So, my only concern with this idea is the inconsistency of the stories we tell ourselves vs the way the world is, and how the two seem to be confused here.
High school, for me at least, was a fairly dark time in my life. If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college.
Bullies, at least the best ones, don't leave you alone. They don't leave you alone if your confident, they don't leave you alone if you're hurt. They just don't care. They have either yet to learn empathy, or are simply sociopaths and you're simply a fixture in their lives, entertainment.
Now, assuming this is the case, which it was for me. You have a choice. Make a game that is a bit dark, existential, cathartic, or simply make a game that tells us to believe the nonsense that we are told to tell ourselves: be confident, give your bully the "i'm not a chicken, you're a turkey" speech, excel and you'll get respect.
I think if you want to make a truly interesting game, ignore the uplifting nonsense and go for the catharsis. It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you.
If i were going to make a game like this i would have aspects like:
* Having a good cry shouldn't be in game death, it should be a power up.
* Being vulnerable and hurt and carrying on regardless should be strength.
When i started making friends in upper level classes in college, i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense. We had mutual respect, and that was that. The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life since.
> If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college.
If I may just highlight this. Children should be told that being a schoolkid is a weird kind of environment, the like of which they probably won't experience as an adult. Most workplaces don't involve customary physical violence, or even frequent overt verbal abuse. Glibly telling them that their life is horrible because they're not doing it right is a fucking awful thing to do to them.
You can't tell people things like that because they might ask "what are you going to do about this awful situation?" or "why do I have to go to school if it's so bad?". To which we have no answer.
Telling one truth just has to lead to telling other truths until the worldview is consistent. We do have the answer. Most kids have to go to school because the actual and opportunity cost of homeschooling is usually too expensive or often neither parent is qualified to provide a better or even acceptable education. When homeschooling is workable, going to school is often still a better aspect exactly because having a huge amount of experience with both the good and the bad of social settings is incredibly valuable as an adult (and that most adults have such experience is one of the main reasons adult society does tend to be less nasty IMO - people get fed up with it).
If you can be honest and tell kids "the real world isn't like school", why can't you be honest and tell them the real reasons they are nonetheless made to put up with it?
Just curious, but what are the "real reasons they are nonetheless made to put up with it"? If your child says "I'm being bullied at school and no one is doing anything about it. My teacher ridicules me because I don't understand Algebra. I'm not learning anything in literature class except how to fill out worksheets. Can't we figure out something better?" what do you say?
The truth is kids get bullied because adults don't care and look the other way. If an adults hit another adult the police will get involved. When an adult hits a kid or a kid hits a another kid they've got practically no recourse. It's just grossly unfair, and there is no solution. So you tell them that. And you repeat that if they don't go to school they won't be able to get into higher education, which in turn won't allow them to get a good job. So their current situation sucks but the alternatives they have are even worse. It's a truthful description of a shitty situation.
Adults don't have to have a solution to everything. But kids should expect us to talk to them in a forthright manner. Spare them one-liners like "you'll understand when you get older" and other condescending nonsense.
Isn't it wrong to say there's no solution? Wouldn't it be better to tell them about the game, to learn about it (because that's what school is for) and try to better their situation for themselves?
When kids are stuck in school until their twenties or so with basically no money or independence then most of them are going to be pretty unhappy. As a kid you're trapped in a way most adults are not (except those trapped by poor health or poverty). Changes can be made to improve the situation of an individual kid, but the nature of the situation doesn't change: children have fewer rights and freedoms than adults, in daily life and by law.
The irony in your post is that the vast majority of adults are also trapped with basically no money or independence. You're given just enough as a wage slave. Perhaps the problem isn't in schools, but how we structure society today.
