Failing the Fifth Grade

Last night, Hannah was talking to me about day in class. For those who don't know, Hannah is my 11-year-old daughter, and she's currently in her last year of elementary school. Hannah showed me a recent assignment which involved distinguishing between fact and opinion. I was surprised, as this topic was one they discussed in second grade and third grade. Apparently, the school is trying to hammer this point home as the students are having difficulty with the concept. The assignment included such sentences as, "I don't like the game of checkers," and compared it to "Checkers is a bad game." Hannah got an A on the assignment, and she assured me that it was easy. But I'm not so sure how well I would do on that assignment.

I think part of the reason that the students seem to be struggling with these concepts has to do with the fact that most adults are terrible examples when it comes to this concept. Everything from food to sports to politics, we throw aside the concept of opinion and set down our views as cast iron fact. The Titans are a terrible football team. Steak is the best food. All Democrats are freeloaders. We trumpet these opinions wrapped in a cloak of factual certainty, and wonder why our children get foggy on the difference.

This site is more than just a collection of gamers. We are supposed to be a collection of mature, thoughtful individuals with jobs and responsibilities. We're supposed to be aware that a world exists outside the digital playgrounds we spend time romping around, and we're supposed to have perspective. But when it comes to our games, we begin to behave just like children. At the end of the day, is there that big a difference between my nephew loudly insisting that the Lemony Snicket books are stupid and that his brother is dumb for liking them, and how we behave with our games?

I lied earlier. I know how I'd do on Hannah's assignment: I'd fail. Miserably. I'm an awful example. Not twenty minutes after we had this discussion, Hannah listened to me tell her mother that people were being spoiled brats about SimCity. I said that it was a good game, and they were whining about something that wasn't that important. I explained that the game was brilliant, and people just couldn't quit pouting long enough to see it. And I didn't even think about what I was saying, and the fact that I'd just told a child I'm responsible for raising that behavior was rude and inconsiderate.

While washing the dishes, Hannah put on her One Direction CD. Her teenage sister came in, and rolled her eyes. I started to admonish Emily, but Hannah just shrugged, saying, "It's okay. I like them, she doesn't. I'll put in my headphones."

Would we have done the same?

Worst.Post.Ever.

Spoiler:

good perspective trichy

There's a Titans football team?

Part of having a strong opinion is trying to sway those around you to your way of thinking. I think the distinction is why you want people to change their opinions. If you think they'd genuinely enjoy the game if they tried it differently, that's cool. If you think they'd be less stupid if they'd just listen to you, then you might have a problem.

Games, like most objects of culture are, subjective objects. There is very little one can say objectively about them and be interesting.

From what I read there is plenty objectively and subjectively wrong with SimCity. Being able to play consistently, being able to play offline, on a bus, subway or plane would all be concerns to some. Subjectively, people can very legitimately claim there were looking for the type of SimCity experience they had before but got something similar but significantly different. Like they said on the last podcast, it was like going from a 4x game where you control armies to something like StarCraft where you control individual soldiers.

In other words, if you want a steak, I could give you the best lamb chops in the land, but you still want a steak.

Mayo is a great thing to put on fries, right? ;p

I mean, on the one hand, your opinion is absolutely right (see what I did there?). On the other hand, we have many of those conversations, the fry-mayo dilemma being a prime example, glorious PC-gamer master race being another, with our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks, laughing at our own meta-comedy the whole way along, where that comedy is rooted directly in the soil of fact vs. opinion.

P & C, maybe not so much. That's a veritable minefield of "my opinion is fact-ier than yours (and here are some links that will fail to convince you of that)".

I've actually broken up with a girlfriend in the dim and distant past in no small part because of her constantly telling me that I was "wrong" to like the things I did.

I remember learning to write essays in grade five.

Do they also teach, "don't write, I think the Titans are a bad football team." Write, "The Titans are a bad football team", because it's assumed that it is your opinion, by nature of the fact that you are writing an essay, and you haven't footnoted a source.

I may have mixed in a little bit of grade 7 and 8 skills. I think we learned essay writing in grade 5, and didn't really get into bibliography until grade seven or eight.

It stuck me that there could be conflicting messages being taught at different times, and the kids aren't compartmentalizing it.

I am a bad example. My job often involves the spinning of pure subjectivity into hard facts handed down by God himself. Medical "opinions" become scientific gospel that only a fool would ignore.

