[Previous entry: "Hey Seamonkeys! Z1!"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "hygende museum"]

04/13/2004 Entry: "Armadillo"

Welcome back folks.

My first classes of the semester have gone about as smoothly as was expected. I still haven't hung out the promised sign up list mentioned above. I will try to do that Wednesday. In the meantime, anyone still interested in that course should contact me via my form mail (the contact button on the left).

In other news, regarding one particular "grown up" class off campus, I did a little "research" regarding the nature of the "Guerteltier".

I had no idea what a "belt animal" was in English, so I played a round of 20 questions as to what kind of animal it was supposed to be. Is it a real animal? Yes. Is it warm-blooded? They didn't know. One student thought that they lay eggs. We established the fact that the animal in question did have a hard shell, but one student insisted that "it's like a turtle, but with long legs". My first guess would have been armadillo, but then I wasn't sure. I could go on, but I'll spare you the details. Below are some children's websites that put us in the picture.
here
and
here.
So, long story short, it's an armadillo, a kissing cousing to the anteater and the sloth. That's good company.

The whole affaire does make me wonder, though. Traditionally, we think of taking walks in the woods with gramps and he points out and names all the different plants. At night, Grandma identifies all the constellations. To a point, the stereotype rings blissfully true. Yet as time goes by I find that many older folks--several generations distanced from myself-- are embarrasingly unclear on some of the simplest facts and notions there are in natural sciences like astronomy and biology. For example:

--Warm vs cold blooded

--The difference between planet and star; also difference between solar system and galaxy

--The stegosaurus has two brains

--Penguins can't fly. Nor do they live on the same hemisphere as the polar bears

--Mice is the plural for mouse, not the name for a very small species of mouse

--Man and dinosaur never existed at the same time

I'm not making this up, y'all. These are real things that at some point in my life I overheard old people having problems with. These are things that I knew when I was seven.

But I hesitate to judge. While knowledge is power, Frank says "information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom," which sums up a very important pillar for anyone who works in the trenches of education.

Still, really, folks. What kinda doofus can't deduce that an armadillo is warm blooded? Sheesh.