"Look kids, you will want that high school diploma. I know it's an awful experience at times, but you gotta survive it. There's nothing wrong with you; high-school just messes with people's mind. Some way more than others, but these experiences will make you stronger. Your old & out-of-touch dad doesn't know much about today's teens, but I do know that skipping highschool will cause problems for you later on and you'll regret it. Sure some people are hugely successful without HS-diplomas, but that's not the norm. Don't drop out. Talk me or your mom about the issues. We might not be able to fix it but talking about things help and perhaps we have a similar story to share about our school experiences."
Sidenote: I don't know if this was a Nigerian-culture thing or just me and/or my parents, but when I was growing up the concept that I could drop out of highschool or even not go to college never entered my mind. It was mandatory from the get-go. In fact, it wasn't until my 2nd year in college when I noticed some people missing & asked around that it fully dawned on me - less than 100% of the people in my highschool graduated and went to college.
Could be that my dad's dad was a teacher, so education was a huge thing.
There is some very good thinking in this thread, and maybe there are some really good answers to your questions. For a fast answer:
For algebra, that's easy: I'll show you how that works right away. Basically you are doing the same arithmetic you've already done for years but are doing it with letters instead of specific numbers, that is, with 'variables'. Here's how a 'variable' works: There is a number. Call it x. Now, let's see what we can say about x. Suppose we are told that
2x + 3 = 9
Now the equality will remain if we subtract 3 from both sides, so let's do that and get
2x = 6
Now the equality will remain if we divide both sides by 2. So, let's do that and get
x = 3
Or we could have been told that
ax + b = c
Then, similarly
x = (c - b)/a
That's the main idea in first year high school algebra.
For literature, you already know a lot about it and like it a lot. Why? Mostly 'literature', say, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Dickens to the present is 'storytelling'; nearly all of movies and most of TV is storytelling; and you have no trouble understanding and liking a lot of movies and TV shows, right? For Shakespeare, if you can't read the original (tough to do if only because it's in Old English that would get a grade of F today due to bad grammar), just read the appropriate Cliff Notes or some such that just clearly explains, no doubt from experts, just what the heck is supposed to be going on in Shakespeare. Maybe the guy who wrote Cliff Notes was the last guy who actually read the original Shakespeare? Maybe not, but Cliff Notes are a much easier start than the original. Cliff Notes are easy, and it would be tough to get that much out of the original on your own. Using Cliff Notes is not cheating and, instead, is just making good use of a library or bookstore -- standard smart work.
'Literature' is mostly a case of 'art', and that is mostly
'the communication or interpretation of human experience or emotion'. So, it's about humans and especially their 'experiences' and their emotions, heavily from their 'experiences'. Does literature actually tell you a lot about people? Well, sometimes there are still no better substitutes, but now commonly can get much more solid information from, broadly, 'clinical psychology'.
'Storytelling' can be regarded as an 'ancient Greek mind trick' because it was the ancient Greeks who, apparently first, discovered that the main techniques of 'storytelling', which maybe now we can call 'formula fiction', are a sure fire way to get and hold the attention of an audience. So, sure, TV dramas use those techniques to keep people watching long enough to see the ads.
Why Shakespeare? Because, while maybe you will like it, lots of other people do like it, and for the rest of your life you will be expected to know some of the main points and quotes from Shakespeare or be regarded as 'uneducated'.
Anything actually useful in Shakespeare? Mostly we have better sources now, but sort of: There's a lot in Shakespeare about how humans feel about various parts of life; so can learn something about humans. Can see a lot of bad or dumb behavior from humans, disloyalty, deception, manipulation, self-deception, etc.; again, generally we have better sources now, but, say, Lady Macbeth was one nasty woman. For a good, short introduction to Lady Macbeth, sure, just use the Internet and, sure again, Wikipedia, say,
If you like movies, then with some help from Cliff Notes and the Internet, you can like some Shakespeare. Really, Shakespeare is some of what they had instead of movies long before movies. You enjoy movies; enjoy some Shakespeare.
