No, seriously. Here’s the situation. My youngest gets sent home with a book each day to help with his reading; and yesterday’s book involved a bear who had a magic pot. He’d say a phrase, get a pot full of maple syrup, then say another phrase (“Thank you, pot,” or something like that) and the pot would stop making syrup. So the bear’s sister gets the pot, utters the first phrase, but doesn’t remember the second phrase. The pot overflows the town until the first bear can show up and turn off the flow.
So, clearly, this book is designed to teach two lessons:
- Always say ‘thank you.’ Obviously, this is good advice. It’s also only the exoteric meaning of the text.
- The esoteric meaning of the text is Do not call up what you cannot put down. In this particular case, the lesson here is “Never fire off a continuous-action magic spell without knowing the shutdown procedures.” Which is also good advice, but surely a bit advanced for a seven year old? I haven’t even started up with explaining that concept for my oldest kid, and he’s almost done with elementary school entirely.
I feel that I should have been consulted on the lesson plan. Or somebody like me. Either would do.
Moe Lane
PS: When I say ‘literally’ about something, by God I mean it.
So Common Core is ripping off Norse fairy tales now?
Or, heck, Disney.
May I draw your attention to Bearmageddon, a post-apocalyptic web comic by the artist and editor behind Axe Cop, but instead of zombies, it’s bears?
The Space Whale Aesop I draw from this is: don’t give magical equipment to bears.
It’s a good thing you are involved in politics where you have a platform to speak out about-
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Oh, right.
Heh.
Surely mentioning that you favor a given position – teaching kids how to think, not just providing a stack-o-facts to memorize – wouldn’t run *too* far afoul of the ban ..
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Mew
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p.s. Sorcerers Apprentice had the same double-lesson .. “do the work yourself” up top, “don’t call up what you can’t put down” lurking underneath .. kids who saw it caught the first, and only realized they’d caught the second after the fact.
For your lesson number 2, showing the kids the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Fantasia would be a graphic demonstration of the principle.