One of my gamer friends who I was dming for until life got busy this year is a high school teacher. He was approached by the Principal who asked him about a couple of kids who were reading through d&d books. His question to him was a cautious "Is it safe?" I could not believe that such a question could exist now. My friend said "The most dangerous thing you could get from it is a papercut..." Heheh. He's a good bloke.
Interesting,
I think I mentioned it around here before but...1979, 7th grade,back of the classroom in Reading class. A few of us kids were finished with Reading, that is we had finished the final textbook in 6th grade ( I believe it was titled Accents or Encore...they were the last two books)... They didnt have any other curriculum for us, originally they had creative writing in mind, so some of the kids managed to talk the teacher into letting us play in the back of class, explaining how the game itself was akin to creative writing. After the first day, the teacher said it was too disruptive, the next Monday their was a partitioned area, and we played D&D for 1 hour a day for that semester.
Nobody complained.
the kicker,
by 9th grade, kids who came to junior high having finished Reading, often ended up in the library or the commons, oddly enough they were often playing D&D, or Car wars, or Heroes and Villains. and this transcended into highschool.
Still nobody complained.
Oh I am sure some congregation forbade their attendees and warned against it, but nobody said a word about it to us
regarding what I say to people when they worry about their children playing RPG's~
I have travelled around the globe, mastered a few professions, I cant give all the credit to D&D (the city fire department will attest to that five year old often on a walk about), but I liek to think it helped me hone my skills through theater of the mind