Excess of anything is bad.
We would not be forcing the children to one sort of path to follow but town planning games would be one of the many games they would play, to increase their level of exposure to various future career paths in case they decide to take it later on in life.
Also by game playing, people learn faster as they are in a relaxed state and not under tension to perform-- one can find one's aptitude or interests more easily when there is choice and no obligation to follow any particular path.
Another advantage to catch people young is to remove the fear of complexity/speciality of town planning among a wider subsection of society since in present and previous generations, people have refused to participate in governance because of the perception that they have no knowledge of a complex field.
We would have to think of the dangers of regimentation by ALWAYS being AWARE of excessive pedagoguery but simple exposure to new things and concepts of learning would not cause regimentation unless it degenerates into an extreme and parents or teachers put pressure on children to follow a particular path as is the case with medical or engg or management learning today in India.
Kush
Harish Narayanan wrote:
Kush wrote:
I hope ngos and software developers can both think of such better ways to educate the newer generation and take away the dread of a specialised occupation by building even better games and user interfaces. Such games taken at a young stage could easily launch a child into a career and give them a headstart. Parents would also like to see children doing something constructive even while playing computer games.
(I seem to have missed this e-mail in a sudden flood of traffic from mailing-lists over last week.)
Not that this has anything to do with this list, but why try to force play to be more than just fun? Even seemingly "non-constructive" play offers children creative release, and emotional and cognitive development on various fronts. I am not sure if regimented play activities aiming to give children a "head-start toward their career" will really have the positive effect you are aiming for. In fact, I could argue to a contrary.
But I won't, for I am obviously not a child-psychologist.
Harish
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