The US spends almost $50 billion each year on education, so why aren't kids learning? Forty percent of students lack basic reading skills, and their academic performance is dismal compared with that of their foreign counterparts.

In response to this crisis, schools are skilling-and-drilling their way "back to basics," moving toward mechanical instruction methods that rely on line-by-line scripting for teachers and endless multiple-choice testing.

Consequently, kids aren't learning how to think anymore - they're learning how to memorize. This might be an ideal recipe for the future Babbitts of the world, but it won't produce the kind of agile, analytical minds that will lead the high tech global age. Fortunately, we've got GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY and DEUS X for that.

Learning isn't about memorizing isolated facts. It's about connecting and manipulating them. Doubt it? Just ask anyone who's beaten LEGEND OF ZELDA or solved MORROWIND.

After school, kids are devouring new information, concepts, and skills every day, and, like it or not, they're doing it with controller in hand, plastered to the TV. The fact is, when kids play video games, they can experience a much more powerful form of learning than when they're in the classroom.