Literature, mostly just storytelling, is simpler than one might guess. So, usually there is a 'protagonist'; that is the main character in the story. Commonly the story starts out introducing this character in a way that makes him seem real and likable. Then, BOOM, somehow suddenly the protagonist gets a problem of some kind. Now as a reader we get concerned about this character and what happens next, that is, we 'identify' with the character (ancient Greek mind trick). We don't want to walk out after the first one third of the movie, right? So, the story has 'captured our interest'. Or the story has a 'hook' to capture the reader's interest.
Then we get to see how the protagonist handles the problem. At the end the protagonist is usually successful solving the problem. In cowboy movies, the protagonist, say, the Lone Ranger, gets the bad guys. In a lot of movies, e.g., 'Back to School', he gets the girl. So, usually at the end the protagonist is successful solving his problem and the reader or audience is left happy because the audience 'identified' with the protagonist.
For a lot on how to write such stories, see, from an expert, say,
>When homeschooling is workable, going to school is often still a better aspect exactly because having a huge amount of experience with both the good and the bad of social settings is incredibly valuable as an adult (and that most adults have such experience is one of the main reasons adult society does tend to be less nasty IMO - people get fed up with it).
No, the most capable students should be homeschooled if you have the opportunity. They'll end up better-adjusted and will be able to learn more material more thoroughly.
>No, the most capable students should be homeschooled if you have the opportunity
I disagree. Your mileage may vary, but i was homeschooled and the end of elementary and beginning of jr high. It was absolutely devastating to me socially. Socialization is honestly the most valuable thing i learned in high school.
I honestly don't think that you can learn that many adults are horrible people without high school, and at least in high school there is limited damage that can be done, say, economically (of course there is always, on rare occurrences, and god forbid, potentially fatal emotional harm).
I sadly think that it may be that the younger these kids learn about society, the better. Humans are evolutionary beings, we have innate desires and drives, many of which are extremely anti-social. The sooner we learn that the better in my opinion.
A compromise solution is to combine homeschooling with deep involvement in other social activities like sports, bands, choirs, church youth groups, boy/girl scouts (or other similar things), etc. Homeschooling really does have advantages, and I hope its possible to overcome its disadvantages.
Well, as you allude to, I don't think there's a general solution; even a bunch of school teachers who are all different people are likely to have come from a group with fairly homogenous views. I suspect some parents who homeschool do it because they can teach to their own biases, while some do it without awareness of the problem, and others actively attempt to find ways to expose their children to things outside their biases. Those in the first and third groups probably think their way is better than the imperfect delivery of government-mandated biases (for better or worse).
What's wrong with the American society? You can be the country of awesomeness and freedom and entrepreneurship, and at times you also have those weird customs like bullying at school.
So beware game creators: This topic will be "understood" by other European cultures but it will not match what they live at school. For example we keep watching movies like Back to the Future where Marty gets bullied, or others with baby showers and popular girls dressed in pink, but it doesn't match any experience we live here.
About bullying in France: I didn't have any. No physical violence, except once on the beach, so pretty much out of school. I'm pretty sure most French people have never seen a wedgie or a swirlie. I don't even know how to translate those into French. We probably don't have a word for "bully".
Ok, we do have the word "racket". But this is only about stealing. And even in this instance... we use the English word.
So I'd say: Don't lose hope. Society doesn't have to be tough on children. You can change it somehow.
In my opinion, this is key to all of this.
I don't have those bad experiences and can't understand where all these problems come from.
In my experience, from a country which is not usa, kids and teenagers are perfectly capable of making new friends constantly, sometimes they slowly stop hanging around with some of them, occasionally they get into a fight about some specific situation but they forget the day after, maybe they don't get along with somebody or whatever, some friendships last for less than a year and some last forever. But all of this without the drama and the suffering everybody is mentioning here.
So I can't understand when some say "that's life", because that's not life and saying so stops everybody from looking for an alternative.
