VR Enhanced Education for Children K-12 - OptimaEd

VR EDUCATION: Byron Donald’s wife, Erika Donald, created OptimaEd, a means of schooling children via VR. Their immersion classes can be integrated into public schools, charter schools, or fully independent online. The content of their courses is unknown, the writers of the content are unknown, and the teachers at their academies and online that guide the VR are not teacher certified. Turnover of teachers is extremely high.

The idea was formed as a means to make education equally available and more engaging according to a video produced by Prager U’s former IDF soldier, Marissa Streit with Erika Donald.

The problem with ‘education’ is who is writing the education. Content is biased by those who do the writing unless there is a person/teacher/mom/dad available to unravel the bias. We have become conditioned to the word, ‘expert’, to such extent that we accept an expert must also speak without a forked tongue. Virtual Reality isn’t content – it is submersion. That submersion replaces reality and the child brain loses that connection. The brain is literally ‘altered’. Rewired. Especially in youth.

A child’s brain functioning outside of reality may have difficulty comprehending which is which. There are addiction issues that can be formed over continued use.

Natalie Wood’s last movie in 1983 was Brainstorm. Scientists create a brain-computer interface that records a person’s brain on tape for replay that others can then experience. Virtual Reality. Examples: 1. A chain smoker, Lillian suffers from heart problems. She has a heart attack while working alone. Realizing she is about to die, Lillian records her experience. Michael decides to play Lillian's recording, but nearly dies when his body relives her heart attack. 2. Another character, Gordy, has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with colleagues, including Hal. Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm which results in sensory overload.

Backed by META, using VR to educate children is billed as a great enhancement giving children the ability to witness history, another country, whales, etc… but the sensory of the brain in adults can barely absorb such an impact much less a Kindergarten child.

UCLA researcher Dr. Mayank Mehta recounted a study he did scanning the brains of rats as they used VR. The rats’ brains behaved in really unexpected ways: 60% of the neurons in the hippocampus – a part central to navigating our surroundings – “simply shut down in virtual reality”, and the other 40% of the neurons seemed to fire randomly.

Researchers have found that even when they use cartoonish characters to downplay the reality of the VR headset app the emotional and sensory triggers cannot differentiate which can be psychologically devastating. Because OptimaEd is affiliated with META, their available ‘apps’ include sexually explicit content. For example, Rec Room’s Quest app store page boasts “MILLIONS of player-created rooms.” Making it impossible for a parent to vet content.

A child’s social interaction thus becomes a configuration of a virtual reality. Their perceptions are altered. Their inability to define the dream as a dream. And be able to consciously ‘go outside and play’. The real world will seem too scary, too big, too uncontrollable. And the psyche will erode.

In addition, in combination with Prager and his team who believe religion should be back in the curriculum, that would mean the Jewish Torah and Kabbalah from an IDF perspective – Marissa Streit.

The accounts of researchers show avatar bullies, sexual assaults, special problems, etc.. that feel real – imagine an avatar shooting you? Taking a knife to your face? As a CHILD. In this frame, META claimed users could be as young as 10. But OptimaEd claims VR in Kindergarten when children are as young as 5 or 6.

The ‘teacher’ led is not a teacher. This is typically their first job. The pay is low and thus does not nearly adequately emphasize quality. Instead vying for quantity. Further alienating children from a physical world to a celluloid one. The claim that teaching is not about preparing a child for a trade or a job or vocation, it is about letting them evolve via teaching themselves… Self Destructively!