Want to turn the curriculum on its head? Introduce the new Pokémon math books (2000), then stand back and wait for the meltdown...better yet, log on to the Pokémon Learning League (2007); these brilliant, relevant interactive lessons prove that learning math, language, and science is a part of everyday life for Pokémon trainers as much the average student, without the usual forced, artificial, and all-too-obvious overtones of typically educational children's programming...and almost make me want to return to teaching. There's even a Life Lesson on Bullying - something every Pokémon fan has had to deal with at one time or another!

But even before the faces of Ash and Pikachu appeared on educational material, one of the influences of Pokémon was the same as one that is supposedly held high by our schools, and this is to engage the imagination. As a writer, I would have to imagine that simply creating the backdrop of the Pokémon world is a task unto itself. With humans being the only species the same in their world as in ours, an entire planet's worth of new life had to be created. And (at that time), 150 different types of creatures seemed overwhelming to parents and teachers who raised hell when their kids knew all the names of the Pokémon, but not their latest set of spelling words. Hardly an accurate comparison, however. If you asked those same kids to name as many animals as they could, the numbers would easily exceed the nearly 500 currently-known Pokémon...merely a fraction compared to the billions of species that populate our world. For those of us who remember the earliest Kanto region episodes, 150 different Pokémon actually wasn't even enough when you consider that of those 150 species, only one-sixth were water types and of that one-sixth, only about half could be found living underwater, therefore still needing several species of generic (non-Pokémon) fish to completely fill an ocean...or even a tank at the Cerulean Gym!

Ironically, the one characteristic that usually causes schools to ban literature and other forms of storytelling that feature non-human characters does not apply to Pokémon. With many of the pocket monsters communicating by only saying their name or other non-verbal sounds (with a few exceptions: Team Rocket's Meowth teaching itself to talk and walk upright, some highly-intelligent Pokémon speaking through psychic abilities, and ghost Pokémon channeling speech through other beings), Pokémon has avoided being banished for its creatures speaking human language. Believe it or not, the beloved novel "Charlotte's Web" was banned from some schools because the animals talked! I'm sure teachers only wished they could get rid of Pokémon that easily!

The Idiot's Guide to ...

Back to Main

Text copyright © 2000-2008 by: Kimberly (RageOfInnocence) Pokémon © Satoshi Tajiri, Nintendo/Game Freak, Pokémon USA Go, Diego, Go! © Viacom International Inc. Most Pokémon sprites from the late great site Pokémonaholic

Kimberly's Homepage