#holanthropist

[holanthropist]

One of the biggest issues we face as a society is the lack of access to quality education.

I firmly believe that with education, most other issues will naturally fall into order. Critical and creative thinking are fading away at a rapid rate and we need to give our young ones all the tools they need to change that. The problem is money and greed, relying on our government to give us the education we need to prosper is obviously misguided. Teachers don’t have enough time to teach a class of 30+ kids and make sure each one gets quality education, and kids are getting left behind. There should be way more centralized access to information outside of the classroom for education purposes, in addition to real incentives to actually use these resources.

So, I propose, “The Game”…. actual name pending. This obviously is not intended to replace our school system, but more to give kids a thing that they actually want to do, while also making sure that it’s suplemental to their education.

It will essentially be a gamified habit app (bare with me here) that doesn’t absolutely suck, is meant for kids currently in school, and is focused more on education than productivity. It would also have to be entirely free, accessible on a wide range of different devices, and devoid of any micro transactions.

The actual “game” part of most of the other apps (Habitica) seems like an afterthought. This idea would flip that on its head, focusing on creating a fun, engaging, and challenging game first, and incorporating the habit/educational aspects into it later.

For example, I don’t want to complete my homework for the day so I can defeat “the procrastination monster” and get some cheap award. I want to play the game and talk to NPCs that inform me of a monster that lives in the mountains who protects the secret scroll of a new spell. You’d learn that this monster is weak against specific Druid attacks and spells which can only be learned by understanding the basic structure of a human cell. Oh you don’t know the structure of a human cell? Better hit one of the arcanums, conveniently placed in every single town, and get practicing.

This spell learning would still be structured to as not break the meta in the game, but would double as an actual lesson that teaches a kid the basic parts of a human cell. Only once you have completed a test that determines your understanding of this new spell is when you will be able to use it.

In addition, you would also have to recall this knowledge in order to use the spell during the actual fight.

Game: “Which of these options is the powerhouse of the cell?”

User: “(B) - Mitocondria”

Game: *Zaps the monster*

I realize the above example is kinda lame, there would have to be much cooler ways to practice information than a multiple choice test. This is more of a word vomit to get the point across than anything else, but you get the idea.

Once completing the quest, you pick up your new magic scroll (along with tons of gold and mob-specific loot). Oh what does the scroll do? It allows you to triple your stamina for a certain amount of time - but unfortunately you need to understand the all parts of a cell’s mitochondria in order to use it. Better hit the arcanum.

This spell/ability system would continuously expand on itself and extend through the entire curriculum and beyond: Exercising daily will give you stronger fighter and health stats, physics allows you to manipulate reality, chemistry gives you alchemical abilities, biology lets you commune with and direct biological beings, meditation allows healing and spiritual abilities, writing and literacy gives you better speech craft (for trading from vendors), history gives you time abilities like foresight (those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it).

I’ve left a lot out but I could go on and on.

The goal is to get kids engaging with otherwise boring school topics and framing them in a much more mystical or abstract form, while emphasizing the importance of practicing these skills on a daily basis.

I’m probably gunna be expanding in this in the future!