If there’s one thing teachers have figured out by now, it’s how to “make learning fun”. This Leapfrog Leapster L-Max Learning Game System is a good example. Through basic video games (we’re talking about the Frogger and Pole Position kind of basic) kids learn letters, phonics, spelling, numbers, counting, addition, subtraction, rhyming and more. Yeah, we were kind of thrown by “rhyming” as well. Isn’t that kind of hardwired into kids right out of the gate? It’s not like there’s some marketing agency coming up with “Smelly Kelly” and “Scary Barry” and selling the intellectual rights under the slide at recess. But we digress.

The Leapfrog Leapster L-Max Learning Game System is clearly designed kids who are too young to have played many video games and so aren’t going to be worried about things like graphics and sound and how much Japanese the final boss speaks. Plus you can obviously learn things from video games. Check it out: How many of our readers can point to Uzbekistan? And how many can get to that jetpack in San Andreas in about fifteen seconds from anywhere on the map? Yeah, see? Proving right there that Rockstar Public Schools would put John Dewey to shame in half a generation. But again, we digress.

Blue or pink, whichever color you like best. It doesn’t matter to us. Just don’t be afraid of the Leapfrog Leapster L-Max Learning Game System. It probably isn’t going to be a big challenge for a twenty-something (or, alternatively, it might be too big a challenge for a twenty-something) but for the target market, it’ll probably be a bit of fun. Or at least it’ll shut ‘em up in the car for a while. And isn’t that what American education is all about?

Back to top