Ever since Pong first took kids away from their studies and introduced them to the magic of bouncing a virtual ball against two virtual walls, parents and educators endeavored to slyly promote their own learning agenda within the world of videogames. Unfortunately, they've never succeeded: Number Crunchers was such a failure. And all Oregon Trail did was teach kids how to ford a river.

Adults have never stopped trying to Vulcan mind-meld the low art of computer and video games with the highs of picking up a damn book, even though reading is exactly what these children are trying to avoid by playing with their Wii all day.

But as Dance Dance Revolution once brought a modicum of physical activity to the world of professional gamers, a new development emerged to trick kids into reading so they can better win at video games. Sort of like a Game Genie, but with words:

Spurred by arguments that video games also may teach a kind of digital literacy that is becoming as important as proficiency in print, libraries are hosting gaming tournaments, while schools are exploring how to incorporate video games in the classroom. In New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is supporting efforts to create a proposed public school that will use principles of game design like instant feedback and graphic imagery to promote learning.

Now, I'm no scientist or child-development psychologist (yes I am), but doesn't adding gaming tournaments in libraries send a mixed message to students? It's like allowing your kids to drink Orange Soda in the morning: sure, it looks like OJ, and it sort of sounds like OJ, but this whole "virtual learning annex" idea was already played out by the time Cronenberg came out with eXistenZ .

Not to sound like an old fogey, but have educators just given up entirely on trying to make kids read the old fashioned way? Now that the whole curriculum has to circle around books that have promotional tie-ins to video games, what will happen to Fitzgerald or Orwell or Number the Stars? Please don't tell me that the kids are all going to learn about the Holocaust comes from Castle Wolfenstein, because America is already the punchline of the world right now, and letting children decide their own school system is just bringing us down to previously unheard of levels in pathetic parenting.