When I was a kid and later a teenager everybody used to tell me "enjoy your time in school (and later in college), cause once you are out of college your happiest days are behind". That was, in essence, wrong. But it was true in many senses. And that's how it should be everywhere. We should put every effort needed to make it so.
Well, that was certainly from 'I was never bullied' to 'bullying doesn't exist in Europe' in less than 2.8 seconds.
If you'll pardon me for being rather blunt, it's exactly this sort of snooty French uninformed bullshit that gives your country its reputation of arrogant holier than thou know-it-alls.
Bullying is a major problem across Europe, as recognized by the European Commission (and most everybody else in 2014), and a lot of effort has been spend the last 20 years to combat it. Estimates range from 10 to 30 percent of children being bullied at some point in their initial education (that's roughly 'anything before university'). But don't take my word for it, obviously - just 2 minutes of googling could have told you so. And while you're at it, just 20 more minutes will give you not only a much deeper consideration for the problem, but also some chilling examples of lives across the world being ruined by a, for all intents and purposes, emerging behaviour.
What is true though, is France's reputation for its denial of the existence of it (because well, you guys buried all social inequalities after you chopped off the heads of your last kings, right?) and the resulting cognitive dissonance regarding all things bullying. To be fair though, your governments have started recognizing and acting on it a number of years ago (even if it was years after most other member states, but hey, there are plenty of other things that other members states were later than France to adopt, so I'm not harping on that). But apparently not everybody has gotten 'le memo' yet - because well, you were never bullied, so it doesn't exist in Europe, right?
Oh, and because apparently I need to teach you your own language, the word is 'harcelement'.
(for context, I'm not an American, and also this comment is probably more vitriolic than it should be, but hey - I've reached the breaking point for nationalistic nonsense and 'my experience is x, therefore x is universal' idiocy on HN, and this post happened to combine them in the most obnoxious way possible).
My personal experience with US high school as an exchange student is that there was a much higher pressure on being "cool" and "popular", than back home, to a great detrimental effect on the social environment. Students were being unfriendly and mean to each other for no other apparent reason than to climb the social ladder. It also seemed like it was a goal to be disgusting - with indoor spitting, food-fights and generally gross behavior. Not only kids, but also weak teachers were bullied. Reciprocally, some teachers bullied weak students to an extent I consider clearly unprofessional. And god forbid if you were gay or something (this was in the mid-nineties, so a while back now).
How refreshening it was to return to my native high school after that year! Although it had is problem too, at least the norm among student was to be nice to each other. Being "cool" was certainly a thing, but students generally weren't obsessed about it. I am generally nostalgic about my high school days, except the year in the US.
This is just my personal anecdote, and is of course ludicrous to say that "bullying doesn't exist in Europe", but I cannot help but wondering whether my experience fit into a pattern. Watching American teenage dramas, it's just too uncannily like what I observed myself.
Hi roel_v, you're assuming I'm arrogant because I'm French, and it is not nice because I was careful to also praise the upsides of both US and France.
You're also too keen on assuming I like social inequalities. In fact, the place I grew up safe from violence was a Catholic high school: They amount to 20% of French schools and cost €800 per year, compared to the $24000 it costs in Australia. Catholic school are even careful to have hallal meals and the vice manager of mine was muslim. I'm telling there is no discrimintation on race, religion or money here. I'd capture more truth with "People from public schools just hate to be krelboynes" in lieu of all discriminations I hear.
I like Klapaucius' comment because it emphasizes more on a "user story", and it tells us much more than statistics: Inuit people have 27 different words for snow, and we don't have a translation for "this guy is a bully", "wedgie" or "swirlie". "Harceleur" isn't colloquial for schools.
So when one makes a video game about it, he has to take care of culture and markets.
Well that my post wasn't nice is I think indisputable, but I wasn't saying that you're arrogant because you're French, just that the arrogance exhumed by your post reminds me of more often observed behaviour of your fellow countrymen. But let's not dwell on that - it would be silly of me to claim that something in the ink of your passports influences your behaviour.
