He’s just being honest. I generally got good grades in school but if somebody (teachers, my parents, or pretty much any adult) came off as acting superior and told me that I should do/say/believe something because “I’m smarter than you and I said so,” I would instinctively get defensive and want to argue with them just on principle. Heck, I’m 31 and I still have that gut reaction with people like managers and bosses, though I have learned by now to suppress the urge and think things out before actually speaking.
If you want to teach somebody something you must first get them to actually want to listen to you and then you have to explain what you want them to learn in terms that they are comfortable with. I spent most of my evenings this past week helping an old friend with her algebra homework for an online class she’s taking to get a promotion at work. She’s quite intelligent but the way she thinks isn’t conducive to abstract math, so I managed to achieve a breakthrough with a metaphor comparing algebra to carving a sculpture (it makes sense in context, trust me). Granted, she started by asking me for help and that meant we were cooperating to start with, but still you have to explain something in terms a person can understand if you expect them to learn it. Kevin clearly understands this.
I’m not sure he’s actually aware that he understands this, though. After all, he’s getting a C in Homeroom. I’ve known a few people a lot like him: if they actually managed to figure out how to use the intelligence they don’t seem to know they possess they’d be dangerous.
@Flushmaster: Considering that Kevin’s Emerald Gauntlet powers depend on creativity to be used effectively, he may view the sort of structured learning that modern schools require to be an impediment. He’d rather learn how to do cool stuff from Coach Rockslide, not realizing that he could also learn how to maximize his potential from Ms. Kyle (his homeroom teacher) or Mr. Alloy (his science teacher).
Not to mention that Kevin has a very short attention span and is more likely to respond to a threat by blasting it with his Gauntlet, even when there would be other, more effective ways. For example, during the fight with Charles Brigman, Kevin mostly zapped at Charles, who is a teleporter! He would have been better off creating a hedge maze, or a series of Gauntlet constructs in various places, to limit Charles’ movement when he teleported in “blind” and to be able to punch Charles when he teleported close to a construct. Instead Kevin alerted Charles to the PS238 kids’ presence and spent most of the fight getting in Jenny’s way or blasting Ron by mistake. By contrast Alejandro, Julie and Ron, under Moon Shadow’s guidance, were able to throw Charles off balance and knock him out, but not before Charles teleported most of the kids across the country.
That being said, I think Kevin is a very intelligent kid. He came up with the idea of “taking a third option” when the Singularity was demanding Kevin and Julie fight to the death and his comments here about learning are very insightful, for a nine year old. But he takes after his dad a little too much; like Emerald Gauntlet Sr., Kevin is very headstrong. That’s a good trait for mastering the Emerald Ones’ technology, but not a good trait when it comes to finding solutions to problems.
eh it didn’t learn everything, it was created knowing almost every thing. in my opinion creativity comes from finding an answer when there doesn’t appear to be one. if you know as much as the singularity most problems it has faced, it probably already knew a solution.
The Singularity can’t leave its home dimension physically; maybe it can send its robot drones to other dimensions, but it doesn’t want to conquer the Argosians and Emerald Ones, only teach them that their behavior will lead to their undoing. Since they haven’t learned the lesson so far, it has resorted to keeping the invaders out, which has been effective; the Argosians and Emerald Ones can’t travel to the Singularity’s home dimension and have been sending patsies to try to work around the ban.
Maybe after years of repelling invasion after invasion, the Singularity concluded that the probability of convincing the Argosians and Emerald Ones to stop fighting was too remote to bother anymore, and it refreshed its “Solitaire” browser. The Singularity does have the ability to learn and adapt. In fact, maybe it will learn more from trying to teach the Argosian and Emerald One P.O.W.’s then they might learn from it. 🙂
What if the cookbook is titled “To Serve Man,” and the first chapter is how to use humans to power robot sentinels. Alternatively, what if the concept of chocolate is different for an extraterrestrial robot than a human? What if chocolate is code for an engineering marvel so amazing that its name can neither be written or spoken. Where an engineer would hear “cold fusion,” a child hears “chocolate,” or something to that effect.
It doesn’t specify whether that’s going to war to acquire the recipes for good use, or for bad as perhaps a weapon, or simply to destroy some evil recipes for galactic destruction. Mind you my autocorrect feature also suggests they might be useful as evil source of galactic distraction. Mmm chocolate.
I dunno, but given that the events in “Nodwick” occurred in the “PS238” ‘verse’s past, it could very well be. But since The Singularity never gave out the recipe, we’ll never know…
No ones mentioned the future story expansion point – what mistakes did his race make.
Also, to effectively teach the unwilling, you must expose them to opportunities that provide an experience to learn from and a motivator to learn it that they will engage with.
