Dec
4

Eve Online: Cut Short?

12 Comments

Hang with me for just a second as I work through this….

Warning: Canadian anger incoming ;)

Sooooo….I have lost complete faith in the public school system here in Canada. Don’t get me wrong….if your kid is “average” and fits within the public systems mold of learning, then they will be fine. Also, if your kid has behavior problems or ADD then you are also well taken care of. However, if you’re kid does not learn in the way that is supported by the public system, you’re screwed. It’s not like when we went to school in the 80’s when core skills like Math, Writing and Reading were the order of the day….no. School today is more of a touchy-feely version of it’s former self. Also, you can no longer fail in school…because as we all know, failure is baaaad. For kids who do not fit in that public learning template, the school’s solution is to wait until they are a special case, i.e. two full grades behind, and then act to do something about it. Unacceptable!

Enter our 8 year old daughter. She is now in grade 3 and not learning. Her math skills are full of gaps and most of our evenings (…before I go brain dead and play MMOs…) are spent teaching her stuff that should have been taught during the 6-7 hours that we had her in the public system. She doesn’t know how to multiply (…none of the kids do apparently…). She’s regressing on reading and comprehension. She knows the full biography of Shania Twain which I guess is educational (…yes, this was something she was taught in school…in great detail).

So…we’re in the process of putting her in a Private school that will actually teach her.

I know that most of my readers are my cousins to the south in the US and really don’t understand how blasphemous it is for a Canadian to do this. In this country, to do this means we are “rich, elitist snobs”. This does not fit the current Canadian philosophy which is, “everyone is the same…so get in line. We, the government shall take care of you”. For some reason, it’s ok to invest in your retirement but not ok to invest in your child’s education or, heaven forbid, your own health. In fact, I’m sure the Mounties will be knocking at my door and taking me away in the black helicopters with the beaver decal on it.

OK…so what does this have to do with MMOs? Cost. I’m subscribed to about four and I may need to cut back due to the fact that private school is not cheap. Unfortunately, Eve Online will probably be the first to go. Unclear on WoW or EQ2….but I don’t want to get rid of either of those ones for obvious reasons. I think if I scrap the two Eve accounts then I should be good.

Needs to be done.

D out.

Posted in Blah blah
12 Comments Posted by Darren

12 Responses to "Eve Online: Cut Short?"

  • Nicola says:
    December 4, 2008 at 11:20 am

    GAH ! Good luck buddy !

    As a fellow Canadian, I understand your pain! I live in Montreal, and my brother is studying to be a teacher in high school. Let me tell you that most teachers are also very displeased with the “new educational program”.

    Everyone is pissed off, but it seems nothing is happening to resolve this.

    Anyways, everyone is more concerned about the economics of Canada than our educational system right now… I’ll probably go for the private school too, at least, until he gets in high school … then, I’ll see… it’s sad tho…

  • Cutting Costs… « Random Ogre Thoughts says:
    December 4, 2008 at 11:43 am

    [...] pm Filed under: D&D Insider, Games, Random Ogre Thoughts Darren isn’t the only one cutting costs. The company I work for laid off a fair number of people world wide not too long ago. I had heard [...]

  • Brendan says:
    December 4, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    Same south of the border, so to speak. Our son is 9, also had to deal with newfangled crap math in the public schools, so we pulled him and went private — where they actually use textbooks from the 1980s, because the texts made since then are all crap, basically. The education establishment sucks, to be honest, and is about teachers rather than kids. It is a kind of national heresy in Canada to admit that public education may be flawed, but it’s only sensible to realize that, and do the right thing for your daughter. At the end of the day, that’s the real responsibility you have.

    As for the MMO issue, certainly *many* people are cutting back on a lot of things, and MMO subs are one area likely to be cut. It will probably be good for you to have less to focus on as well. EVE will survive … although tough times right now personally for everyone in Iceland.

