As part of a class I’m taking this term, I recently found myself spending an hour outdoors in the company of a largish class of local sixth graders. Their teacher decided we would spend a chunk of this time playing “The Name Game”. Everyone gathers in a large circle and you go around the circle a couple of times, with each kid calling out their name. Then one kid is handed an object, and they call out the name of some other kid in the circle and toss the object to them. That kid then calls out someone else’s name and tosses the object to them. The game was new to me, but it seemed like a reasonable ice breaker for a rowdy group of adolescents.
The only problem was that the teacher didn’t seem to have an object to toss around. As it happened, I had a Frisbee, err, umm, sorry, “a flying disc” handy and offered that up. The teacher happily accepted and I handed over the disc.
I was stunned, shocked, even flabbergasted to discover that not a single one of those kids knew how to throw a frisbee. (There, I’ve decided, that’s a generic term now.) Not a one. Never once did the frisbee land within even 10 feet of the intended target, and that’s being generous. I nearly wept!
I don’t wanna be one of those curmudgeonly codgers crying (I love me some alliteration), “You damn kids need to put down the vidya games and go outside and play!”, but…
You damn kids need to put down the vidya games and go outside and play!
Really! Give it a try. When you consider the specs, the real world has a pretty compelling feature set. Stereo sound, 3D graphics, haptic feedback and interaction, fully immersive… It’s a shame more kids don’t check it out.
You darned kids, get on my lawn…and play!