I was a SHIC ambassador at my high school, which is fairly selectie, in contrast to Jessica’s “[high schoolers] will usually just believe you and accept what you say,” I felt that the students at my high school were much more skeptical than I expected. Even some of the eighth graders were like if you decrease your demand for factory farmed products, won’t that just make it cheaper and have no net effect on supply? What about that fish farm that I visited in Israel where the fish seemed to be doing pretty great? With my actual club, one person raised the issue of harms caused by farming plants, and I wasn’t able to navigate that very well. (I’m not a great presenter, fyi. Also, the Cognitive Quirks level didn’t work out very well, since for the 2-4-8 they were like what about −3? π? and it turns out that they’re not actually scope-insensitive.)
Of course, it’s great to have a critically thinking audience, but it raises the risk of getting into thorny issues that you’re not fully prepared to explain well and so your presentation falls apart.
I was a SHIC ambassador at my high school, which is fairly selectie, in contrast to Jessica’s “[high schoolers] will usually just believe you and accept what you say,” I felt that the students at my high school were much more skeptical than I expected. Even some of the eighth graders were like if you decrease your demand for factory farmed products, won’t that just make it cheaper and have no net effect on supply? What about that fish farm that I visited in Israel where the fish seemed to be doing pretty great? With my actual club, one person raised the issue of harms caused by farming plants, and I wasn’t able to navigate that very well. (I’m not a great presenter, fyi. Also, the Cognitive Quirks level didn’t work out very well, since for the 2-4-8 they were like what about −3? π? and it turns out that they’re not actually scope-insensitive.)
Of course, it’s great to have a critically thinking audience, but it raises the risk of getting into thorny issues that you’re not fully prepared to explain well and so your presentation falls apart.