SPOILER: It was never mentioned again, beyond that single throwaway line. Presumably they destroyed themselves in a war or some other way, and the Singularity was all that was left of their culture. We also never learn how well the Singularity’s attempts to play kindergarten teacher with the P.O.W.’s goes. If PS238 ever resumes publishing, I can’t imagine that Aaron Williams wouldn’t revisit the Singularity; its too awesome a character not to make a repeat appearance, the same way Mental Nucleus keeps showing up.
It’s really difficult to write a character who is more intelligent than its author, let alone one as far beyond what its author is as this one claims. I expect that Aaron really does *not* want to return here.
Also, were Aaron to properly return here, it would probably include setting up some kind of information commerce that would end up changing everything on Earth, which tends to be disaster in comics where status quo is king and a big problem in just about everything else.
Of course, there is also the alternate option, which would be to show that the Singularity was, in fact, not nearly as smart as it thought it was, it was just programmed with “all of” the knowledge of the civilization that created it, and the lack of creativity it’s shown was in fact not at all a fluke, and it’s not nearly as interesting as we were lead to believe.
The biggest reason why I suspect Aaron won’t return here is the gap between those two options – of the Singularity changing everything and turning out to be a bit of a dunderhead with a large knowledgebase – is actually quite small. It’s possible to try the former and end up with the latter, giving you the worst of both options.
The Singularity never actually revealed its secret recipe for the greatest chocolate chip cookies in the universe, not even to Aaron Williams! But Aaron did receive several recipes from readers, and he published one of them in the letters column of issue #46 of PS238. Sadly the letters column wasn’t printed in Volume 9 of PS238. 🙁
If you’re talking reel books, and ignoring an initial “The” as you did with “Dancing Wu Li Masters” then Hawkings “The Beginning of Time” is a good B for your list…
Given both sides are behaving like children, input from actual children might be useful.
I approve of and fully endorse this comment.
yes!
Showing Kevin isn’t quite as dense as he’s often depicted.
And yet he’s still getting a ‘C’ in Homeroom.
He’s just being honest. I generally got good grades in school but if somebody (teachers, my parents, or pretty much any adult) came off as acting superior and told me that I should do/say/believe something because “I’m smarter than you and I said so,” I would instinctively get defensive and want to argue with them just on principle. Heck, I’m 31 and I still have that gut reaction with people like managers and bosses, though I have learned by now to suppress the urge and think things out before actually speaking.
If you want to teach somebody something you must first get them to actually want to listen to you and then you have to explain what you want them to learn in terms that they are comfortable with. I spent most of my evenings this past week helping an old friend with her algebra homework for an online class she’s taking to get a promotion at work. She’s quite intelligent but the way she thinks isn’t conducive to abstract math, so I managed to achieve a breakthrough with a metaphor comparing algebra to carving a sculpture (it makes sense in context, trust me). Granted, she started by asking me for help and that meant we were cooperating to start with, but still you have to explain something in terms a person can understand if you expect them to learn it. Kevin clearly understands this.
I’m not sure he’s actually aware that he understands this, though. After all, he’s getting a C in Homeroom. I’ve known a few people a lot like him: if they actually managed to figure out how to use the intelligence they don’t seem to know they possess they’d be dangerous.
Algebra Unplugged
Calculus for Cats
Dancing Wu Li Masters
I’m looking for something that starts with a “B.”
@Flushmaster: Considering that Kevin’s Emerald Gauntlet powers depend on creativity to be used effectively, he may view the sort of structured learning that modern schools require to be an impediment. He’d rather learn how to do cool stuff from Coach Rockslide, not realizing that he could also learn how to maximize his potential from Ms. Kyle (his homeroom teacher) or Mr. Alloy (his science teacher).
Not to mention that Kevin has a very short attention span and is more likely to respond to a threat by blasting it with his Gauntlet, even when there would be other, more effective ways. For example, during the fight with Charles Brigman, Kevin mostly zapped at Charles, who is a teleporter! He would have been better off creating a hedge maze, or a series of Gauntlet constructs in various places, to limit Charles’ movement when he teleported in “blind” and to be able to punch Charles when he teleported close to a construct. Instead Kevin alerted Charles to the PS238 kids’ presence and spent most of the fight getting in Jenny’s way or blasting Ron by mistake. By contrast Alejandro, Julie and Ron, under Moon Shadow’s guidance, were able to throw Charles off balance and knock him out, but not before Charles teleported most of the kids across the country.
That being said, I think Kevin is a very intelligent kid. He came up with the idea of “taking a third option” when the Singularity was demanding Kevin and Julie fight to the death and his comments here about learning are very insightful, for a nine year old. But he takes after his dad a little too much; like Emerald Gauntlet Sr., Kevin is very headstrong. That’s a good trait for mastering the Emerald Ones’ technology, but not a good trait when it comes to finding solutions to problems.
