14 DAY TRIAL // Even on the campaign trail before his election last year, Barack Obama talked about videogames. He mentioned GTA IV and said that better education for the American children hinged on less time spent playing videogames and watching television. He again touched on that subject at a town hall meeting in Wisconsin.
President Obama stressed the link between the plunging quality of American education and the problems that American companies face in the global marketplace. He said that “Even with the good schools, we've got to pick up the pace, because the world has gotten competitive. The Chinese, the Indians, they're coming at us and they're coming at us hard, and they're hungry, and they're really buckling down. And they watch - their kids watch a lot less TV than our kids do, play a lot fewer video games, they're in the classroom a lot longer.”
Sure, the argumentation that President Obama offered is not foolproof. After all, education is not only a question of the time that students spend in the classroom, but also of teachers, resources, programs and a lot of other factors. Still, the point about too much time spent videogaming can be a powerful remainder of the way children are no longer looked after by some parents. More parental attention could be useful to induce a better work-play balance.
More to the point, the Obama administration could acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of videogames sporting a clear educational value. Even Age of Empire, with its simplified look at history, can serve as a starting point to look into the rise and fall of nations. All World War II shooters are the path to learning more about the conflict and geo politics in general. The examples do not stop here. And, of course, there are the titles labeled as edutainment, aiming at offering simple mini games while teaching various subjects.
So, the administration and the president should not focus on making children put down the controller but rather pick up the right games for the electronic future that awaits us all if they want the United States to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to information technology.