Did you ever feel irrelevant? The other day I gave my students a quiz over element names and symbols. It was a clever story, that I got a copy of from another teacher, about an old western bandit named the gold dust kid. It had references to things like a platinum blond, filling the bad guy full of lead, a plugged nickel, a tin badge, "Hi Ho Silver!", cobalt steel jail bars, etc in which the elements were given as the symbols and they had to fill in the name
(Remember this guy? If you do you are probably close to my age.)
I thought it would be easier for them because of the context. Of course most of them had never heard of the Lone Ranger but they also had no idea about any of the other references. They had no concept of the old west or the Western movie genre. It was all totally lost on them. A culturally and generationally biased test in the extreme.
4 comments:
So hard to get old. I spent the trip from Southern Utah to SLC listening to 50's music and traveling down memory lane. None of my children would ever understand, but my grandchildren would probably enjoy the music.
Interesting idea for a quiz. It may have made it more difficult because they were distracted by the odd references.
I can't imagine not having heard of the Lone Ranger, but I guess Timothy wouldn't have a clue.
Sounds like a great story! I want to hear the rest! I'd get it, I'm afraid.
Great idea, Rich, but as you say if they don't have the frame of reference it's not going to work. I find it interesting, and a little disturbing, that something that is second nature to us is totally foreign to the next generation. I still find it interesting that Wendy and Dylan named their son Marshall Dylan without realizing that those from our generation might find it a little amusing.
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