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America's Army As a High School Education Platform?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Sep 21, 2008 01:28 PM
from the wait-what? dept.
from the wait-what? dept.
GamePolitics reports on a recent press release from the US Army which says they will be partnering with various military, education, and non-profit organizations to bring an education curriculum to high school students via America's Army. Quoting the press release:
"The partnership ... will incorporate Army technology, gaming and simulation resources to enhance student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The platform for the new curriculum is the America's Army PC game, a free online game that provides civilians with a virtual role in the US Army by introducing them to Army technologies, Rules of Engagement, training and missions. Used as a communications tool, the game has also been adapted for use within the military to produce effective and engaging virtual environments that enhance Soldier training in a number of areas including force protection, convoy survivability and nuclear, chemical and biological detection."
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US Army To Invest $50 Million In Game Development 68 comments
$50 million in funding has been approved for the Army to establish a unit that will develop games. The purpose of the games will be to train soldiers for various tasks, and they say there is no intent to compete with commercial games. We've previously discussed other efforts by the Army to integrate games into their training programs.
"Col. Mark McManigal, the capabilities manger for gaming under the Training and Doctrine Command, said the selected game must provide low-cost training and must not require large number of technicians to run. It must also have a play-back function for after-action reviews, he said. 'One of the major events for training is to be able to capture all these events, good or bad, throughout the entire scenario,' he said. Trainers must be able to edit the game during play to change the difficulty level or add complexity to an exercise. For example, they must also be able to edit terrain to replicate training areas or combat zones, he said."
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Just what every American high-school student needs (Score:2, Insightful)
Lessons on how to obey without question.
What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I took ROTC in high school. They covered illegal orders and UCMJ. They would go as far as to give you simple "illegal" order like calling at ease from a parade rest. The correct response was not to do it without question but to respond with "As you where sir!"
This was just High School ROTC and we covered things like war crimes and how saying "I was just following orders" is not an excuse.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If parent is marked flamebait, then I guess Albert Einstein [quoteworld.org] is my favourite troll ever.
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually that is fair statment. Soldiers of free country march not out of joy but out of duty. They understand that they are sacrificing so others can be protected. They take pride is service and not out of the shear glory of military service.
Parent
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:5, Informative)
My experience is much the same as yours in JROTC; that is, we are being taught as future officers to question those orders which seem unreasonable or dangerous.
The main problem is that most people who have not had any exposure to the military do not know anything except what the media says. Nobody bothers to actually speak to a Marine, for example, because it's so much easier to just watch CNN for the REAL news. Ah well, I'm involved in what I am to protect the public's right to protest what I'm involved in, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Parent
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's get out of the realm of the abstract for a moment. Anybody who is reasonably educated knows that an order to do something illegal, say to murder a prisoner, is not valid. So you don't have to feel so injured by misunderstanding. There's always going to be a few or course.
On the other hand, the principle that soldiers should not obey an illegal order is really only good as the ability of a soldier to distinguish between legal and illegal. There isn't always a clear line, say between legal, aggressive interrogation techniques and illegal torture. One of the benefits of ROTC is, hopefully, and officer corps with greater critical thinking skills. Still, by in large troops and the officers who lead them are not lawyers, they have to use their ethical common sense to get them through dilemmas.
The real danger when you give a man a lethal weapon and put him under orders is not particular to the military. It is group think. And don't say that isn't a problem. Every military person I have talked to has plenty of stories of bureaucratic pigheadedness on a massive scale.
I have known many military people over the years, and one thing that I think is fair to say is that good soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors have a can do attitude. That contributes to the both the dynamism and dysfunction of the military. Survival may trump that, but the first response to an order to take a fortified position is to view it as a solvable problem. This takes an implicit trust in the competence and judgment of your superiors, and that habit means going along with things you know are damnably stupid -- so long as they aren't illegal or immediately fatal.
