I feel old...

[Bodhi]

I'm more often surprised by the sheer number of "Twentysomethings" you meet that are boringly adult in the most negative sense of adultness (rigid thinking and conformity as an ideal). So I rarely feel old compared to those people.

[kristof65]

We had an interesting range of age bands at the front desk of RastlCon. We had about 10 years between each band. The things that were common reference for one band were totally unknown by people two bands away. It went in both directions too. Just an observation that has no real point, now that I think about how to summarize it in some fashion. Is anyone else seeing the 10 year age gap?

I've seen it, but I've noticed that how many years the gap is can really depend upon the individuals and where they are, and that it is more likely to be with younger generations not getting the older generation's references. Frex, I used to work at an amusement park in my late 20s. Most of the employees were in their teens. As a result, those of us who were older, like myself and other management types, tended to be in sync with the teenagers a lot more, and get their references, despite anywhere from 7 to 20 year age gaps. They didn't get ours nearly as well. Once I left that work environment and moved to jobs where the number of teenagers was minimal, the gap was more pronounced and obvious.

 

I've also noticed that the gap seems to be more pronounced for the generation in between a parent and their child, too, than it is between the child and parent themselves. I may not get the common references of a 20 year old these days, but I do for my 5 year old, and there is a 38 year difference in age between us. Assuming I attempt to stay interested in his interests, I don't expect that to change.

[Gimp]

Unfortunately the only way to measure how well the material is understood is by .. testing on it.

 

And unless the course is in Applied [insert discipline here] then there's very little way to have a practical exam.

 

I may be stepping on toes here (and quite possibly get this moved to Beekeepers) but instructors can be just as lazy as the students. It's easier to use a general, multiple choice test than it is to make up something that will require time in grading. Subjective tests also lend themselves to debates about grades. Objective ones don't.

 

But we digress from the topic of feeling aged.

 

We had an interesting range of age bands at the front desk of RastlCon. We had about 10 years between each band. The things that were common reference for one band were totally unknown by people two bands away. It went in both directions too. Just an observation that has no real point, now that I think about how to summarize it in some fashion. Is anyone else seeing the 10 year age gap?

Testing is fine, so long as the testing is a tool, and not the goal.

 

That's one of the biggest differences I've seen as I get older. The emphasis moves away from teaching, and focuses on test performance alone. I know a lot of teachers that complain the system isn't letting them really teach, except for test performance.

 

On topic:

I've seen age gaps in gaming, but most of what I've seen is venue based. One store caters to mostly high school kids, and another caters to the 20+ and 14- age ranges. There's some overlap, but the difference is noticeable.

 

People tend to hang with the people they're most comfortable with.

 

You also get the social aspects ranging in. Kids play games. Slightly older kids can get a cold shoulder for gaming. Older still, and gaming is OK again. Move on up, and gaming is OK, but starting careers, families, and real life make it harder. Move up, and free time is available again. Move up again, and career progression adds responsibilities that interfere with gaming. Continue up, and established patterns can allow more leisure time again.

 

I've been watching long enough to have seen that pattern for many gamers. They shift between playing, and lulls without gaming, based on their life stage. Not everyone, but it happens more often than I'd originally expected.

 

One of the things I've enjoyed about doing painting demos in a local mall store is the number of people that react with, 'I remember painting these! I used to have a lot of fun with that.' and pointing out there's no reason to stay away. When it's a family that decides to try painting together, it's very cool.

[vejlin]

My favorite type of "test" and the most fair one I think is a length project at the end of which you turn in a paper and have an oral defense.

 

But generally I feel tests are an insult. After I invest hundreds og hours into a subject I think it's an insult to pretend that my knowledge can be evaluated with a short test. And I do very well at tests mind you.

[kristof65]

And I do very well at tests mind you.

Seems to me that many of the ones who speak out against tests in general aren't the ones who typically have problems with them, but those who do very well with them.

[Dragon Snack]

I have a problem with not only tests, but the whole US education system...

 

And I was Valedictorian of my HS class...

 

And this is better suited to Beekeepers (where I won't participate)...

 

But I've felt old ever since I realized that I could drink with people who were born when Reagan was president...

 

...I have just discovered that "ain't" is right. Back in my day, putting "ain't" in a paper was an instant -10 points off the overall paper's grade.

Yeah Spike. I'm with you there.

I ain't...

 

I remember going to college in the '90s to '00s, and never ONCE saw a card catalog.

Same here, and I was in college in the late '80s/early '90s. I didn't log in remotely (although I could have), but everything was computerized even in those dark ages...

[vejlin]

The one good thing about tests though is that they can motivate you to learn the subject in more detail because you want a higher grade.

[Mad Jack]

I have dice and stereo equipment older than some of my friends.

 

I was involved with a Rocky Horror Picture Show cast for eight years... The oldest person on cast is in his mid-40's, and the youngest we ever had was 13 - If I remember right, there's a mother and daughter on cast right now, lol.