I'm also not sure how I suggested you like social inequalities - if anything, I'm more inclined to think that you dislike them so much, that you deny their existence in cases where there obviously are. Apart from Catholic schools not costing 25k in Australia (I'm not even sure what the relevance of that is, but I know for a fact that the Catholic secondary school I went to a fundraiser for last year in Adelaide costs around 1000 AUD a year, and other Catholic schools in the greater Adelaide area cost the same; figures that are corroborated by the data I can find online for the rest of Australia). You seem to basically be denying that there is racism, or discrimination of muslims, in France? Are you serious? Because if that is what you're arguing, based on 'a vice principal was a muslim, so there is no discrimination', then I don't even know where to start in refuting you.
Your further argument is even more laughable and not only that, but plain wrong. You seem to be saying that the existence of words in a language indicates something intricate about the culture or society in which that language is used. That Inuit have 27 (or 30, or 50, or 100's) of words for the same thing is plain wrong, and the linguistic debate about what a 'word' means and how that relates to the Inuit language is not very relevant here (but you might want to start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow and http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/there-... ). What is certain though is that the premise you derive from it, doesn't have merit.
So pray tell, what then makes your assertion of 'we don't have bullies because we don't have a word for it' more valid than e.g. my assertion 'the French are in denial about bullying because they don't even have a word for it'? (Apart from that I still don't agree with you on that point - there are plenty of ways French newspapers manage to express the concept every time another suicide because of bullying is in the news).
What enrages me most (well, not enrage, just annoys enough to spend 10 minutes to type this), is that instead of saying 'yeah maybe I kinda mis-expressed reality by making generalizations from what is probably a myopic point of observation', you basically make it even worse by saying 'not only do we not have bullying, we don't have racism or any other form of discrimination either'! In a country where millions are living in banlieues, and which has been officially sanctioned for the forced expulsion of Roma, just to name a few issues!
Not saying we don't have any. I'm saying this form is different in the US. We have racaille, but it's a very different form.
You're reading my comments with the worst mind, max out with pseudo-quotes like "we don't have bullying, we don't have racism", then you say you're "enraged" by what I said.
We do have the answer, it's just unfashionable: "Who said life was fair?". There are plenty of things we experience as humans that aren't good, but the tradeoff is generally worth it. Having a job is one example.
I agree with your last sentence. Unfortunately, I don't think it's that much better to tell them "It's okay, it will be better when you grow up." While it's true that they won't experience customary physical violence or frequent overt verbal abuse in an adult workplace, they most likely will run into bullies. Those bullies will have the same motivations as school bullies and the solution should be much the same: find a way to either fight them or avoid them.
I couldn't agree more. If a child is bullied for a specific reason (not conforming to society's perceptions or expectations) then there is no guarantee that that reason will go away unless society changes (which tends to happen slowly, if at all). Unfortunately, you may find situations were it is hard to either fight or avoid, and you need a more subtle solution. This has happened to me in college and in my internship.
The main difference, I think, is that it's way easier to avoid bullies as an adult.
If there's a bully among your friends, find new friends. If there's a workplace bully, find a new job, or better yet take it up with HR and make him find a new job. If there's a bully who works at a store, don't go to that store. Even in a really bad case, like the bully is on the local police force, you can move to a new city.
There's no adult situation comparable to being forced to spend every weekday in the same building as hundreds of people whose company you don't choose. Except joining the military, I suppose, but that just reinforces how different it is from regular adult life.
That's true, and adults can get trapped. But it's not the norm, and even then, there's always the option of quitting your job and going out to live in the woods or something. It's not necessarily a good option, but even having a potential out that's a bad option can make a big difference, mentally.
