If there was an actual school for teaching competitive pokemon, what would the curriculum look like?

Cdijk16

Cdijk16

Cdijk21 on PS!
is a Community Contributor
This was inspired by a random Vapicuno comment in ADVCord on what they were teaching people in schools nowadays when someone didn't know how to EV Vaporeon correctly. That's what got me thinking about this.
Im going to base this on 6v6 Smogon singles, bc that's the format I know, but feel free to post hypothetical curriculums for doubles too(or any other format.
Class 1: Basic Game Mechanics (Stats, Switching etc.)
Class 2: EVs, IVs, Natures, Abilities, Tiers etc.
Class 3: Entry Hazards, Hazard Removal, Cores, Passive Damage etc
Class 4: How to prepare for meta threats, Protect, Pursuit, Status Moves etc
Class 5: Identifying Win conditions, Teambuilding Archetypes, etc.
What do you all think?
 
Cdijk16 said:
This was inspired by a random Vapicuno comment in ADVCord on what they were teaching people in schools nowadays when someone didn't know how to EV Vaporeon correctly. That's what got me thinking about this.
Im going to base this on 6v6 Smogon singles, bc that's the format I know, but feel free to post hypothetical curriculums for doubles too(or any other format.
Class 1: Basic Game Mechanics (Stats, Switching etc.)
Class 2: EVs, IVs, Natures, Abilities, Tiers etc.
Class 3: Entry Hazards, Hazard Removal, Cores, Passive Damage etc
Class 4: How to prepare for meta threats, Protect, Pursuit, Status Moves etc
Class 5: Identifying Win conditions, Teambuilding Archetypes, etc.
What do you all think?
Click to expand...
I'm breaking no post-November to post here. I'm an actual teacher and I'm currently writing a curriculum for a semester's worth of Middle School and High School P.E.

I can tell you that there wouldn't be a distinct School for this because you don't need 5 classes to cover everything. You'd essentially need one class with different units. You'd have 1-3 classes that students would apply for. Obviously, it would be progressive classes as in you the first class is basics. The 3rd class which is advanced would most likely cover Psychological aspects and statistics. Classes 1 and 2 would be about just game mechanics and meta preparation and research.

When you build a curriculum you get to decide what goes into it. If you legitimately want to write a skeleton of a curriculum I can give you an example here:

UNIT 1: Basic Game Mechanics
  • Introduction to typing
    • Weaknesses and Resistances
    • Offensive and Defensive typings
    • Type Synergy
So this is essentially what one portion of a unit would look like. The bullet indicates the topic and beneath the bullets indicates essentially your goals of what you think your students should know. Then you'd write lesson plans and then you'd teach them.

EDIT: I'll answer any further questions about curriculum or teaching. We can make this thread educational or something
 
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BP said:
I'm breaking no post-November to post here. I'm an actual teacher and I'm currently writing a curriculum for a semester's worth of Middle School and High School P.E.

I can tell you that there wouldn't be a distinct School for this because you don't need 5 classes to cover everything. You'd essentially need one class with different units. You'd have 1-3 classes that students would apply for. Obviously, it would be progressive classes as in you the first class is basics. The 3rd class which is advanced would most likely cover Psychological aspects and statistics. Classes 1 and 2 would be about just game mechanics and meta preparation and research.

When you build a curriculum you get to decide what goes into it. If you legitimately want to write a skeleton of a curriculum I can give you an example here:

UNIT 1: Basic Game Mechanics
  • Introduction to typing
    • Weaknesses and Resistances
    • Offensive and Defensive typings
    • Type Synergy
So this is essentially what one portion of a unit would look like. The bullet indicates the topic and beneath the bullets indicates essentially your goals of what you think your students should know. Then you'd write lesson plans and then you'd teach them.

EDIT: I'll answer any further questions about curriculum or teaching. We can make this thread educational or something
Click to expand...
Thanks for the well thought out write-up. I think I'll write a proper one when I have time.
 
MegaFlareon said:
I think there would be a longstanding club rivalry between people who use Pokémon as fighting machines (hardcore competitive players) and people who believe that friendship the most powerful tool in Pokémon (anime fans/exclusive ingame players).
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What do you think the social environment of the school would be like? I did say in the OP it would be for teaching competitive pokemon specifically though. I think it probably be a fun activity to suggest teachers from the pool of users on this site, tier by tier.
To start with, I'd say watermess would probably do a good job teaching adv ou.
 
