Training day fail

So last week I had a “training day”. It was split into two parts. The first part was theoretical knowledge. What do those little diamonds mean (flammable, toxic, corrosive, critically maims fish, etc etc), why it’s bad to mix acid and alkaline, and why we clean stuff with detergent.
It’s basically forth form (middle high school) science class stuff.

The thing that stuck with me, though, were the cartoons. They’re supposed to be health and safety cartoons, but they were unbelievably infantile. To the point of being condescending.

And me, being… well… me, I shall tell you what I remember about the cartoon. The big health and safety message? Nope.

What I remember most was the character was dressed like a dandy. Later on I asked one of the other girls just in case it was some sort of French cultural reference that I was missing. She giggled, a lot, then said she had no idea but yes it was weird.

But not only that, it was badly animated. This character had a long coat with tails. Not a regular tail coat, two tails, flamin’ ponce.
Anyway, when he was facing to the left, the tails were on the right. When he was facing to the right, the tails were on the left. And when he was facing straight ahead (towards the viewer), those bloody tails were on the right. You have no idea how much that bugged me.

So, yeah. It’s probably not a good idea to give an atypical person a training cartoon aimed at people with the intellect of a ten year old, because that person may see something entirely different than was intended. ;)

I suspect you’re underestimating the intellect of the average ten-year-old there*, but yes. I’ve seen videos like that, and they have the same effect on me.

• Depending on their educational background. There’s a fair chance a ten-year-old hasn’t yet been stultified by typical contemporary secondary “education”…although primary “education” has been heading that way for a while now, perhaps I’m out of date…

hasn’t yet been stultified by typical contemporary secondary “education”

Oh, you mean all that rubbish Truss is saying about her former school, while conveniently neglecting to mention that all of those disastrous cutbacks and such were…while the Tories were in power.

all of those disastrous cutbacks

Not to mention ignorant “Education” ministers interfering with how (& what) teachers are supposed to teach. (Calling them “ignorant” is a charitable interpretation of their behaviour; “malevolent” might be more accurate…)

“malevolent” might be more accurate…

I get the impression that the only thing the Tories hate and fear more than benefits scroungers and foreigners is an educated populace.

We are living through the effects of having poorly educated people being told what to do and how to think by media owned by wealthy people who are living elsewhere.

All that, exactly.

Every time I read mum/dad/kid rather than mother/father/child I am reminded of that. The use of baby-talk to infantilize the population is only part of it.

We are after all the great unwashed they don’t want to educate us.

I am reminded of that.

Not a great example, as there’s a lot of formal and familiar distinction in those words. For instance, I talk about “mom” ¹ but would refer to your “mother”.

¹ I use the American spelling because it more closely resembles my pronunciation, with a “o’h” like the beginning of “mother” rather than an “uh” like the beginning of “mug”.

with a “o’h” like the beginning of “mother” rather than an “uh” like the beginning of “mug”.

Well, that’s nice and confusing to my Kiwi brain when the beginnings of both of those are pronounced identically here!

Yis.