>Children should be told that being a schoolkid is a weird kind of environment, the like of which they probably won't experience as an adult. Most workplaces don't involve customary physical violence, or even frequent overt verbal abuse.
on the other side, if school wasn't that hard than college/workplace wouldn't feel that easy by comparison. It it like taking very tight shoes off ...
We can indeed draw strength and well-being from a having a good cry. Sometimes you have to break down in order to come back stronger. But this comes at a price: breaking down is usually still a setback in other ways, and so its value has to be weighed against the situation. There are times when we truly cannot afford to do it.
I think that this game's death-concept is actually a decent model for this. You suffer a setback, but you ultimately come back in a better state than you were in just before it happened, and although you have to face once again some of the problems you'd solved before, you've got the tools to do that. You can still only suffer so many of these before the problem starts to get much more serious, and there are times when suffering even one can be catastrophic. But if you persevere and handle your emotions with care, you can make it through.
From what I've gathered before from some reading on adolescent bullying:
Bullies (not bully-victims):
* A transient, difficult-to-predict population, and perhaps more elegantly thought of as a social position than an individual propensity.
* Bullies generally don't stay bullies, and it's difficult to know who will become a bully.
* Bullying is also an audience-related activity, and is often performed in front of others -- the "bystander" population is in on it, and may provide substantial social rewards to bullies. Even victims may admire bullies.
* Bullies experience improvement in social popularity.
* Bullying events tend to involve a group of bullies against singular or fewer victims.
* The stereotypes that bullies are sociopaths / psychopaths, come from abusive home situations, are anxious or insecure, do not persuasively conform to observations.
* Bullies experience protective effects against loneliness, social anxiety, stress, and some other things. They do better than the normal population on these aspects.
Victims:
* Are a stable population, and may perhaps be more elegantly thought of as an individual propensity, rather than a social position where people move in and out of.
* One study estimates that the victim population constitutes about 10% of the school population.
* A small handful of studies with admitted methodological difficulties finds that those who are bullied at school are also significantly more likely to be bullied on online social networks.
"The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life sense."
Except for the rest of the world that doesn't live up to your, let's be honest, pretty high, political standers required to enter your social group.
"i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense."
If someone wants to be friends with you, knew this is what you valued, and yet didn't 'qualify'; their ability to enter your social group becomes seriously vague and very hard to navigate.
"It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you."
Ever ponder the possibility that there were, or are, some people out there that just can't figure out your social politics and are maybe confused and lonely wondering what it is about them that you don't like?
I really don't understand your point. I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That doesn't mean i'm out to actively ruin someone else's day.
If we look at the issue rationally, it's an issue of coordination and sorting. People that have mutual kinship can improve their position with people with similar interests. If you have some sort of "objective coolness" in your theory of friendship, then you may run into issues with constantly shooting yourself in the foot by only pursuing friends that happen to in the upper tiers of your coolness bell curve, and their will always be the paradox of choice, but i'm not really sure why i'm not supposed to have preferences when it comes to the people i associate with.
High school, for me at least, was a fairly dark time in my life. If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college.
Bullies, at least the best ones, don't leave you alone. They don't leave you alone if your confident, they don't leave you alone if you're hurt. They just don't care. They have either yet to learn empathy, or are simply sociopaths and you're simply a fixture in their lives, entertainment.
Now, assuming this is the case, which it was for me. You have a choice. Make a game that is a bit dark, existential, cathartic, or simply make a game that tells us to believe the nonsense that we are told to tell ourselves: be confident, give your bully the "i'm not a chicken, you're a turkey" speech, excel and you'll get respect.
I think if you want to make a truly interesting game, ignore the uplifting nonsense and go for the catharsis. It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you.
If i were going to make a game like this i would have aspects like:
* Having a good cry shouldn't be in game death, it should be a power up.
* Being vulnerable and hurt and carrying on regardless should be strength.
When i started making friends in upper level classes in college, i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense. We had mutual respect, and that was that. The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life since.