Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Dave, Stacey, and Young Cunningham Make a Podcast: The Test!

I am annoying. Luckily, this is a prerequisite for my job: I am paid to annoy sleepy teenagers . . . to pester them with questions, irk them with activities, and coerce them into reading, writing, and thinking. I've been doing this for a while, so I've gotten adept at it. But I've always recognized the subversive questions lurking beneath the surface of every high school class: Do we really need to learn this shit? Is it really worth the time? The frustration? Calculus? Seriously? Organic chemistry? Sex education? When am I going to actually use any of this crap?

We attempted to address these epistemological questions with something my friend Kevin invented: the Life Quiz. This is a set of ten questions that don't count towards your grade, but instead determine how you are doing at seeming to be educated. Art, science, current events, and common knowledge. Major events in history and psychology and economics. Significant sports stuff. No trivia. Just information you should actually know. Or probably should know. Who knows? I encourage the students to pick a partner of similar intellect and bet some push-ups. Then I pose some questions: what is the boiling point of water? How long ago did the dinosaurs live? What is the population of New Jersey?


You don't have to nail the answer . . . it's like horse-shoes and hand-grenades. Close enough counts. Within ten percent.

Sometimes the questions are broad: name a jazz musician and their instrument. Sometimes they are specific: what does it mean to "bury the hatchet." And sometimes they seem really obvious: what are the seven continents?

You end up with some surprising answers, and some surprising logic as well. And plenty of discussion about epistemology. What should we have rattling around in our brain? What do you need to know? Do you need to know anything?


The brain is a counter-intuitive instrument. It's not like a computer-- your memory doesn't fill up. In fact, the more things you know, the better your brain works. The more connections you have, the more connections you make, and the more you understand. So despite the ubiquity of Google, I think there is some value in knowing stuff. The question is: what?

A few of us were so enamored with this theme, that we decided to make a podcast about it. The concept of the show is simple-- it's ostensibly a quiz show, but it's the anti-Jeopardy-- one of us asks seven questions, and the other participants try to answer them. Or argue about them. Or declare them stupid. Stacey, Cunningham and I are the hosts, but we plan on having lots of guests. On the plus side, our voices are easily discernible and we cover three decades: Young Cunningham is in her twenties, Stacey is in her thirties, and I am forty-five. Not only do we ask questions and discuss validity, but we also crack a lot of jokes. On the minus side, I am annoying. I try not to be judgmental, with varying degrees of success.

We're calling the show The Test and we've recorded two episodes. We haven't had any guests yet, but they are coming soon. If you want to be on, just ask . . . I think we can even Skype you in. While we're certainly not pros at this yet, we've got original background music, an audio montage, and a theme song.

Good luck and have fun . . . you can play along at home, but no studying . . .

41 comments:

rob said...

summer dave!

i trust you cleared this with our lawyers before posting.

Dave said...

all the music is original . . . that's the only way you can run into trouble: greasetruck studios!

rob said...

that's an awfully long introduction. you really like your editing tools, don't you.

Dave said...

i know, i need to pare it down . . . it was so much fun to stitch together all the clips.

rob said...

i enjoy english teacher precision.

rob said...

people really should have to know the total number of senators and congressmen to the digit

rob said...

i got 11 out of 14. i'm a goddamn numerologist. who knows fuck all about dinosaurs and the age of modern humans.

Marls said...

I would put the % of Americans that know both of those numbers at under 10%.

Dave said...

i think the dinosaurs and humans might be more important than the senators and congressmen, in the grand scheme of things. but really, you should know it all-- except the damned horse racing stuff . . .

zman said...

I think it's more important to know the atomic weight of an element as opposed to its number.

"Bosnia or something" is the best quote of the podcast.

I am stunned that anyone wouldn't know the boiling point of water. I got about 5 wrong, depending on how generously I grade.

rob said...

this second one? does it ever get to questions, or is it all about feces?

rob said...

oh, i see. it moves on to poison ivy on alex's testicles and buttcrack. i'm getting ready to unsubscribe.

TR said...