  • Sara Pickell says:
    December 4, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    Well to be perfectly honest, if you’re going to have to take time off an MMO, EVE would be the obvious choice. Especially if you have any of those incredo long level Vs to work on, then you can just set those and if you ever get the chance to come back, you’ll still have done something worthwhile.

    I’m no fan of the public school systems here way south of that particular border, but still… Shania Twain? Couldn’t they have at least picked someone… I don’t know… important!?

  • H00LiGAN says:
    December 4, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Maybe send your daugther to US schools! Okay, that would be cruel, but my wife is a HS teacher and she has so many personalised learning plans to teach, it’s silly. There is no average in the US.

  • Sizz says:
    December 4, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    Seriously dude, keep EVE Online! It’s way better than anything else out there.

  • Sizz says:
    December 4, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    to Sara:

    Eve-O’s no longer like that. CCP just changed it so that you have to maintain a paid subscription to have your skills train when you’re not logged in. I think they give you a grace period of three days of being nonpaid and then the skills stop training.

    But still, dude, keep EVE-O if you keep anything.

  • Blue Kae says:
    December 4, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    It has always seems odd to me that more companies don’t use subscription options as a differentiator. Besides Guild Wars being free with paid expansions, and LoTRO’s lifetime (which I have) membership, there are no publishers that really experiment with subscription options.

  • wilhelm2451 says:
    December 4, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    I feel your pain. We moved to a new neighborhood before kindergarten to be close to a good school and my wife does not work so she can volunteer at the school and be in the classroom helping out… a lot. This means she is not earning to help pay the bills, which in effect ends up costing our budget about the same as private school. And then there is the heavier mortgage burden. The joy of Silicon Valley.

    On the other hand, my wife is a force to be reckoned with and already has considerable influence at school as well as being completely immersed in the lessons and lesson plans for our daughters class, which heavily influences the work we do at home with our daughter to help her along.

    Oddly enough, with the whole “no child left behind” thing, the “nobody fails” mentality that was very much the hallmark of the Calif. public schools in my youth has fallen by the wayside. On the flip side, the classroom curriculum seems to be very much driven by passing the tests. While that does put more focus on fundamentals, it seems to fall a bit short at times.

    I hope the private school thing works out for your daughter. It is hard to bounce back from being behind.

  • Xelous says:
    December 5, 2008 at 10:15 am

    I actually find myself cocking my head to one side with the same expression as a dog being shown a card trick…. Kids not being taught, this is new to you? I actually know my education in the UK system from 1982 until 2000 was horribly useless, they didn’t teach me maths, literature, writing or even common sense things. I’ve taught myself immensly since finishing a Bachelors Degree in the Millennium Tide of bull shit that was the Uk Education system.

    But, I then did the daft thing, and dated a school teacher for several years, she was teaching kids your daughters age. But she was as thick as two short planks herself.

    “Do you teach them trigonometry?” “No”
    “How about times tables?” “ha, no”
    “What about writing, do they still have to write out tables of letters laboriously to perfect their hand writing.” “You must be joking.”
    “So what do you teach them?” “They read their books on Europe”.
    “And this teaches them what?” “About buying oranges”
    “So aside from those pupils destined for a career in orange aquisition what does this enable any of them to do?” “Aqui-what?”

    As for Eve Accounts, too bad, I’m currently finding two wow accounts, and three eve accounts. And dabbling with the free to play “Navyfield”…. I’m glad I can leave my Eve accounts training though, makes it all the more easy… ding 150 million SP between them btw….. so proud.

  • Jalann says:
    December 5, 2008 at 10:47 am

    I’m in the Southern US. My wife and I are planning to HomeSchool our kids. Our Education system isn’t much better in the US. A lot of our problem is that people think throwing money at the school system works. Parents also aren’t taking the responsibility for their kids education.

    If you really want to read a great book, more of a 75 page pamphlet, about the consequences of poor education, then check out “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis.

  • pixiestyx says:
    December 5, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    could try looking at montosori schools, my duaghter is thriving in one and just blows are minds at age 4 with some of the stuff she comes out with

Leave a Comment