Shock: Newspapers Oversimplify

Okay, let's have a checklist of things I'll not be swiping at here:

- The "Main Stream Media".*
- Politicians.
- Jack Thompson.**
- Those Snooty Brits.



But I went and read this story in the Sun expecting to feel the usual contrary little glimmer of support, and instead - horror! - found myself agreeing (to a point) with the geeks who're making it the target du jour of their ire.

A study of literacy at primary schools in 41 countries saw our youngsters slip from third to 15th in just five years.

Ministers claimed pupils spend so much time on consoles that they are not burying their noses in books.

Yeeessss, well... Your wording, Sun, gives away the whole game here.

The whole stereotype of kids "burying their noses in books" itself brings to mind not the vast majority of Commonwealth youth, but a spotty, speccy minority who would oft be lampooned in the pages of Buster and Whizzer and Chips for their quizzical literacy.

Surely the children spending three hours a day on games - which, between FFXII and Phantom Hourglass, I'd sometimes approach myself at the moment, and I've read Lolita AND Interview with the Vampire - aren't for the most part using their gaming to supplant nose-in-book-time? Surely that third of ten-year-olds are just (and to my mind this may actually be worse) playing games when they would otherwise be building forts and playing soldiers and the like? Surely it's not that Britain's youth are being tempted from Lord of the Flies to Lost in Blue, so much as they're replacing conkers with Conker's***?

Of course, this is a bit of sensationalist misdirection on the Sun's part (I'm as surprised as you are), as the story here isn't really "zomg video games are turning our kids into dullards" so much as it's "Pol bemoans standard of education, doesn't have answers". Giving several million pounds toward literacy is laudable, but you can throw all the money you like at education and it won't do much if you're not putting it in the right place.

It's a shame Steve Maharey has recently departed his position as our Minister of Ed here in New Zealand (his work was just beginning: our standards of literacy are even lower than the rather abysmal scores in the Old Country): along with not doing a terrible job at getting the bucks for the teachers, Maharey's passion for rebuilding education for the 21st Century was fairly tireless.

Modern education hinges on principles that make it abundantly clear that you can't expect any amount of hand-wringing or funds-appropriating to change the tech-savvy of today's learners. Nor should you. It can't be a case of education versus fun; and when this fact is realised, the resultant changes in outlook don't need to be implemented with a resigned sigh of "if you can't beat 'em..."

Oh, right, we're on a gaming blog! Sorry, that's what happens when you post from work. Anyway, the point I'm making is this: Danny's and my 14-year-old brother is proof positive that Ed Balls [pun reflecting both the quixotic misguidedness and hilarious name of Mr. Balls here].

I think Joe would agree that the #1 factor in his getting past his inherited dyslexia has been none other than his enthusiasm for what I guess we have to call the new media - his mastery of the written word was enabled largely by enthusiastic use of popular educational tool Runescape, and through the reading/writing interaction of games like this and (the Sun's pictorial example) The Sims, he's now an accomplished short story writer and the kind of reader who polishes off books like Wu Ch'eng-En's Monkey saga for fun.

So the real story here, not that the Sun will report it and not that the nerds will spot it through the red mist of their persecution complexes, isn't games ruining education, and it's not politicians ruining games. It's the story of a country whose education system doesn't realise that it's the 21st Century.

* A piece of mine appears in a free little print publication this week, and is quoted in strange, non-rollover-enabled static applets I'm seeing in the odd floppy RSS compendium sitting on the coffee table, and let me tell you, it's making me feel a lot more legitimate than the prestigious dotcom at which it originally appeared.
** Guy's got his head screwed on right. Isn't it odd how the people railing against him re: Manhunt 2 suddenly slowed their collective roll as soon as Manhunt 2 turned out to be rubbish? Surely if you really cared about the ill-informed interpretations of politics supposedly motivating your anti-Thompson diatribes, the quality of the media you seek to defend would be the very definition of a non-issue? But that's a whole nother post.
*** I know, I know, I was very proud of that myself.