Do schools need to make changes to understand the gaming culture?

[Antari]

I recently came across an interesting video that points out some dramatic changes from when I went to school. Where as what I thought were policies that might be introduced. It appears they have been introduced for many years now. I'd like to hear from some of you escapists who are still in school. As well those of you who may have just recently graduated. Can you relate to what Ali Carr-Chellman is saying here? Is she totally wrong? Tell us.

Please take the time to watch the video, and comment on it. I think this is something every Escapist should see.

 

[Togs]

As far as I know this is an American phenomenom, as Ive never heard of that level of touchy feely ridiculousness happening in other countries, I mean no writing about violence? what madness is this?

 

[Jazzyjazz2323]

In a lot of classrooms today, you're not allowed to write about anything that's violent

[HEADING=2]WHAT.[/HEADING]
What the fuck kind of fucked-up thought-control school does this?

Yes I was given an F junior year of high-school solely because my short story was about a serial killer...It's sadly highly prevalent throughout most high-schools at least in Texas.

 

[Caspertjuhh]

woohoo! Thank god for not living in America!

 

[kingcom]

This is kinda hilarious, that there is this no violence policy to the EXTREME. What books do you study in American English? Its actually fairly tough to find a classic without any violence.

 

[JemothSkarii]

Wow, in Australia you can write about violence, soft sex, rape...all the good stuff (I wrote an extremely bloodthirsty short story and got an A for it)...and that's in Texas AT LEAST? Come on, it's Texas dammit, TEXAS!

 

[Jazzyjazz2323]

Yes,Texas the most hypocritical state in the union.

 

[Ken Sapp]

I recently came across an interesting video that points out some dramatic changes from when I went to school. Where as what I thought were policies that might be introduced. It appears they have been introduced for many years now. I'd like to hear from some of you escapists who are still in school. As well those of you who may have just recently graduated. Can you relate to what Ali Carr-Chellman is saying here? Is she totally wrong? Tell us.

Please take the time to watch the video, and comment on it. I think this is something every Escapist should see.

Spoiler

I agree with her, she is mostly focused on the effects on boys but honestly it applies to both sexes. Children are not allowed to be kids anymore. ADD/ADHD is utter BS in the majority of "diagnosed" cases, if you were to look at most of them you would find nothing different about them than when we were kids. They are drugged to keep them quiet and docile, they are forced to learn to take and pass a specific test with all other learning secondary, there is no room allowed for individual learning speeds and styles and teachers are given a specific curriculum to follow with little to no leeway for modification so they are not even allowed to do their own jobs.

 

[GiantRaven]

I think teachers should make more of an effort to understand the entertainment culture of who they teach. If the majority of teachers are as demeaning as suggested here it's pretty terrible.

 

[Kragg]

I recently came across an interesting video that points out some dramatic changes from when I went to school. Where as what I thought were policies that might be introduced. It appears they have been introduced for many years now. I'd like to hear from some of you escapists who are still in school. As well those of you who may have just recently graduated. Can you relate to what Ali Carr-Chellman is saying here? Is she totally wrong? Tell us.

Please take the time to watch the video, and comment on it. I think this is something every Escapist should see.

Spoiler

I agree with her, she is mostly focused on the effects on boys but honestly it applies to both sexes. Children are not allowed to be kids anymore. ADD/ADHD is utter BS in the majority of "diagnosed" cases, if you were to look at most of them you would find nothing different about them than when we were kids. They are drugged to keep them quiet and docile, they are forced to learn to take and pass a specific test with all other learning secondary, there is no room allowed for individual learning speeds and styles and teachers are given a specific curriculum to follow with little to no leeway for modification so they are not even allowed to do their own jobs.

its a way to keep everything standarised and monitored that just does not work in practice, people are people, not robots

i agree with her and even though this is mostly an american problem right now i do know that the ADHD is the new hip thing in europe and male teachers graduating is declining in europe aswell

 

[Iron Mal]

I agreed with most of the points being made in that video, I'm sure that a lot of teachers like to whine and complain about how 'video games are harmful to a person's education' but this could have more to do with a lack of motivation (I know this has been a huge problem for me, I have had mornings where I've woken up and had to ask myself out loud 'why do I still do this?').

