Malik Greatly Disapproves. Again.

[loyalrebel]

[It's been a while since Malik's spoken up on the network but this is something drastic to him and it needs addressing.]

It has been recently brought to my attention that the education system of modern times is sorely lacking in a number of regards.

I was told that beyond the basics of reading and mathematics anything else was not important and was not even taught, and this desperately needs to be rectified.

We may be learning magic and other such things from our overlays, but there are areas that are horrifically left by the wayside in this arms race we have entered in to.

I may not know much about history as it is from most of your perspectives but there has to be educators among us or at least those who will be willing to step up and help the children among us not return home uneducated louts who respond to the idea of mathematics or reading with "why should I care?" or "it is too difficult".

[He's not sorry Phillip. This is probably your fault kid.]

Comments

[ringslinging]

Whether it counts probably depends on how much they were teaching you. Some military schools are pretty thorough, some not so much.

[neverfeltthatway]

He doesn't mean anything like a military school as you probably understand it. We joined the military, and in our training was the closest thing we've ever had to a contemporary school - but only insofar as it made us better soldiers, in our time. We learned logistics, and military strategy, and titan ecology - but there was no classes on language or history, and no math or science beyond what was immediately relevant to our role.

Most of the training there was physical, anyway.

[ringslinging]

Yeah, that's pretty minimalist compared to most worlds I've been to.

[neverfeltthatway]

Our world is pretty far behind most that I've seen, in terms of knowledge or technology. And the focus had to be on everything that made us better soldiers - there was no time for anything else.

...most of us would never have gotten a chance to use anything else we learned, anyway.

[ringslinging]

The tech probably has a lot to do with it, really. The Air Force Academy back home has pretty high standards, but you don't really want to give an idiot the keys to a bomber.

[neverfeltthatway]

That's probably true. We needed to know how to use our three dimensional maneuvering gear, how to keep ourselves supplied, how to behave in combat, and we needed to understand the enemy we were fighting.

Anything else was superfluous. We didn't need to understand how our gear works. [He is just a little bitter about this - but he understands it, and doesn't even necessarily think he'd do anything different, had he been in charge.]

[ringslinging]

The more advanced a piece of technology is, the more creative ways someone will find to break it.

[neverfeltthatway]

Probably true, though I'm not sure it's relevant on the level of the 3dmg.

Anyway, I've learned a lot since coming here, but I wouldn't mind doing so in a more structured environment.

[ringslinging]

From the response here, it sounds like we've got a decent enough range of expertise, even if some of us might turn out to be horrible teachers.

[neverfeltthatway]

Even if some people turn out to be bad teachers, it'll still give us more opportunity and resources to learn than we generally have on our own.

[ringslinging]

And if you want to learn something badly enough, that can get you past bad teachers sometimes anyway.

[ That may have gotten Hal through high school. ]

[neverfeltthatway]

I suppose so.

[It's not like he's really had enough teachers to know that through experience.]

[ringslinging]

So what are you interested in, anyway? Anything in particular? Or all of it?

[neverfeltthatway]

All of it, I suppose, but science in particular. Especially... I think it's called physics?

There's so much about the world I'd like to understand. So much that goes beyond the knowledge of my time.

[ringslinging]

If you're thinking how stuff moves, energy, force - yeah, that's physics.

And that is, as it happens, one of the things I went to school for, so if someone more qualified doesn't pop out of the woodwork, it sounds like we should talk.

[neverfeltthatway]

I'd like that. I've been reading a textbook from some version of earth, but... well, I think Thorne said it's a sixth grade book, so for all that I didn't know any of it, it's not very advanced.

I'm Armin, by the way.

[ringslinging]

Yeah, we can definitely get you further than that.

Hal, nice to meet you. Talk to you. You know what I mean.

[neverfeltthatway]

I'd appreciate it.

It's nice to talk to you too. I'm sure we'll meet in person soon enough.

[rustyhonesty]

I think Armin explained most of it - probably better than I could have. Stuff like mathematics and stuff didn't really matter for us, since all we needed to really know was how large the area where we strike a titan is and anything else was just useless for us to know, really.

[ringslinging]

Math leads to physics, physics can really improve your grip on the spatial aspect of combat.

But if you've got your back against the wall already, the time it takes to reach that point isn't going to be efficient, it's true.

[rustyhonesty]

In a world of kill or be killed, you hardly have time for anything. Though here... perhaps it would be useful to learn since we do have time, between Jaunts.

[ringslinging]

Might as well use it for something.