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Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the awkward-segues dept.

TechDirt is reporting that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has moved into the one industry that I don't think anyone might have expected, video games. Not only did she speak at a recent gaming conference, she is also working on creating a video game about the courts. "There have been many similar 'civic education' video games out there, like the UN video game to teach kids about world hunger and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. It's not clear how successful any of these sorts of games really are, but it's nice to see a former Supreme Court Justice taking an interest in these sorts of things. Though, some might point out that this could be seen as something of a gimmick, and students might just be better served by adding a decent civics curriculum back into school (it's apparently gone thanks to No Child Left Behind)."

35 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. No Child Left Behind by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dear next president, please kill that program on your first day.

    Thank you.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:No Child Left Behind by Layer+3+Ninja · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not only does it force teachers to teach the test, with budget penalties etc etc, if a student fails his or her EoG test twice, they get promoted to the next grade anyway. No child is left behind, because they eventually get promoted whether they pass the tests or not. Its fucking brilliant.

      --
      Power corrupts. Absolute power...is even more fun.
    2. Re:No Child Left Behind by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm not sure anyone understands the program, or the issues here. Enforcing common standards is a good thing, and yet it blamed universally when anything outside the standards isn't taught any more.

      I think it is possible to teach crucial curriculum and still find time for other classes. The problem is that teachers have little to no control over children in an overly litigious society of hyper-sensitive parents.

      And more often than not, you either have both parents working, or a single parent household, where the parent may not connect with their child enough. So when a teacher attempts to tell a parent of their child's failing, they don't want to believe it.

      We have developed this society where teachers are terrified of instilling discipline (I'm not talking about hitting kids, but rather just instilling order) so that children don't feel the need to take education seriously.

      Our countries in the world manage to pull off superior public education programs, not necessarily because of funding, but I believe because of cultural differences in which education is taken far more seriously.

      Universally blaiming "No Child Left Behind" isn't actually addressing the issues of what's seriously wrong. Conversely, I think the the concept of NCLB is a very good one. We spend more money on education. We attempt to raise the bar of public education, and hold states accountable for poor results.

      There is a great disparity between what a child in rural Alabama, a child inner-city New York, and another say here in Omaha (my town) receives in education. Individual states and school districts should have freedom and flexibility in determining their curriculum, but having a bare-minimum standard of education all American children should be given is a GOOD THING.

      If you want to see what's really wrong with public education, don't blame a politician for spending more money on education. Read some Jonathon Kozol.

      http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Jonathan+Kozol&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&hl=en

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    3. Re:No Child Left Behind by R2.0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, because there weren't any schools failing before that law passed, and states don't have a choice whether to participate.

      Perhaps it doesn't work. Fine. What would you have the government do?

      I'll start: abolish the Dept. of Education and get the Feds out of the schools. Period.

      Don't like that? What's your idea? Don't have one? Then STFU.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    4. Re:No Child Left Behind by qbzzt · · Score: 3, Informative

      It was only unfunded in comparative terms. The federal government is not allowed to mess with education. They get around this by paying school districts to do something.

      Before NCLB the federal government has some requirements to give money. NCLB changed those requirements, without allocating more money. School districts are allowed to tell the DoE to take their money, take their standards, and stuff them both into the same shredder.

      We, as voters for each school district, have decided not to do so. We want our federal education subsidies.

      --
      -- Support a free market in the field of government
    5. Re:No Child Left Behind by goofy183 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wish my mod points hadn't just expired, you'd be getting one.

      My wife works in special-ed which has an even higher tendency to be litigious than general-ed courses do.

      It is amazing how many parents immediately place blame on teachers for their child not doing well in a class. In many cases it may well be a case of a student and teacher not connecting at some level but jumping directly into "it's the teachers fault" versus trying to find a solution doesn't help and just puts teachers and parents more at odds.