Shandeur said:
Would grades (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) be based off of the tiering system?
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Cdijk16 said:
This was inspired by a random Vapicuno comment in ADVCord on what they were teaching people in schools nowadays when someone didn't know how to EV Vaporeon correctly. That's what got me thinking about this.
Im going to base this on 6v6 Smogon singles, bc that's the format I know, but feel free to post hypothetical curriculums for doubles too(or any other format.
Class 1: Basic Game Mechanics (Stats, Switching etc.)
Class 2: EVs, IVs, Natures, Abilities, Tiers etc.
Class 3: Entry Hazards, Hazard Removal, Cores, Passive Damage etc
Class 4: How to prepare for meta threats, Protect, Pursuit, Status Moves etc
Class 5: Identifying Win conditions, Teambuilding Archetypes, etc.
What do you all think?
Click to expand...
nah

class 1: win
class 2: do not lose

sign up today only $99.99 a day
 
Cdijk16 said:
This was inspired by a random Vapicuno comment in ADVCord on what they were teaching people in schools nowadays when someone didn't know how to EV Vaporeon correctly. That's what got me thinking about this.
Im going to base this on 6v6 Smogon singles, bc that's the format I know, but feel free to post hypothetical curriculums for doubles too(or any other format.
Class 1: Basic Game Mechanics (Stats, Switching etc.)
Class 2: EVs, IVs, Natures, Abilities, Tiers etc.
Class 3: Entry Hazards, Hazard Removal, Cores, Passive Damage etc
Class 4: How to prepare for meta threats, Protect, Pursuit, Status Moves etc
Class 5: Identifying Win conditions, Teambuilding Archetypes, etc.
What do you all think?
Click to expand...
Starting with basic game mechanics and progressing through advanced topics like EVs, IVs, and team preparation.
 
TehTayTeh said:
View attachment 573882
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We can make it happen, we'd just need to bribe a southern red state with enough investment dollars and we'd have an accredited university that we can pretend will help get our students prepared for the workforce. If Bari Weiss and Chris Rufo can do it, there's no way in hell they can stop us.

How does Jacksonville sound?



Cdijk16 said:
What do you think the social environment of the school would be like? I did say in the OP it would be for teaching competitive pokemon specifically though. I think it probably be a fun activity to suggest teachers from the pool of users on this site, tier by tier.
To start with, I'd say watermess would probably do a good job teaching adv ou.
Click to expand...

the entire year would basically be a high school/college junior coming of age story about plucky RSEers getting bullied by jacked DPP and preppy XY kids. Genwunners are the kids that play board games under the staircases and gen 2 kids are the ones most likely to go full Pumped Up Kicks
 
If your competitive pokemon school does not teach bayesian probabilities and basic statistics then you should review the curriculum asap

I know this is meant to be a silly thing but rng management is unfortunately an extremely necessarily skill to have to, ironically, maximize your chances of success. Sometimes the correct play is the unoptimal one and your students gotta know that nuance, otherwise it'll just lead to somewhat narrow minded approaches of play, i think
 
Chlora said:
If your competitive pokemon school does not teach bayesian probabilities and basic statistics then you should review the curriculum asap

I know this is meant to be a silly thing but rng management is unfortunately an extremely necessarily skill to have to, ironically, maximize your chances of success. Sometimes the correct play is the unoptimal one and your students gotta know that nuance, otherwise it'll just lead to somewhat narrow minded approaches of play, i think
Click to expand...
Realistically the statistics necessary for competitive Pokemon are pretty minimal. You need to make sure they have a solid understanding of independent probability calculations, and especially probability trees over several events, some of which only happen conditionally. The bigger subject is game theory, and especially understanding mixed strategies and how to develop them (ie, if your opponent knows your options, they're more likely to guard against your highest payoff option(s)). I'm not sure it really counts as game theory, but you'd also want to touch on the idea of playing to your out(s), and how to calculate the likelihood of various paths to victory in case you have multiple. The stats topics you need to understand competitive Pokémon are actually some of the easiest ones for students, so I think realistically you could cover them within a month for a college-level course, or maybe like six weeks for grade school. I don't think Pokémon would be as popular if you needed to do a hypothesis test to figure out whether your Charizard is gonna live a Scald :row:

The theory behind teambuilder is a lot more complicated, but you don't really need math for it. Covering meta threats, EV spreads, developing win conditions and gameplans to enable them, etc can all be covered with little to no math. You could analyze them with math, and people do sometimes, but like you can analyze anything with math. It's not really necessary for learning to play.
 
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