short rant

[firstfrost]

Number 2 in what I keep thinking ought to be a series: Posts that mjperson ought to have made.

Here's a very short blog post by Steven Levitt.

The punch line is cute. But... he doesn't know how his third-grade daughter is supposed to know what the colors of the rainbow are? SHE'S SUPPOSED TO KNOW BECAUSE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING HER THAT!

What are the Great Lakes? I might give him a pass on that not being part of the standard curriculum for your small child. I learned my states, but not my Great Lakes, as a little bitty kid. (mjperson, as a little bitty kid, did learn them, but he's from New York and I'm from California.). I learned "Thirty days has September" before I can remember, but I think davehenry told me about knuckle-counting.

But not teaching your kid *colors* is a dereliction of duty. I mean, come *on*. Isn't that like the first thing ever, when you're teaching them words?

Comments

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Which ones are in the rainbow is a different concept than "what color is an apple?" "what color is a frog?" etc. My 3 year old knows what a rainbow looks like and could probably point out what colors she sees in it, but not from memory. And she hasn't memorized the ROYGBIV order yet. ;-)

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I might disagree if the guy was a random shlub, not too bright, who can't figure out he's supposed to be teaching her stuff. But if he's a writer, he ought to be able to connect two thoughts and realize that the more he teaches his kid, the better off she will be. (Maybe he's not much of a writer, I didn't check.)

I do understand that most parents don't teach their kids much because they don't know much themselves. Likewise, sadly, math teachers in elementary school--half of them are struggling to follow the examples in the book on how to add fractions themselves; they can hardly give their students intuitive explanations in that state.

I do hope somebody responded to that writer with your rant, actually.

[cfox.livejournal.com]

I spent a little while explicitly working on colors with Denton, thinking that the pediatrician would expect to test that one at his 15-month checkup.

Instead, the pediatrician marked off a missed milestone because he couldn't do "where's mommy's nose?" then suggested that we practice finding parts of our faces in front of a mirror every day at home.

[remcat.livejournal.com]

I know the "HOMES" acronym to remember the names of the Great Lakes.

I am very tempted to quiz Seth, but alas -- he's at ATA.

[dcltdw]

Huh. What are the Great Lakes, that I think I can mostly answer. Their names? Urr Ontario Michigan... something something. There are 5? Ok. (Late edit: Superior! I think that's the easternmost one, and the biggest?)

Colors of the rainbow I certainly didn't know until I learned ROYGBIV in high school.

Which months have 30 days? No idea.

My point is not so much that nobody should be bothered to teach their kids this stuff, but rather, this is all trivia. To me, the question is "what trivia is more interesting". I think I'd probably be much better served knowing, say, the names of the provinces in Canada, or even say half the names of the countries in Africa, than "which months have 30 days".

I also feel like it should be more about the fascination of learning ("this is a prism! shiny, isn't it?" "this is an atlas! This is... oh right, ha ha, this is Canada!") and knowing how to learn. It's interesting that the answer is "ask google" and not "this is the difference between a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and an atlas".

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

As pekmez has already pointed out, knowing the names of colors is different from knowing the colors of the rainbow.

And seriously, the "colors of the rainbow"? How is it useful to know how people have arbitrarily divided the spectrum of visible light? Actually, it's worse than useless, because it gives the impression that there is some natural phenomenon at work whereby there are seven colors in a rainbow, rather than five or eight or twenty-three. Understanding that it's a full spectrum, and that our partitioning of it is not a reflection of any characteristics of light, would be much more sensible than memorizing ROY G. BIV.

The Great Lakes, though....duh, they live in Chicago, they ought to know that one.

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

Well, it is sometimes good to know some basic amount of trivia so that when you are quizzed to determine if you are a genuine MIT student or Ohio resident or whatever, you can pass the test. What color is the Green Building was always my favorite question for MIT.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Ah, my environmental heart is growing three sizes today. :)

The only reason my boys know ROYGBIV is thanks to the Mr. Ray song of the same name. I lost a bet with Sweetie over this, since I thought it was common knowledge afterwhich he proceeded to ask his mother to name them. I figure if MomZ doesn't know it, it taint at all necessary. ;)

Amusing tale from the playground the other day. Bunch of moms standing around, for some unfathonable reason trying to teach their kids the states (we have a big state map on our blacktop.) With my help they were able to get all but one (although I make no claims that I got VT & NH correct. ;) Eventually I had to call the mouse over.... We were missing Wyoming. :)

Clearly I now need to learn this HOMES acronym.