Gah, had some sort of editing problem! Sorry about half the post turning into italics. 🙁
Curious how ineffectual/incompetent/unimaginative the Singularity is, considering everything it’s able to do if it puts its mind to it.
eh it didn’t learn everything, it was created knowing almost every thing. in my opinion creativity comes from finding an answer when there doesn’t appear to be one. if you know as much as the singularity most problems it has faced, it probably already knew a solution.
The Singularity can’t leave its home dimension physically; maybe it can send its robot drones to other dimensions, but it doesn’t want to conquer the Argosians and Emerald Ones, only teach them that their behavior will lead to their undoing. Since they haven’t learned the lesson so far, it has resorted to keeping the invaders out, which has been effective; the Argosians and Emerald Ones can’t travel to the Singularity’s home dimension and have been sending patsies to try to work around the ban.
Maybe after years of repelling invasion after invasion, the Singularity concluded that the probability of convincing the Argosians and Emerald Ones to stop fighting was too remote to bother anymore, and it refreshed its “Solitaire” browser. The Singularity does have the ability to learn and adapt. In fact, maybe it will learn more from trying to teach the Argosian and Emerald One P.O.W.’s then they might learn from it. 🙂
….and can we have a copy of your chocolate cookbook?
What if the cookbook is titled “To Serve Man,” and the first chapter is how to use humans to power robot sentinels. Alternatively, what if the concept of chocolate is different for an extraterrestrial robot than a human? What if chocolate is code for an engineering marvel so amazing that its name can neither be written or spoken. Where an engineer would hear “cold fusion,” a child hears “chocolate,” or something to that effect.
It doesn’t specify whether that’s going to war to acquire the recipes for good use, or for bad as perhaps a weapon, or simply to destroy some evil recipes for galactic destruction. Mind you my autocorrect feature also suggests they might be useful as evil source of galactic distraction. Mmm chocolate.
Its talking about a chocolate chip cookie recipe, in fact the best one in the universe. Cookies that would be to die for. 🙂
cookies you could bribe gods with?
I dunno, but given that the events in “Nodwick” occurred in the “PS238” ‘verse’s past, it could very well be. But since The Singularity never gave out the recipe, we’ll never know…
This computer must be female:
She tries to teach a bunch of men, who jsut don’t get it.
Speaking of which, I’m still only hearing this computer in Glad0s’s voice.
To me, no. It’s WAY not “snarky” enough.
I’m hearing Wheatly, myself.
Alan Rickman’s voice, surely.
No ones mentioned the future story expansion point – what mistakes did his race make.
Also, to effectively teach the unwilling, you must expose them to opportunities that provide an experience to learn from and a motivator to learn it that they will engage with.
SPOILER: It was never mentioned again, beyond that single throwaway line. Presumably they destroyed themselves in a war or some other way, and the Singularity was all that was left of their culture. We also never learn how well the Singularity’s attempts to play kindergarten teacher with the P.O.W.’s goes. If PS238 ever resumes publishing, I can’t imagine that Aaron Williams wouldn’t revisit the Singularity; its too awesome a character not to make a repeat appearance, the same way Mental Nucleus keeps showing up.
It’s really difficult to write a character who is more intelligent than its author, let alone one as far beyond what its author is as this one claims. I expect that Aaron really does *not* want to return here.
Also, were Aaron to properly return here, it would probably include setting up some kind of information commerce that would end up changing everything on Earth, which tends to be disaster in comics where status quo is king and a big problem in just about everything else.
Of course, there is also the alternate option, which would be to show that the Singularity was, in fact, not nearly as smart as it thought it was, it was just programmed with “all of” the knowledge of the civilization that created it, and the lack of creativity it’s shown was in fact not at all a fluke, and it’s not nearly as interesting as we were lead to believe.
The biggest reason why I suspect Aaron won’t return here is the gap between those two options – of the Singularity changing everything and turning out to be a bit of a dunderhead with a large knowledgebase – is actually quite small. It’s possible to try the former and end up with the latter, giving you the worst of both options.
The Singularity never actually revealed its secret recipe for the greatest chocolate chip cookies in the universe, not even to Aaron Williams! But Aaron did receive several recipes from readers, and he published one of them in the letters column of issue #46 of PS238. Sadly the letters column wasn’t printed in Volume 9 of PS238. 🙁
drag the apple to the screen….there is no apple. there is only a pig, a tulip, a green orange and a cherry…..and the screen is actually an etchesketch
If you’re talking reel books, and ignoring an initial “The” as you did with “Dancing Wu Li Masters” then Hawkings “The Beginning of Time” is a good B for your list…
Auggghhh… TYPO – it’s “A Brief History of Time”… sorry!
Definitely Piffany’s cookie recipe.