Slashdot Mirror
Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games
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)."
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
Please, Please, PLEASE do not come out with a "Sandra Day O'Conner" nude hack!
Monstar L
...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!!!http://www.redistrictinggame.com/
Try it out.
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.
Quid Pro Whoa!
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Oooo.. Sorry, you barely missed him. He just walked out.
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.