Facts, opinions, conjecture, speculation, hazy memories are cold hard facts if I word things right, or ask questions in the right way.

I also do not play well with others.

Ghostship wrote:

It stuck me that there could be conflicting messages being taught at different times, and the kids aren't compartmentalizing it.

The current educational paradigm, unless they changed it again while I wasn't looking, is to repeat the same general concepts every year but go deeper each time. Sometimes these lessons conflict, mostly due to what Terry Pratchett calls lies-to-children, where the simplified concept states as true something that has huge gaping exceptions when you dig deeper.

Newtonian physics versus relativistic physics is a common example, though I have a friend who prefers to point out that all of the absolutes he learned in Chemistry in high school got thrown out in college. It's also one of the distinctions between graduate students and undergrads, since the layers keep going deeper, until you end up as a tenured professor who knows nothing at all.

Also, and I just learned this, another term for it is "Wittgenstein's ladder".

As the father of a 4th grader, I am very cognizant of how my views and how my explanation of those views affect my daughter. And frankly, I've always considered myself pretty good at seeing both sides of any issue. Just this morning we had a discussion about an assignment she was working on: a summary of a local newspaper article about the voter ID laws being considered. I may not have strong views on the issue, but I can understand how each side thinks. My daughter felt like she would be a proponent because of the issue of fraud. I agreed that that was a good reason, and then helped her understand it from the other side: that for most people it's trivial to acquire voter ID, but for primarily lower-income people it's possibility not so easy.

"Mrs. Gates said it was even free to get a photo ID, so there's no point not to have this bill pass," she mentioned. I guess her teacher doesn't see both sides.

"True, they are free which would appear to make it such that there's no reason not to have one. And for Mrs. Gates and people like us, that's very true. We can pop over pretty much whenever we want -- though we likely have cars and driver's licenses so we don't need one -- and grab one. The people that don't have ID and need one might be in very different situations. They might not have easy transport, they might not be able to get to the place during open hours due to work, etc."

I've tried really hard over the years to instill these principles in her, and it's made me become more aware of any of my own tendencies to look at things starkly.

That said, the WiiU is a stupid piece of hardware and anyone that owns one hates life and should choke on something phallic if not an outright c*ck.

Gremlin wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

It stuck me that there could be conflicting messages being taught at different times, and the kids aren't compartmentalizing it.

The current educational paradigm, unless they changed it again while I wasn't looking, is to repeat the same general concepts every year but go deeper each time. Sometimes these lessons conflict, mostly due to what Terry Pratchett calls lies-to-children, where the simplified concept states as true something that has huge gaping exceptions when you dig deeper.

Newtonian physics versus relativistic physics is a common example, though I have a friend who prefers to point out that all of the absolutes he learned in Chemistry in high school got thrown out in college. It's also one of the distinctions between graduate students and undergrads, since the layers keep going deeper, until you end up as a tenured professor who knows nothing at all.

Also, and I just learned this, another term for it is "Wittgenstein's ladder".

I just call it Ivory Tower. And that's a fact, Jack!

Well, fifth grade is really hard for everyone. That's why you're ten for two years.

I'm in a weekly communication/dialectics class. Last week the instructor sent all of us home with a little handheld clicker, to click when we had judgmental thoughts instead of assessing the facts of a situation ("that guy is a real jerk" vs. ""that guy is raising that voice at the checkout lady over a candy bar").

It was interesting to talk about what we noticed when we brought them back the next week. Some people were over 100 before the previous class had even ended, some had a lot of "opinions" about other people, some people mostly about themselves ("I never do anything right" vs. "I forgot to call my brother when I told him I would").

Treating opinions and judgments as facts is something we learn from people, like most habits, and have to deliberately unlearn for healthier thinking.

All I know is that anyone who puts ketchup on a hot dog must have brain damage.

Checkers is a bad game.

But Shot Checkers is an awesome game.

I agree. I played that with the wife one time.

I think most of us would fail a lot of school work these days. Not because we're bad but because we use different skill sets at different times of our lives. What's important is that our children are given the tools to interpret the world in a way that doesn't overwhelm them or put them at a disadvantage; they're different people from ourselves anyway so why would we expect them to be the same as we are. It's been, mostly, a continual improvement of conscience and thought throughout the development of the human race thus far.... so I'd be worried if you expect your generation to be better than those that follow.

Also, what's the answer?

"I don't like the game of checkers," and compared it to "Checkers is a bad game."

