Grand Theft Auto in the classroom?

Posted by Helvetica | April 18, 2010

UK Police and victim support groups have been putting together a curriculum that will give younger student’s at school a chance to declare a difference between the “real” and the “unreal” using clips and slides from video games. One game in particular is the controversial Grand Theft Auto series.
Stills from violent video game Grand Theft Auto are being used to teach primary school children about violence.

The 18-rated game is being used as part of a police-backed pilot scheme in primary schools in Merseyside to deter youngsters from aggressive behaviour.

Under the scheme, 10 and 11-year-olds are shown stills from the games, which allow players to beat up prostitutes.

These are used alongside real-life images to prompt a discussion on what is good, bad, real and unreal.
The article appears a bit terse in the department of child educational psychology (or totally lacking.) There’s certainly some commentary about children having short attention spans, but …

Keep reading »

Comment

If you see this, we’ve changed servers

Posted by Helvetica | April 1, 2010

Vox ex Machina is currently in migration. This post is visible on the new servers. Wish us luck!

Keep reading »

2 Comments