    6. Re:No Child Left Behind by bigkahunah · · Score: 3, Informative

      As a recent high school graduate (2006) I was in high school during NCLB. I do not see the program as having destroyed any meaningful civic curriculum because there never really was one to begin with. Sure the government and history teachers present the material, but as Enderandrew mentioned the parents can't stand to see a child failing or even falling short of perfection. This leads to great pressure on the teachers from parents and the school to pass all the students and inflate grades. The only thing that NCLB had done to change this is to add another source of pressure on the teachers to inflate grades. I was speaking with one of the government teachers the year after I had graduated. During this conversation he described the government teachers meeting to decide the curve on the test that all the government kids have to take due to NCLB and the driving factor was not what is a true cutoff, but how low can they make the req's for an A in order to maximize the overall results. They aren't even attempting to kid themselves into thinking it's not blatant grade inflation. NCLB doesn't provide a basis level of education, it ties the hands of the teachers from actually being able to focus on learning. They only have time to focus on the test because so much rides upon these standardized tests. You can see similar effects in the AP program, however the kids on that track are usually motivated harder working students, and the 'test' that is taught in AP is much more encompassing. Putting so much focus on these tests just serves to lower the standard to the test rather than setting a basis to start from. The high school I attended was in an affluent suburb, and in one of the better districts in the state. If this is happening in the "good" school districts imagine what is happening in the "bad" ones.

    7. Re:No Child Left Behind by 0111+1110 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have recently had the opportunity to get to know a child who is so dumb that I regard him as basically unteachable. I seriously don't see the point of trying to educate him to do anything more intellectual than janitorial work or "fries with that?" kind of work. I'm tired of all the blame being left at the feet of the poor teachers trying to educate these idiots who clearly hate studying and thinking. Let them just go out and play sports or play in traffic or whatever. They are only going to very negatively contribute to the gene pool. So, yes, "leaving them behind" is definitely what we should be doing. Otherwise the smart kids whose brains are actually able to accomplish something useful will be the ones "left behind".

      Rather than focus on the dumb people (say because they represent the majority of voters), we should be mandating some basic IQ and/or knowledge testing before we even allow a child to progress to the next grade. And I'm not talking about weeding out only those who are both mentally retarded AND lazy. We should be weeding out something like the bottom 30% of the curve entirely from intellectual pursuits. What's the point? They will never be succesful at it anyway. If they suddenly "get smart" at some later point they can always test themselves back onto one of the intellectual tracks. We should make staying in school something that is challenging and requires lots of work for the average person. The square peg in round hole kiddies should be derailed onto less intellectually challenging pursuits like the building trades or sewing or cooking. We should be making an effort to train people at something they might actually be useful at rather than just assuming every kid is some kind of budding genius. What we are doing now is our own kind of square peg to round hole fitting. It's not going to work no matter how much we wish it would.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    8. Re:No Child Left Behind by rts008 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'll give you the benefit of doubt on this one, but at the same time, look at how the money was spent by the school systems.

      Here, we have a jr. high that has roof leaks because one wall of an entire wing was built over a sink-hole:
      the foundation sinks>the wall tries to fall over to the outside (crack in attached wall goes from 1/2" at floor to 14-22" at roof/decking depending on time of year)>when it rains, water runs in a sheet down the wall>stresses roofing>multiple leaks form at every roof junction.
      There are three trailers set up as classrooms due to lack of classroom space in the main building-two of them had to be set aside as storage due to severe mold and fungus in the trailers.
      With the increased funding instead of dealing with those problems, they instead remodeled the gym, adding more bleachers/seating for the basketball games, built a new football stadium and increased seating, new track, remodeled the two year old baseball field, and hired two more coaches. A $200,00.00 USD bus to take the applicable sports team to away games. (no, it is not used for any other club or department-only sports teams) Oh, and all of the administration/staff got brand new computers. Not the teachers, computer labs, library, or students- just admin and admin staff.

      This is not a cherry picked example, just the one I was intimately familiar with- I see the same happening all over the state. The sad fact that sports uses the biggest chunk of the education budget, not education or learning.