 

It's really weird, because it alternates between completely forgetting how old people are and being sharply reminded that you've been doing Rocky since before they were born. When I was in college, my friend Nat's little sister Nessa was only 11 - she joined the Rocky cast when she was 13. Now she's like 24 or 26, but I still call her "Little Sister".

[Bruunwald]

I started back to school this semester, after a 20 year spring break. I was talking to the girl beside me in my Speech class the other day. The conversation drifted to where we live... after she told me her hometown, I told her I used to date a girl from there, and that I used to babysit her infant daughter. It turns out that the girl I dated is her best friends mother and the infant is a sophomore in college. Definitely feeling old.

 

 

What I want to know is, did she throw any at you?

 

See, when I was a sophomore in college I had a girlfiend, but otherwise most of the girls tended to ignore me. For some reason, almost nineteen years later now, girls that age seem to dig me. Especially when I'm out with my little boy. They sure do seem to love the daddies.

 

I don't do anything about it; I'm a happily married man.

 

But I admit, it is flattering.

[warlordgarou]

I have dice and stereo equipment older than some of my friends.

 

A few weeks ago, when I was sorting stuff in the basement, I found a bunch of RT-era figs. I plan on taking them to the next RTT (or any game at an official venue), and when some kid talks smack, I'll point out that I painted the figs before the kid was potty-trained, let alone born.

 

Dragon Snack - if someone was born when Reagan took office, they would be almost 28 now. That's not too bad. I feel old when I make a passing reference to something (an historical event, a movie, etc) and realize that it occurred before the other people in the room were even so much as a twinkle in their father's eye.

[kristof65]

A few weeks ago, when I was sorting stuff in the basement, I found a bunch of RT-era figs. I plan on taking them to the next RTT (or any game at an official venue), and when some kid talks smack, I'll point out that I painted the figs before the kid was potty-trained, let alone born.

He he... there was an older gamer playing 40k at our (now closed) local GW store one night who had several RT era figures in his Space Marine army. One of the younger kids he was playing against tried to call foul, saying that he wasn't using GW figs, claiming they were some garage knock off. The GW employee - who was in his early 20s wasn't sure - he didn't think they were knockoffs, but he didn't know. He wound up asking us older players to make sure.

[Enchantra]

I have a friend who is in college..mind you he's still what they call a young-adult (22), but he tells me that it is now considered not improper to use the word "lol" in a term paper. IF I were the professor, I think I would have to red-ink mark that one with a bit fat "WTF!"

 

As a former professor now five years removed, I'm going to say that any student that wrote such nonsense would have been docked points by me. Chat speak has it's places, term papers are NOT one of them.

 

What made me feel old was when I was teaching in 2003, most of my students had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the First Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. I officially felt old that day - and I was only 27 at the time.

 

A week ago right before Thanksgiving my former AP Biology teacher from high school came into the store. She has come in before and we talked. When she was teaching me my senior year, she had a baby daughter who she would bring to class and the kid would sit up on her desk scooting across the desk in her diaper. She told me said daughter is now 15. I thanked her for making me feel officially old.

[Mad Jack]

He he... there was an older gamer playing 40k at our (now closed) local GW store one night who had several RT era figures in his Space Marine army. One of the younger kids he was playing against tried to call foul, saying that he wasn't using GW figs, claiming they were some garage knock off. The GW employee - who was in his early 20s wasn't sure - he didn't think they were knockoffs, but he didn't know. He wound up asking us older players to make sure.

 

Last year I saw some kids playing Magic at the food court in the local mall and stopped to watch for awhile. They invited me to play, but I told them the only deck I still had in my possession hadn't been tournament-legal since the previous century. They didn't care so I dug out my 61-card black/green/atifacts deck from the glove compartment of my car and beat three opponents in a row with three completely different strategies. And then if that wasn't bad enough, I started slapping down blue cards from a deck with no islands in it. (Dual Lands rock, pun intended.) They'd never played anybody who was still using the cards I had, and all of their "new" strategies were just re-invented versions of stuff that me and my friends back in college had come up with ten years earlier.

There's one definite advantage to being an old fart playing games with 15-year-olds : Twice the experience, lol.

One kid kept looking at my cards and paging through his Scrye magazine. He lets out this wierd squawk and blurts out, "You're playing with a Beta edition Sol Ring!?!", like I'd broken into a museum and stolen the thing...

[Gimp]

One kid kept looking at my cards and paging through his Scrye magazine. He lets out this wierd squawk and blurts out, "You're playing with a Beta edition Sol Ring!?!", like I'd broken into a museum and stolen the thing...

One of my favorites for MtG is telling people how my wife owned three different Black Lotuses, and traded them away for other rares, back before Scrye came out.

 

She got the deals she wanted at the time, and they're just cardboard we'd paid for, so we've never cared, but it gets some great looks.

[Ironworker]

I'm 34 and back in school myself. Yeah I hate the "I'm sure you all did this in High School so you know all about this program." All my professors are addicted to power point and they try and set land speed records with how fact they can buzz through 70-100 in one class session. I'd like to go back to the old days when they only had time to fill up one blackboard with information for notes. I actually learned crap back then.