Thank you Matrix/Slitherine/Developers/Community

[heyhellowhatsnew]

Force all history classes to make students play all matrix published games. The perfect solution

[heyhellowhatsnew]

ORIGINAL: parusski

ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

ORIGINAL: parusski



It is disgusting and getting worse. We Americans must make sure everyone is equal...no one shall excel - except others.[;)]

What does that mean? [&:]

Most of our elite do want everyone in America to be equal(no score keeping at children's ball games). But they don't seem to mind letting the nutters excel.

Sheesh, it meant what it meant.

I meant no harm or disrespect from that question

[doomtrader]

90% of the kids is not going to even look at the Matrix Games.

[heyhellowhatsnew]

Force them by the lash[:@]

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Force all history classes to make students play all matrix published games. The perfect solution

Now that is a fine idea. Good lessons to be learned.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Force them by the lash[:@]

I would become a teacher just to see this. [:D]

[Qwixt]

ORIGINAL: parusski

Most of our elite do want everyone in America to be equal(no score keeping at children's ball games). But they don't seem to mind letting the nutters excel.

Sheesh, it meant what it meant.

I think you are focusing on the few "nutters", and who is this elite you are talking about? I think you are making it sound much worse than it is just have something to complain about.

[planner 3]

After WW2 we (Americans) did ot want to dwell on the dark days of the war, soo......we didn't teach it to our students. I got chewed out by an English teacher for reading and writing a book report on "War is Hell", (WW2 true story). Just for spite and being Hard-headed yankee I wrote my next 7 reports on war stories, fact and fiction. Got an 'A' for the course after changing instructors. A lot of people who were of the "Greater Generation" who fought in the war did not want to see it in print, they had had enough, so de-facto censorship. Remember that history can be hard on those who lost love one and friends, so can we blame them for what I call 'Censorship'? What I don't care about is the fact that we don't teach it any more. Hell some kids today don't even know how we got the South West or for that matter Florida. They don't even know we bought Alaska, that our neighbors in Canada were once French or even English for that matter. Ask them, (kids today), who fought in the Revolution and Half will tell you North and South.
 
Ah well my soapbox just broke and "my wife says cut it short old man"......snip-snip-snip

[rhondabrwn]

When I arrived on the Navajo rez to start teaching, I had the great idea of using computer wargames to make history come alive for the kids. I had tentative agreements with Matrix and HPS to allow me a free site license to use their games as long as one copy was purchased. Guess what... the whole idea that a "teacher" would try to get "non-approved" software into their computers to support their teaching got shot down immediately... "Use what we tell you to use"

Of course, as the years progressed, things got steadily worse until I was banned from showing movies like "13 Days - The Cuban Missile Crisis" and limited to no more than 1 five minute video clip (which had to be approved by the Principal). My class was the most popular in the school until the last year, when I was so tied down with administrative dictates about how everything had to be taught (six weeks on Economics, but only 4 days allocated for World War II). Computerized "pacing guides" tied to computerized lesson plans insured that all of the state mandated standards were taught on the approved schedule. I might mention that many of those committee and consultant developed standards I felt were completely inappropriate for my students. A classic case of everyone wanting to get their pet topics into the mix. Computer tracking allowed them to enforce their dictates.

That was my last year, I retired at age 64 when I had thought I would teach till I dropped dead.

Turned out great for me as I'm having a fantastic retirement, but it is just too bad that dedicated teachers are being driven out of the profession. To succeed as a teacher today you have to be a "type A" personality that enjoys being told exactly what to do out of a thick rulebook. If you are innovative or creative, you will definitely be out of step with the "improvement plan". It's been two years now and virtually all of the teachers that I worked with have quit and gone elsewhere or retired. Out of the 30 teachers who were hired with me, I was the last one remaining in the district after 4 years. Turnover runs between 50 and 75% per year due to the abuse teachers have to endure. If I had stayed another year, I'd bet the stress would have killed me.

I have to think that there is a definite plot to destroy public education in America and to shift the funding to subsidize private schooling for the elite at public expense. Those who can't afford to buy a good education will end up in a ghetto of underfunded public schools because the lower classes are more easily manipulated when we keep them in ignorance.

Just my perspective [:(]

[VPaulus]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Unfortunatley history is not the most popular class in schools.

Unfortunately so true. I believe it's even worst nowadays than how it was in my time. But nonetheless I always felt that History never caused much interest in the great majority of students. I'm speaking about high school of course.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: berto

ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Don't get me started on how they taught us about Napoleon, they barely did.

More gratuitous America bashing. By an American no less.

In our suburban Chicago public school district, my kids were taught history just the opposite: no trace of American exceptionalism, no "America the Beautiful," America the Ugly in fact.

And as if "awful history" is just an American thing. Um, no.

When I raised the subject of Napoleon with a younger French programmer colleague, he replied: "Napoleon? Don't know much about him, just that he lived a glamorous life." [&:]

I've taught college in the Philippines. There, other than the War in the Pacific and the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippine Islands, my students knew little to nothing about the wider war. They had never heard of the Nazi death camps and the Jewish Holocaust. [X(]

I've read accounts of similar ignorance in other countries. It's human nature to focus on one's own narrow corner of the world, and for history to be taught in a distorted, nationalistic, self-centered way.

No, "awful history" is not just an American thing.

But cultural self loathing? Yeah, that's increasingly fashionable here in America (and elsewhere?). [8|]

Yeah, but not all loathing is equal. Americans loathe their education system for not teaching them stuff and Poles loathe their education system for teaching them stuff. I think that Americans are more justified in their loathing.

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

90% of the kids is not going to even look at the Matrix Games.

Do you know how much sales and what a huge incline would the 10 remaining percent be?

[doomtrader]

Do you know how much sales and what a huge incline would the 10 remaining percent be?

I'm not saying that the rest of the kids will be happy to play those games.