Bully debate: Teachers are ignorant edition

March 13th, 2008 | Category: Gaming News

The debate by Bully: Scholarship Edition continues to rage as concerned teachers, still yet to actually play the game, continue to talk about it based merely off the title, while stating that we in the media and the games industry don’t "get it" — a most ironic statement coming from humans who believe Bully is entirely about bullying citizens.

Mary-Lou Donnelly, head of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union wrote a little editorial in which she claimed that Bully "contributes nothing positive to youth culture," and "contradicts everything that educators are trying to achieve." She plus reminded us that bullying is never fun … although possibly she needs to aim that at the dirty little unwashed cretinous children who seem to think otherwise (and don’t need a game to boost their nasty behavior).

Game developer Clint Hocking, however, approached the argument from a different and very admirable perspective, when he wrote:

"Since I haven’t even played Bully - and probably neither [have the teachers who are protesting it], I wonder whether we even can contribute anything? Ought we enter into debate about public access to media that we have not even engaged ourselves? That seems unethical to

me…

Instead, I am going to invite [the teachers] to examine it with me, and to enter into a critical discussion of its merits and the difficulties it may or may not pose to students and to teachers… I extend an open invitation to play Bully with me, and once we have all finished we can collectively engage in an informed dialogue about the merits or failings of the game."

Executive director of the universal Game Developers organization, Jason Della Rocca additionally subscribes to Hocking’s view, claiming that "The teachers are lost a prime opportunity to prepare progress… I’d argue that teachers could have leveraged Bully to both better understand the social politics of high school (by embodying a troubled teen) and open a much needed dialog with students about bullying."

You’d think that teachers, of all humans, would take the moment to educate themselves before mouthing off. While I don’t mean to own any kids, I’m not certain I’d want a hypothetical child of mine taught by these "educated" men and women.