They're both opinions, right?! Neither are factual.

Hannah listened to me tell her mother that people were being spoiled brats about SimCity. I said that it was a good game, and they were whining about something that wasn't that important.

You're both wrong! :p People work for their money and your time in your life is limited... I believe you have every right to complain about something that has literally caused you to waste your time.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Well, fifth grade is really hard for everyone. That's why we have a game show about whether we're smarter than fifth graders.

FTFY.

Jonman wrote:

Mayo is a great thing to put on fries, right? ;p

People who put mayo on their fries hate America and Freedom. The Intarwebs said so, therefore it must be a fact!

Seriously, though. I hope that Lil' Trichy gets taught in sixth grade what makes a credible source. It seems like the logical next step.

sometimesdee wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Well, fifth grade is really hard for everyone. That's why we have a game show about whether we're smarter than fifth graders.

FTFY.

MOM HOW MANY LIES HAVE I BEEN LIVING?*

Duoae wrote:
"I don't like the game of checkers," and compared it to "Checkers is a bad game."

They're both opinions, right?! Neither are factual.

The first is (potentially) a fact; the second is an opinion. (The first is an expression of an opinion, but the statement itself is a fact.)

Guys, is Darksiders any good?

Man, I wish my 10 year old was learning *anything*, except how to drill for constant, neverending state mandated tests that score the school. That's all they've done this year; drill for the test. That's all they'll do next year, and the year after, and every fricking year until he graduates.

How I wish there was a private school near us that wasn't a flat-earth, evolution denying, religious wackadoodle school.

We're seriously considering pulling him out of school, because he's not learning anything anyway, except how to fill in a freaking bubble. Example; he could do fractions in first grade. In 4th grade, they're still working on 2 digit multiplication; something he could do 5 years ago. His IQ and early score tests show him to be in the top .001 of the country; this kid is brilliant...but in the last six months, he's started bring home c's and d's on worksheets, because he just doesn't care, he doesn't see any reason to do it.

And problematically; neither do I. Why the hell should he? It's stupid, and a waste of his time, and a ridiculous waste of the almost 8k a year I pay in school tax. (Yeah, school tax. So the ISD could build an NFL level stadium...cause...FOOOBAAAHHL!) My son's school has science books in the library that talk about how we *might* go to the moon someday. His "gifted and talented" program is 3-4 hours A MONTH in pullout activities, where he's expected to help the younger kids build paper mache or whatever.

So annoyed by the education system right now. So annoyed. And I'm sure I've telegraphed that to him, which probably doesn't help. This is a kid, that with the right motivation, and right education, could radically change the world; but because we're not 1%ers, and because we don't live anywhere with affordable access to good education; I'm beginning to think that they only way this kid has a chance is if I pull him out of the education system.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Duoae wrote:
"I don't like the game of checkers," and compared it to "Checkers is a bad game."

They're both opinions, right?! Neither are factual.

The first is (potentially) a fact; the second is an opinion. (The first is an expression of an opinion, but the statement itself is a fact.)

I agree. However, I think opinions can be changed and so expression of an opinion - though it may reflect the current reality - does not make it a true fact as we (or perhaps, I) would consider it to be. It could also be a lie, in which case it's definitely not factual.

duckideva wrote:

My son's school has science books in the library that talk about how we *might* go to the moon someday.

Your kid, too? Our school had a ninth-grade Earth Science book that said that. And this was for the advanced Earth-science class. In 1994.

duckideva wrote:

I'm beginning to think that they only way this kid has a chance is if I pull him out of the education system.

That's probably best. Either that, or get the heck out of Dodge.

Yonder wrote:

Guys, is Darksiders any good?

Darksiders is the best game ever, and anyone who disagrees is a malcontent!

Farscry wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Guys, is Darksiders any good?

Darksiders is the best game ever, and anyone who disagrees is a malcontent!

If you ever played Zelda and thought "If only Todd McFarlane were the art director and then gazed longingly" then Darksiders is perfect for you.

KingGorilla wrote:
Farscry wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Guys, is Darksiders any good?

Darksiders is the best game ever, and anyone who disagrees is a malcontent!

If you ever played Zelda and thought "If only Todd McFarlane were the art director and then gazed longingly" then Darksiders is perfect for you.

What if you played Zelda and thought "if only Seth McFarlane were the writer and then gazed longingly?"

Yonder wrote:

Guys, is Darksiders any good?

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/j6mB86J.png)