Child Worship - ‘Protect the Children’

One of my favorite websites in which I visit daily, www.GamePolitics.com, has reported on a particular game called Bully and the attention it has gained from those involved with education. Read their reporting here

Bully is not a new game but it is being re-released for the Wii and the X-Box 360. The original launch caused quite a bit of controversy and the same thing can be said about it’s re-release. In the game Bully you play a tough kid that has been thrown out of many schools and is now being dropped off by his neglectful parents into a school that is equally as tough as he is. It is pretty much the end of the line for him so he is in an extremely tough situation and must rise above it somehow. Some claim that Bully is harmful to the school environment because it glorifies violence. I beg to differ as I believe there are more serious issues at hand in schools and many more reasons to explain the negative aspects of the school environment.

Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation told this to the Globe and Mail
[Clip from the article, written by Jeff Mahoney accessible from the link above]

“We’re asking retailers to be responsible,” Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said Monday. “Yes, they can sell it and make a buck out of this, but is this the kind of marketing that they want to be [doing], selling games that glorify violence?”

[End content from newspaper article]

I view these statements to reflect the ignorance of Emily Noble. I am not convinced she has picked up the game and I can’t say that my opinions of the marketing of Bully come close to matching hers. I honestly think this is a scheme to increase the public opinion of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Taking a tough stand on bullying seems to please the mind of everyone, even if it is as misguided as Emily Noble’s. Regardless of the obvious logical flaws in her argument, it is joyfully eaten up by the public. This plays right into this strange phenomenon that can be easily seen in newspapers and in government legislation world wide. Everyone seems to be obsessed with children and no one bothers to take a second look at it. Well… almost no one.

George Carlin speaks frequently about how people seem to obsess over children and how unhealthy it is. I completely agree with him, though you must note that he is a comedian and all of his off-the-wall ideas and comments are obviously for comic value. But in his latest HBO comedy special he coined a term for this trend and gave it the title of Child Worship. (At least I think he was responsible for that terms creation…) The ideas he expresses can play towards something very important and I believe that is what he may be hinting at.

To any way, the term Child Worship seems to fit and good ol’ George is absolutely correct in how unhealthy it is to children and society. We sacrifice so much to give ourselves this illusion that somehow we are making a safer world for children by restricting personal liberties. Many will not even consider the idea that maybe overprotecting children isn’t the best method in the first place. Some freedoms we are willing to sacrifice in the name of children are held dear by many people. It is a crime against society in my eyes. Now don’t let my statements confuse you. I’m not saying children should be exposed to all kinds of negative aspects of the world. However, I am saying that adults should be free to expose themselves to any type of art or entertainment they choose to. Just because someone else doesn’t wish to put the effort into parenting their children shouldn’t mean my government should take way my rights just so that lazy parent can be worry free. Why should the government take any part in parenting children anyway?

Parenting isn’t easy, that should be a fairly common and well accepted fact of life. But why should the government make things easier? For the government to make parenting easier means the government is not only taking a part in parenting your children but taking a part in parenting you. Do you want to be perceived as a dependent child by your government? Do people realize how dangerous this idea is? Obviously not, as issues such as this commonly occur in society. If it isn’t books it is paintings or comics. If it isn’t music it is movie films or video games. It is always one thing or another that is targeted by government in an effort to ‘clean-up’ society. This obsession with protecting children is simply used as tool to take advantage of the universal desire to provide a safe, clean and healthy environment for children. The government is using your concern over the welfare of your child as a tool and then using that tool to attempt to fix or alter aspects of society that are not exactly broken or even related to the issue presented. It is a fallacy that goes by the title of red herring. (Something that distracts attention from the real issue) The fact that the government uses universal concerns and fears for their own benefit is disgusting enough but to openly mislead the people they are supposed to represent is even worse.

But you may be wondering why I am ranting so much about the government. After all, this post is about teachers isn’t it? Well then again…. if you think about it… many schools are public schools and that means that the government is the one regulating and maintaining these schools. So it is possible and very likely that employees of the public, in this particular case the teachers, are speaking out against this video game. So this absolutely is a government related issue. These ideas are not targeted toward any private schools or teachers that educate students in a private school.

Teachers are paid to be authority figures in the classroom. In my past experience my teachers also attempted to be authority figures outside of the classroom. This is exactly why many wish to use video games as a scapegoat. Why? Why to distract the public from the real problems of course. Why would anyone wish to admit their system contains flaws?

Teachers should stay in the class room and refrain from having any impact on the outside life of their students. If a student asks for help that is a different story but at times it seems like they are over reaching their boundaries and trying to enter our home lives. I think this is not only an unprofessional practice but an infringement upon rights that should be reserved to parents. Since I do not have children I don’t really have a huge amount of credibility in the parenting department but my basic idea still remains a valid argument. My argument is that parents should decide what type of art and entertainment their child consumes in their own home. Teachers should simply mind their own business and stay out of the child’s life at home unless otherwise notified by the student and/or the parent(s).

Now the idea of teachers staying out of the home life also plays against homework assignments, which is an entirely different topic. I do know when I was attending public schools here in USA at times I barely had enough time to finish my homework not to mention the lack of time to enjoy video games. This resulted in bad grades because I refused to sacrifice my life and spend 5-7 hours each afternoon/night on homework. There really should be some kind of law restricting public teachers of the K-12 level from having an effect on the lives of their students at home. Now I’m not saying there should be no homework but there obviously needs to be something that requires teachers to remain concentrated on the student’s lives while they are on school ground rather than the students while they are at home. By beginning to implement policies such as this they can begin to solve bullying problems in schools and keep the students productive and happy inside school. There are much deeper problems I am afraid. You have to dig much deeper than the governments attempt to enter the student’s home life which ultimately infringes the parent’s right to parenting.

Lets face it, the creation of the video game Bully didn’t create the problem of bullying. It was actually inspired by a common bullying problem faced in nearly every school worldwide. It is a problem that can be directly linked to the elitist hierarchy that is present in many schools. This elitist hierarchy, which was present in all public schools I’ve attended, is to blame for most negative situations that were present in school. Sometimes this hierarchy is actually encouraged by the school. Of course, they are not going to encourage the students to form their own groups and label themselves as jocks, nerds, preps, slackers or whatever other silly name you can think of. HOWEVER, the way they structure aspects of student life such as classes, athletic programs, student groups, student government and all extra curricular activity will, in fact, encourage the formation of an elitist hierarchy. This is where the solution of many of these problems lay. Blaming video games is just an idiotic attempt to distract from the real issues which is a failed education system.

Blame the system, not something totally unrelated to the problem. Instead of finding a scapegoat to guide all negative energy towards how about attempting to actually brainstorm a few solutions to fix this problem. I can’t really help you out there because I’m not an educator and I only have experience as a student. I strongly believe it is fairly obvious where the real issue is located and the party to blame is the education system itself.

[UPDATE] - Game Politics has posted some updates here.

Apparently John Nuraney, member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly, has voiced his support for the boycott of Bully from the British Columbia Teachers Federation.  I’ve noted above, I believe this is just an attempt to boost their popularity to the public by scapegoating a video game and distracting the people from the real issues at hand.  I see this as following an irresponsible political agenda.  Their goal is to make people think of a video game instead of a failed education system when the topic of bullying comes up in conversation.

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