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    9. Re:No Child Left Behind by StopKoolaidPoliticsT · · Score: 3, Informative

      No Child Left Behind was a far-right pendulum swingin the ongoing battle over whether the purpose of public education is to train people to function as workers or to lead better lives. As proven by the fact that the bill was largely written by that ultra right neo-con Ted Kennedy. To quote him, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not." In other words, he was happy with the policy but not the amount of funding.

      Sure, it was part of GWB's 2000 election platform, but after taking office, he decided to extend an olive branch to the other party and let Kennedy focus on one of his pet issues in an attempt to ease the partisan fighting in DC. But we'll leave the Senior Senator from Massachussets out of it as we rewrite history to prove yet again that only Republicans are evil.
      --
      Stop Koolaid Politics
    10. Re:No Child Left Behind by a1ok · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Every time someone presents a reasoned argument to change an existing status quo, why does someone have to trot out the 'slippery slope' argument? I'm not a U.S. citizen and don't really want to comment on it, but the No Child Left Behind act is incredibly harmful to any intelligent kids imho, based on what I've read about it (mind you, this is mostly /. comments).

      The GP was suggesting that people with no/little aptitude for thinking aren't steered into professions that require a lot of it. I certainly think it's a good idea - the brighter students can learn at a faster pace (and be positively influenced by having other bright students around them); and when they graduate will hopefully not be as pathetic at work as the current workforce in most industries.

      If a kid is dyslexic or a 'visual learner'; this does not imply anything about their intelligence - I'm sure there are plenty of dumb dyslexics in the world too. For those that aren't; surely the better teachers can guide them well without holding back the rest of the class. I completely fail to see why some kids having health or abuse problems justifies dragging back other kids who, presumably, didn't hurt or abuse them.

    11. Re:No Child Left Behind by lgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's quite amuzing chatting with all the Indian H1-Bs that I works with: their uniform opinion is that they need to return to India before their kids reach school age, so that their kids can focus on education instead of sports in school. Yes, emerging economies mock our school system, and rightly so.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:No Child Left Behind by American+Scum · · Score: 3, Informative

      As a high-school teacher I just don't know where I stand on this issue. I have taught kids who do learn, and progress, in my class that really did have some sort of problem, and were quite behind the rest of the class. Nonetheless, with my help they refined, and improved upon, what they gave me - and all I know is that I don't have a crystal ball, so I really don't know where their progress will end.

      On the other side of the spectrum are the ones born who really are borderline retarded (and I'm serious in using that term, even though it's not really correct). I feel bad for them, but at the risk of having some students in my classes learn absolutely nothing, I have to leave these 'included' students behind in daily conversation. I can do my best for them in other areas, but it just becomes an exercise in babysitting if the sole leader in the classroom (the teacher) spends too much time with them, or teaches at too low of a level.

      Perhaps test, instead, solely for those who want to be there, and who know there is more to learn - even if, at the same time, some of them know they have a learning disability. There is a difference between using a disability as a crutch, and putting one's nose to the grindstone no matter what the factor.

      There is the argument, too, that inclusion builds empathy for people who are 'different' than our smarter thinkers. To some degree I see the point, but I wish it did not mandate a 100% inclusion, all the time, because it can build frustration and ruin potentially talented students' attitudes and foci by being dumbed down all the time.

      What concerns me is that a separation of the masses for any length of time may build a social structure equivalent to the Nazi regime - one where certain qualities will be considered desirable, and a future where a non-empathetic class of people take political control, develop policies, and somehow dictate breeding based on a very harsh, and stratified, upbringing.

    13. Re:No Child Left Behind by religious+freak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your idea may seem logical on its surface, but will ultimately result in creating a permanent underclass and undercutting the principles of meritocracy in our society.

      If someone is born without the help of a good parent/grandparent, they will start out below normal, but given an opportunity will have a shot at contributing significantly to society, if not by themselves directly, through their children who will be taught better.