I think I know about the dinosaurs b/c I have read about them to my kids a million times. I assume we're talking the Permian era of dinosaurs? Early relatives of Dino's, like the Icthyostega, lived tens of millions of years earlier. And that's almost definitely spelled wrong.

When my oldest was four, he was at a dinosaur-themed birthday party. A Dino guy host went around the room asking each kid to name his favorite dinosaur. My kid said Edmontosaurus. I high-fived myself on the inside after seeing the WTF face on the guy.

Currently in Wilmington, DE, on my way to the greater King of Prussia area tonight. #balling

Dave said...

we're going to try to do less introduction in the next one, less feces and poison ivy buttcrack before the questions . . .

Dave said...

the boiling point of water killed me-- and folks young and old don't have any clue. weird.

zman said...

The dinosaurs all went kaput in the Cretaceous period about 65 million years ago. I don't understand how anyone can avoid learning this at some point in their lives. You learn this from watching Jurassic Park for god's sake!

zman said...

Round it up to 69 million years ago and you'll never forget ... and you'll pass Dave's cultural literacy exam.

rob said...

i got the horse racing question right.

zman said...

Because you were a jockey?

Whitney said...

Dave's faux disdain for the Eagles -- he brought an Eagles/Judas Priest mixed tape to college and he really likes "Already Gone," but Jeffrey Lebowski and others have made it chic to hate the Eagles -- is a distant second to his distaste for horse racing. I never knew. No road trips to NJ for Derby Day parties.

Whitney said...

I did get the Pink Floyd question, although that one, like the how many countries in the world question, has multiple answer possibilities, depending upon whom you consider the true authority.

rob said...

"were", zman?

zman said...

No one mentions dismay that Dave is friendly enough with a twenty-some-odd-year-old woman that she lets him cast pods with her?

rob said...

she's an english teacher. i assume she's an emily dickinson weirdo type. no offense, dave.

Dave said...

i swore the number two album was ac/dc, but every list is different. and it is a privilege for women throughout the world to podcast with me. you will slowly get to know cunningham and stacey as the podcast develops . . . and i didn't realize how much i hated horse-racing until i had to talk about. those poor horses!

Dave said...

i will concur that my hatred for the eagles is lebowski fueled-- i do like some of their songs, and can't help playing and singing hotel california on the guitar now and then, but once i read how annoying they were in billy graham's oral history, that cemented how i would present my opinions on them, despite the fact . . . wait, didn't i do this post: songs i'm loathe to admit i don't loathe?

T.J. said...

Dave secretly loves Steve Miller.

rob said...

and emily dickinson

TR said...

I will safely assume the Twitterverse has already thoroughly addressed the "Caitlyn Jenner is playing goalie for the German women's team" topic.

TR said...

FIFA - where concussions are a myth.

Mark said...

Germany playing very physical and at times even recklessly so.

rob said...

morgan brien still doesn't know where she is.

TR said...

The Hooters here in the burbs of Philly is fully locked into this match. Cool to see. Less cool is the fact that I'm at a Hooters in the burbs of Philly. No offense to Les Cool.

TR said...

When Alex Morgan plays greedy and tries to make plays, good things happen.

Boo yah.

Mark said...

Fantastic move and setup by Lloyd on the second goal.

TR said...

In a feeble attempt to play the "worlds colliding" game, USWNT reserve Christi Rampone (who's 39!!!) grew up on the very town where Mr. KQ is currently doing body shots and getting new tattoos - Point Pleasant. She may be the only '99er still playing for the national team.

Shlara said...

I'm sure you guys covered this in a previous post...but I didn't realize that the USWNT coach Jill Ellis played soccer at W&M

rob said...

and you call yourself a tribeswoman

mr kq said...

Heading to the boardwalk right now TR! After 2 Stone Saisons, 3 Grapefruit Sculpins, and 4 KQgaritas. I'm on the front foot if any of the tatted up muscle men want to have a go. We'll not really.

mr kq said...

Would have been better as KCougaritas.

rob said...

speaking of cougars, debby harry is 70(!) today. good gracious.