will happen to too many of his peers. In today’s American public schools, a large proportion of administrators’ and teachers’ energy and attention is focused on a narrowed curriculum, limited types of data, standardized testing, and students’ perceived deficits. If these educators fail to also find time to provide opportunities for exploration, they run the risk of failing to develop the many potential Caine’s sitting right in front of them.

Caine’s arcade experiences have helped set him on a path to a bright future. It’s not because of knowledge that was poured into his head; it’s because of the exploration he was allowed to do, and the passion and purpose he has found. Caine is the hero of this story, but adults as well helped make it possible. Educators can contribute to the creation of similar stories if they are open to the lessons of Caine’s Arcade. Schools must be places that look to build on students’ interests and strengths, and provide opportunities for them to be curious, autonomous actors in their own learning.

In filmmaker Mullick’s mid-September follow up to Caine’s Arcade, a second short video entitled Imagine: Caine’s Arcade Goes Global, George Monroy reveals that Caine has indeed become more self-confident and is doing better in school. The film goes on to describe the work of The Imagination Foundation, started in the wake of the first Caine film, to “find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.” The Foundation has sponsored the Global Cardboard Challenge, meant to be a day of play and fundraising for its work. More than 270 cardboard events in 41 countries occurred around the world for the first challenge; hopefully such activities will cause more educators to take notice. The type of learning embodied in Caine’s story should not be limited to Saturday events away from schools. Although some might argue that Caine is an anomaly, I agree with Mullick’s opinion: “There are so many other kids like Caine out there.” Many students have the potential to surprise us, and themselves, with their creative capacities, if only our schools become more oriented towards helping them to do so.