Most of the courses and classes I've been in have felt restrictive in terms of what we're allowed to do, one of my teachers at one point came out and bluntly said 'the examiners don't care what your opinion is, they just want to hear the stuff in the textbook' (and this was in psychology, a branch of social science that is very theory and opinion based). It would get to a point where we wouldn't even learn anything in classes, all we'd do is exam revision and practice (in theory this would prepare me for the exams and help me do better, in practice it sucked out my will to write another goddamn paper and meant I completely bombed in my final exams and failed miserably).

About the whole thing of a lack of understanding about gaming culture in schools, this is also true. Unless I'm wth a friend who also plays games then I know that openly mentioning it is running a razor's edge between getting someone who is also a gamer or someone who will be completely weirded out and say something along the lines of how they apparantly 'rot your brain' (as a general rule, I find it better to simply not talk to people).

 

[macfluffers]

I dig what Carr-Chellman is saying. Everything she said made sense.

It always bothered me when I hear people getting in trouble for writing violent things. I was fortunate in high school, as my English teachers were more open-minded. Sophomore year, he told us to write a horror short story. (Inside my mind: YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!)

Junior year, I felt like writing a story about a sniper who didn't like his job. The teacher was actually impressed, she asked for a copy so she could show later classes what a good short story looked like.

Senior year, I wrote an epic poem about an assassin.

I had great teachers.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

And people wonder why school shootings occur...

 

[Levi93]

In a lot of classrooms today, you're not allowed to write about anything that's violent

[HEADING=2]WHAT.[/HEADING]
What the fuck kind of fucked-up thought-control school does this?

My school when i used to go to school anyways.

Although I was required to write a horror story once and went to fucking town with it and wrote a story about a mad scientist who did violent experiment on people and I got an A.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

This is kinda hilarious, that there is this no violence policy to the EXTREME. What books do you study in American English? Its actually fairly tough to find a classic without any violence.

My highschool was weird about this. We read Crime and Punishment, but my friend had his locker searched because there were guns on his shirt.

I never understood the zero tolerance policies. It leaves no room for maneuvering and creates more victims than anything else. There was a story a couple months ago about a little boy who loved school so much that he routinely wore suits to class, but was then suspended for bringing his knife-fork-spoon cub scout utensil to school because he was so excited about it.
School administrators have extremely tight ass holes and don't want to look at things like this on an individual basis.

As for the lack of male elementary school teachers, I'm going to be slightly sexist and say that it's probably because women like children more than men. Every single one of my college professors last semester were men. Male teachers tend to teach higher levels of education than elementary school.

Finally, the integration of games into schools is a great idea. I recently wrote a college paper about the personal and societal benefits of video games and I found that some colleges are implementing games into their curriculum. In Florida, Starcraft is being used to teach business administration. elsewhere, Portal is being studies along with other works from various mediums. The revolution has begun, but elementary school will of course lag behind because of the rampant coddling, analyzing, and standardization of children.

 

[Gamblerjoe]

My high school was pretty moderate. my freshman year, the school started cracking down on security, but only to stop kids from skipping class to smoke.

The books I remember reading are Romeo and Juliette, Macbeth, Hamlet, A Brave New World, 1984, Steppenwolf and some Spencer for hire novels. Everything i wrote was full of either sex, drugs, violence or humor. im sure tons of works that only warranted a D, got a C because i made the teacher laugh. they where all lvl 1 (college prep) courses too, the classes and teachers wernt just a joke.

The teachers where pretty real, and in touch with their students. Teaching jobs payed a lot more at my school than other public schools, which helped. the department heads where intelligent sociable human beings with a PhD, and im sure they got paid amazingly well for a teacher.

Where they went conservative was with anything dictated by the school board or superintendent. They taught abstinence in health class and would not even mention the word condom.