We All Live In A Pokémon World...

What is
Pokémon?

Battles Over Pokémon Battles

Pokémon and Prejudice

Pokémon in the Classroom

The Idiot's Guide to Pokémon

Pokémon: the Best (Animal) ShowYou're Not Watching

Human-Pokémon Bond

Protecting Pokémon

There are no Bad Pokémon

In Defense of Pokémon

For the Love of Pokémon

Pokémon Ripped From the Headlines

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Gray text =
Original content (this page; 2000)
(+ related ep. updates, notes)

Blue text =
Additional content (2003-12)

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!

Related episode(s):
"Here Comes the Trubbish Squad!" (Pokémon Black & White [fourteenth season]) Highly recommended!
-Only Ash understands the bond a class of kindergartners have with a Trubbish when the children barricade themselves inside a secret base with the seemingly unsanitary Pokémon their teacher refused to let them raise

Pokémon Learning League: Siara [Science], Quinn [Life Skills], Ada [Math], Lex [Language Arts]

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~~ 600+ 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! While it's sad to learn that in this day and age (2011), Pokémon cards are still banned in some schools for one reason or another, it's a victory for all fans when one student fought (and won!) to get teachers to bring back Pokémon and look at everyone's favorite TCG in a new light.