What is Pokémon? Battles Over Pokémon Battles Pokémon and Prejudice Pokémon in the Classroom The Idiot's Guide to Pokémon Pokémon: the Best (Animal) Show You're NotWatching Human-Pokémon Bond Protecting Pokémon There are no Bad Pokémon In Defense of Pokémon For the Love of Pokémon Pokémon Ripped From the Headlines Pokémon, Outside the Box Pokémon, Then and Now Home Battling for Peace Past, Present, and Future Visitor Support: E-mails Guestbook AAP Help Affiliate/Link Back Site Q & A About Kimberly E-mail me Old Affs/Links/Rings Past Layouts Splash Past Splashes Seaside Pokémon Shaymin by Snip My Fan Art Animé Peace Pokémon Ranger Gray text = Original content (this page; 2000) (+ related ep. updates, notes) Blue text = Additional content (2003-10) Pokémon in the Classroom... As a substitute teacher, and later having worked in daycare, I came across rules about students not being allowed to bring Pokémon cards (or anything else Pokémon) to class. And the reason is almost always the same...the kids get too preoccupied and don't concentrate on their work. Well, who ever heard of a rule that allows kids to have toys of any kind out during seatwork? But during lunch and recess (and sometimes even naptime), it's their time and if toys are allowed then, Pokémon should be no exception. And when it doesn't stop with toys and the ban extends to Pokémon pencils, notebooks, clothing, bookbags, etc., particularity while other character-based items are permitted, it's just outright discrimination, especially when such rules still apply years later, and no one knows or remembers why. Try this - ask a teacher to give you an actual reason for not allowing Pokémon and see if you (still) get the blank stare followed by the 'my classroom, my rules' fallback and/or a sorry preconceived notion of Pokémon's influence. The sorriest one I've heard: "(On Pokémon), people die and come back to life." And, is it just me, but shouldn't a teacher know the difference between death and unconsciousness? ("The Tower of Terror") Ever hear of "A Christmas Carol"? And Scrooge was only sleeping and had an out-of-body experience at the hands of ghosts! And in "Mewtwo Strikes Back", Ash wasn't any more "dead" and "brought back to life" by Pokémon tears than Kristy was in "The Care Bears' Movie II" and revived with the Care Bears' and Care Bear Cousins' kind thoughts. While to his friends, Ash may seem to have been lost - temporarily - at the risk of sounding linear as well considering how many times Ash has actually been near death¹, being turned into a what looked like a stone statue does not exactly constitute dying. It was unfortunate that due to the omission of "The Origin of Mew" sequence in the same Pokémon movie, that U.S. viewers at the time knew nothing of the strong message against such practices involving the cloning of Dr. Fuji's departed daughter, Ai/Amber, as the clones died as well. And no, the 4Kids dub getting it wrong about Brock's mom² doesn't count either! Want to turn the curriculum on its head? Introduce the Pokémon math books from 2000, then stand back and wait for the meltdown...better yet, log on to the Pokémon Learning League (2007-09; no longer online); 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 that often occur when turning entertainment into education...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 nearly 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 best thing to ever happen to me was discovering Pokémon." -Hiker Timothy (Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver) ¹Ash's very life has been in danger numerous times throughout the anime, in situations both linear and non-linear (i.e. temporal, etc.); those more 'linear' life-and-death situations are from which Ash (or anyone else) would not be able to come back from had he not either survived or narrowly escaped. Some examples (there are too many to name) include being trapped in a forest fire [escaped underground using Chimchar's Dig], crushed by a Drapion [kicked Drapion's eye and freed himself], falling from a great height [caught by a Staraptor which was captured by Kellyn] ("Pokémon Ranger and the Kidnapped Riolu" [eleventh season]), nearly drowning ("Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea" [movie 9]), and in the aforementioned film "Mewtwo Strikes Back", the greater danger of being thrown by Mewtwo's attack at high speed toward a stone wall [cushioned by Mew's bubble]. ²In the English dubbed first season episode "Showdown at Pewter City" (1998), it was incorrectly stated that Brock's mother had died shortly after her husband walked out on the family; however, in the original Japanese episode ("Battle at Nibi Gym"), Takeshi/Brock's mother had instead also left home. Several seasons later, the dubbed Pokémon Chronicles episode "The Family that Battles Together Stays Together" (2006) and Battle Frontier episode "Grating Spaces" (9th season; 2006) feature Brock's mother - very much alive - and back together with her husband, both with no reference to the earlier mistranslation. The Idiot's Guide to Pokémon... Text and artwork copyright © 2000-2010 by Kimberly (RageOfInnocence) Pokémon © Satoshi Tajiri, Nintendo/Creatures, Inc./Game Freak, The Pokémon Company International The beautiful screenshots of Ash and Pikachu are from the premiere episode "Pokémon! I Choose You!" and the Diamond & Pearl ending "Kaze no Message" kimsites.net Dream Valley | Oak Branch Woods | We All Live in a Pokémon World | Rainforest | Kimberly's Attic The Cave of Dragonflies Eonlight Valley AobaruNet The Pokémon Tower Sneasel Plushie! 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