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There's nothing I hate more than realizing that the children of today have it better than I did, and especially when it comes to video games. And not only do modern kids get to grow up playing the excellent Nintendo DS, some of the little jerks get to play it in school.

Right now a Scottish school is testing out a pilot program that gives every kid in math class a Nintendo DS and a copy of More Brain Training (a.k.a. Brain Age 2 in the US), which they're given twenty minutes to play every day when class starts. The results?

The performance of the class was compared with another which was taught normally and, given the common prejudice that computer games are a mindless waste of time, the results were surprising.

Teachers reported improved maths scores, better pupil behaviour and cooperation and a greater focus on the work at hand.

Geez, why stop there? If something like Brain Age 2 makes math bearable, I can offer school systems everywhere-- free of charge!-- a list of seven other curriculum-appropriate games that would surely have the same positive effect on students.

7. Driver's Ed: Mario Kart DS

Let's face it: a modern driver's ed course doesn't teach you the single most important of all driving techniques: snaking. How is a nation that drives straight down straightaways ever going to solve the problems of the 21st century? Let's make sure kids know that the proper way to move straight ahead is to constantly corner, drift, and powerslide. Why tolerate traffic when a well-placed green shell can easily clear the way? Forget this defensive driving crap: with Mario Kart DS, we could train a powerful new generation of offensive drivers that annihilated all rivals and conquered the highway.

6. Home Ec: Cooking Mama

The most frustrating thing about Cooking Mama is that you don't get proper real-world recipes for the dishes you're making. Mastering salisbury steak in your game gives you little idea of how to duplicate it in your kitchen. Likewise, the frustrating thing about Home Ec is that once they do let you cook, you end up cooking dull and impractical stuff like cookies or apple pie. Solution: structure a course around teaching kids how to make whatever they've successfully concocted in Cooking Mama. Someone who can handle gyoza, pork cutlets, and rice cakes is ready to put dinner on the table. Japanese dinner, sure, but food's food.

5. Biology: Pokemon Diamond & Pearl

Forcing a kid through the convoluted process of raising a Pokemon from a tiny egg to a highly optimized level 99 killing and breeding machine is going to result in a profound respect for how simple and logical real-world reproduction is. It's much messier, but discovering that is a topic for health class. The usual debates about Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design can easily be avoided by making it clear that Riolu may evolve-- or transform-- into Lucario through the grace of god alone. Modern science does not know, it merely has theories. Darwin could be wrong about EVs.

4. Social Studies: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Teaching kids about the legal system is hard. It's obtuse, confusing, and pretty boring material. Using Phoenix Wright in class could make kids more appreciative by illustrating a world where the practice of law is insane and utterly arbitrary. Concepts like habeas corpus, Miranda Rights, and the Fifth Amendment become simple and logical compared to a world where lawyers must double as detectives, there are no rules about admission of evidence, and pretty much every crime devolves into a free-for-all murder trial at some point. No, in light of that, explaining how OJ could be not guilty in the criminal trial and then liable in the civil trial is downright easy.

3. Art: Drawn to Life

Drawn to Life is not, in itself, a very good game. For whatever reason, it decided to attach its promising premise to a generic and frankly outdated 2D Mario clone. What you draw also doesn't make a lot of difference to what happens in Drawn to Life. That said, I still get more of a sense of accomplishment from using my crudely-drawn avatar to virtually smite those who do not believe in Me than I ever did from high school art class, where everything we drew was actually less interesting and meaningful. It was an endless hell of color wheels, copying other pictures, and one time where the teacher ordered us to go outside to the soccer field and draw weeds we found. At least you get to see the little guy you make in Drawn to Life move around. (Also, if you can draw anything recognizable in Drawn to Life, chances are you have serious A+ art skills to begin with.)

2. History: 7 Wonders of the Ancient World

Ah, I can hear you crying foul already. "That's just a lousy Bejeweled clone!" Yes, yes it is. And you know my response to that? Oregon Trail. It was in every respect a lousy game, but we loved it simply because it represented a respite from the never-ending hell of lecture and note-taking that is history class. Sure, it mostly taught that the easiest way to make a trip west was not to buy anyone any clothes, but 7 Wonders of the Ancient World mostly teaches that all ancient construction involved a team of eight guys who couldn't get building blocks until someone got a really good combo. It would all balance out in the end.

1. Band: Elite Beat Agents

It seemed to me that the sole purpose of band in high school was so there'd be something for freezing parents to watch during halftime. Sure, they competed against other bands, but what did those other bands do most of the time? Play during football games. You can argue that bands are supposed to cheer people up and make them happy, and if your high school's band was as lousy as ours, that pretty much never happened. A good 20 minutes of Elite Beat Agents every day would be a solid investment toward making bands realize how important their single halftime show could be. A band that could have the transformative effect upon the football team that the Agents have upon those in need would never have to worry about cuts to the music budget ever again.

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