      --
      If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
    14. Re:No Child Left Behind by MasaMuneCyrus · · Score: 3, Informative

      No Child Left Behind is very harmful to intelligent kids. When I was in middle school, I learnt close to nothing and the only thing that was widely regarded was improvement, not achievement. At the end of the year, the school always handed out awards to exemplary students, and there were maybe 10 awards for various kinds of improvement, and then maybe one award for achievements or grades.

      Having been home schooled until second grade, we finally decided to quit school and begin homeschooling again after 7th grade. This is when I was 12. At 13, we found that IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) offered a program called SPAN, which basically allows you to take any college course for both college credit and equivalent high school credit. And since college work is much harder than high school work, they're sometimes worth more credits, too. In other words, I was able to completely replace all of my public middle school and high school, and all of my home schooling with full-time college. Doing so, I entered college at the age of 13.

      IUPUI isn't the only college doing this, though. America has many of the best colleges and universities in the world, and its public school system is among the worst (down near the likes of Mexico last I saw a report on it, and that was years ago when schools were better). The universities here are increasingly growing weary of having to teach freshman what they used to learn in high school. Universities now love home schoolers because they have a much better education, and they are usually more disciplined and ready for college than their public school counter-parts.

      The American school system is steadily moving towards a point where if you want your child to attend college, you can't enroll them in a public school.

  2. I thought I'd never see the day by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Funny

    This game will teach generations of children how to get away with murder!
    Jack Thompson, save us from this calamity!

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
    1. Re:I thought I'd never see the day by Kumba · · Score: 3, Funny

      OBJECTION!

    2. Re:I thought I'd never see the day by The+Moof · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oooo.. Sorry, you barely missed him. He just walked out.

    3. Re:I thought I'd never see the day by lilomar · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wish to stab him.

      --
      The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
  3. The Havok physics engine by xPsi · · Score: 3, Funny

    should be well suited for this genre for all the obvious reasons (not to mention crucial ragdoll effects for the Marionette Hordes and Lobbyists, Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator for realistic simulation of the dissenting opinion, etc.)

    --
    i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
  4. Phoenix Wright: Ace Former Supreme Court Judge by DeanCubed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Coming soon to your DS - a brand new game from Capcom. Now you too can experience what it's like to hear appeal after appeal on Bush administration pet projects. Over 700 hours of game time with our new RealPaperwork Engine! Unlockable characters like Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Colbert! No objections to that!

    --
    Born to Play
  5. I just ask the Mod community by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please, Please, PLEASE do not come out with a "Sandra Day O'Conner" nude hack!

    --
    Monstar L
    1. Re:I just ask the Mod community by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 2, Funny

      More likely it would be "Hot Coffee With Clarence Thomas".

  6. Just think... by xpuppykickerx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How awesome would a Judge Judy video game be? You can take all the criminals from other videos and put them in her court!!!

  7. Gerrymandering by D+Ninja · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. OMG! That game is so freaken awesome! I love redistricting constituency boundaries in order to get an electoral advantage!!!
  8. USC's Redistricting Game was actually fun... by Trojan35 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.redistrictinggame.com/

    Try it out.

    1. Re:USC's Redistricting Game was actually fun... by jonaskoelker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For those of you who haven't played the game, here's a brief description:

      You are given a map (n by m grid). Each square has a number of democratic, republican and udecided voters. The total number of voters and their distribution across parties varies from square to square. The map is divided into four connected regions.

      Mission 1: change the division such that each region contains between 640K and 650K voters. Fairly easy.

      Mission 2: change the division, such that the above constraint is satisfied, and such that your party has at least 50% of the votes in three of the four regions. Takes a little while.

      Mission 3: change the division maintaining roughly equal voter count, and such that each party wins two regions, with at least 55% of the votes for their guy. Didn't play.

      (there are two more missions).

      When presented with mission 2, I was a little... "This is fishy". When I completed it, I was a lot "OMFG... this is fucked". When presented with mission 3, I just couldn't believe what I read.

      This is insane. I really ought to run off and check how voting districts are decided in my country, but I'm a little preoccupied preparing for exams... (yeah, that's an excuse; it's a valid one, but it's still an excuse).