Trust and a willingness to go along with anything short of illegality are good things in a soldier, but bad things in a citizen and especially a civilian leader. A good citizen has to question the competence and judgment of the leadership. When political mistakes reach the military, it's too late to question. One military saying I've heard is that shit rolls downhill, and it's the military's job to deal with the politicians' shit. A politician's ought to avoid handing the shit down to the military by being skeptical.
Skepticism is not a military virtue, which is not to say anything negative about military service. No profession is the beginning and end of all virtues. One of the problems I see of certain political viewpoints is that they like to promote the military as the entire repository of American virtue because obedience or rather willingness to get behind the mission, is so useful to them.
Look at Colin Powell, a great soldier, a top notch military leader, and a bad Secretary of State. He brought his military values of duty and loyalty into the job, and ended up being a catspaw. It wasn't that he accepted an order to lie; he accepted the mission he was given and took ownership of it, the way good soldiers do. It made him both useful and an object of scorn within the administration. By giving his superiors more than they deserved, he gave his true masters less.
Parent
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people in the Army are not crazy and are reasonably well-natured enough that stuff that falls into the category of "illegal orders" are very uncommon.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not even the UN has challenged the legality of the US presence in Iraq.
The US has veto rights in the security council. What exactly do you expect the UN to do? The UN has the same problem with Russia in Chechnya.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, the old "at least our inhuman b@st@rds are less inhuman than their inhuman b@st@ards" argument.
Inhuman b@st@rd.
HAL.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not too different than what is taught in school anyway. This is just more overtly propaganda.
Re:Just what every American high-school student ne (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Sorry guys, (Score:2, Funny)
Re: Sorry guys. (Score:2)
but your society has jumped the shark.
Where do you live? I will be your ex-american monkey boy!! Living underneath your bed will do.
The militarization of education? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, will all military references be removed for educational purposes, or is this an attempt to militarize education, and sucker more kids into the US military, for more colonialism and adventurism?
And before anyone starts arguing, are *you* in the military? If not, and you agree with the miltitarization of education, and you are in your 20s or thirties, and not incapacitated, what excuse do you have for *not* being in the military, right now?
Oh, I see, like Dick Cheney: you have "other agendas" (read, get rich, and risk somebody else's kid's neck for your money).
mark
From the article (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
ROFL! Please tell me this is some kind of joke. The guy is saying that kids will get better at
Modding to eliminate redundancy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I welcome ... (Score:2)
... our armed senior class overlords.
Perfect. (Score:3, Funny)
Group-think hypocrisy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Jack Thompson accuses games of corrupting our youth: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that games don't turn anyone into anytihng.
Schools mod America's Army for educational purposes: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that the military is using games to brainwash people.
Don't know if any individuals hold to both views, but it's interesting how these seem to be vocal opinions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm wondering if the same people who are supporting this would have issue if oh say, a school required a child to participate in a class that uses Grand Theft Auto as a learning tool with a curriculum by a gangster rapper?
It's not about the video game (no one had/has issue with kids playing AA on their own time), it's about the teaching of ideology.
Re:All you need is a science MMORPG (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually am hoping for such a game to eventually exist. And if nobody makes it I might do it but I don't have the skills...
Look at websites like http://www.hackthissite.org/ [hackthissite.org] where you basically learn many things. When you find the solution to a problem, you are awarded points. This pushes you to learn more and achieve more.
Instead of having HTML, javascript, programming, etc challenges, why not make something like that for general science?
Make learning FUN!
Also, I'd LOVE games to learn languages like http://www.tbns.net/knuckles/ [tbns.net].
Again: MAKE. LEARNING. FUN!
Parent
Re:All you need is a science MMORPG (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a good idea but personally I am against it. It is a disease of the modern society that everything you do has to be fun. If you make everything "fun", people will be more likely to refuse doing something because it lacks fun. People need do things because they need to do things. You need to learn how to calculate if you want to do anything that involves numbers(like filling in your tax papers). Having the knowledge should be its own reward.
Note, I didn't post this because it is fun, I posted it because I felt like I needed to respond to you.
Parent