"I'm one of those incredibly stupid, ignorant, Bible believing Christians" ... "I'm one of those "public school kids are awful" people."
Are these related? Serious question.
In a public school? 3D modeling in 6th grade? Is that an elective (electives in 6th grade?), or what? I really fail to see how educational games and teaching 3D modeling is going to help the problem of kids not getting a good education in rather basic things like language and grammar....
If I could've had a decent grounding in 3D modelling when I was a kid, instead of pissing about on Imagine on my Amiga (not that Imagine was a bad package or Amiga a bad platform, just that I'd have liked some classes in what I was actually doing), I'd probably have a more interesting job than I do right now.
and why inoculate them with Flash and Maya, since I'm on slashdot... why not, oh I don't know, Blender?
Because if they tried to teach them Blender, they'd end up learning a set of keyboard shortcuts that don't get used in any other package. It's great when you know all the shortcuts in Blender, but it's better when you know all the theory in *any 3D modelling program*, and preferably one that has buttons to ease the learning process.