  9. The mod would have to be called.... by DigitalReverend · · Score: 5, Funny

    Quid Pro Whoa!

    --
    I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
  10. Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind" by Dachannien · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When O'Connor voted to tell Florida in 2000 it couldn't recount only some of its ballots Fixed.
  11. Re:Interesting idea by KutuluWare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Legalize highly explosive fireworks and wait a month?

  12. Re:No student allowed to thrive by colinnwn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is a problem in that the Federal government has no mandate to enforce common standards in education. But lets say the states allowed the Federal government that power, and I agree this might be a good thing to do for some under performing schools. I also agree blaming NCLB isn't addressing some of the serious problems. But by the same token, NCLB itself doesn't address the serious problems, and in its implementation is a hindrance to effective education.

    I don't see the evidence that the litigious nature of schools and hyper-sensitive parents have a significant detrimental effect on education. Short of hitting kids, what methods of classroom discipline are teachers scared of using and getting sued for? More to the point, it is the parents that flat don't care to foster a learning environment for their children that create the most problems in schools, and long term in our society.

    There is also a great disparity in funding between schools in rural Alabama vs. inner-city New York, etc. If the Federal government is going to place standards on education, I think school funding should be federalized and equalized based on local expenses and needs for meeting the standards.

    Conversely teachers and administrations are under threat of losing funding and their jobs if children don't pass the NCLB tests. There are 2 problems here, standardized tests don't teach children anything in and of themselves, not all children are good at taking this one kind of pseudo-objectified test, and of course this incentivizes teachers and administrators to teach to the test up to excluding other valuable education to become a well rounded person.

    NCLB must be scratched. If we chose to reenact national standards, we first need to look at the outcome we want, think about how to incentivize that outcome, and then craft subtle regulations and funding mechanisms to create that reality, along with looking at the larger social picture. The bellicose political proclamations that became the NCLB are not an appropriate method to resolve the large and important problems here.

  13. Re:Interesting idea by drsmithy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Describe in a thousand words or less how you accomplish that without facism. [wikipedia.org]

    1. Remove all government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for having children.
    2. Thorough and compulsory sex education.
    3. Free contraceptives.

  14. Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind" by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder how many stories of Republican political crimes I could drag up, if I were to reach back a half century, before practically everyone on Slashdot, or their parents even, were even born.

    Um, Clinton? There you go. You don't have to go back a half century. Hell, I thought it was vogue to dig up the Clintons' dirty laundry now that it supports the golden boy, even though it's the same damned laundry the Dems spent 10 years discounting when they were in office.

    Hey, Lincoln was a Republican, and he was honest. I guess if that's all you've got, that's all you can run on.

    Just like you guys have Kennedy, and he was honest. OK, well actually he wasn't.

  15. Re:No student allowed to thrive by Enderandrew · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You bring up a very good point that I was thinking about earlier. The federal government has no real authority to do I'd say 75% of the things it does given a strict interpretation of the Constitution, yet citizens expect and demand a good deal of services from the Federal Government.

    I could suggest that democracy in action has yielded a good deal amount of power, even if it wasn't implicitly stated, so that the federal government do more.

    Does the government have the right? Arguably no. Should they however attempt to provide services that the people want? That's a good question.

    think about how to incentivize that outcome

    That is a matter of semantics. We increased spending on education across the board, but we're penalizing those who perform poorly. You could look at it as those who perform well are getting more money under the new system.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  16. Re:Oh, that's dumb. by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That won't happen in a million years. Americans are split evenly on abortion, but, nearly unanimously would prefer that the morons that get themselves pregnant take care of their own problems.

    I fail to see how "taking care of their own problems" excludes abortion.

    Regardless, the GP didn't ask for a solution that would be politically acceptable in the United States of Jesusland, he asked for a way to do it without resorting to fascism (which I assumed was being used in the colloquial "oppressive government" sense). I gave him one - remove external incentives for having children and make it trivial to avoid having children.