More than Just a Kiss

Marita doesn’t need a brand-new school with acres of playing fields and gleaming facilities. She doesn’t need a laptop, a smaller class, a teacher with a PhD, or a bigger apartment. She doesn’t need a higher IQ or a mind as quick as Chris Langan’s. All those things would be nice, of course. But they miss the point. Marita just needed a chance. (Gladwell, Outliers. 2008)

If you were to agree with Malcolm Gladwell, success would be one part cultural legacy, one part family and support, one part perseverance, and one part chance (or opportunity).

Milton Hershey is an “outlier.” He is someone who (per Gladwell’s definition) has done something “out of the ordinary.” His parent’s only surviving child, Milton Hershey dropped out of school in the fourth grade because his family moved around a lot. With the collective resources of his mother’s family (who were not rich) an adult Milton Hershey began and ended several failed candy making businesses.

A trip to Colorado (where he learned to make caramel from milk) after another failed attempt at starting a candy making business and a trip to The Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (where he first saw and eventually purchased chocolate-making machinery)  laid the foundation for the creation of “the largest producer of quality chocolate in North America and a global leader in chocolate and sugar confectionery.”

Building off Gladwell’s definition of “outlier,” I would like to say Milton Hershey was a  “true outlier.”  He was someone who did something “out of the ordinary” with his success. Milton Hershey used the fortune earned from his success to build a “complete community around his factory.” To discourage comparisons to the stereotypical factory town, Hershey requested architects vary the look and feel of houses as they would look like in any other town or community.

I am sure if we dug deep enough we could find evidence that would attribute his desire to build a community rather than a factory town is a result of the frequent family moves he experienced as a child and his adult understanding of the importance of strong family ties. (His mother’s family was essential in providing him with the opportunities to engage in his candy ventures.)

As a “true outlier,” someone who applies the lessons and rewards of his or her success towards the greater public good, Hershey (more specifically his wife) founded the Milton Hershey School – “the nation’s largest, cost-free, private, co-educational home and school for children from families of low income, limited resources and social need.”

To its students, the Milton Hershey School (MHS) represents that “chance” Malcolm Gladwell speaks about in Outliers.

For a century, MHS has served as a transforming environment for children in need. Boys and girls who hail from different social and ethnic backgrounds, but are connected by surroundings that threaten their ability to realize their dreams, come together as one family, under one roof, on the rolling green campus in Hershey, PA.

I was moved by Cynthia Wade’s film on MHS, Living the Legacy: The Untold Story of the Milton Hershey School. I saw it at a MWW Group event celebrating MHS’s centennial. There was a reception before the screening that included a signature dessert created by MHS culinary students and a panel of Hershey company executives and MHS alumni afterwards moderated by Phylicia Rashād and Paula Patton.

Jerrica Bechtold’s story was the most dramatic in the film. The eldest child and only daughter of a crack-addicted mother and a somewhat absent father (partially because he was serving a jail term), Jerrica had the toughest situation to contend with (beginning with the simple fact that only one of her two brothers was accepted into the school). Despite her initial desire to follow the rules and get good grades, the film documents her descent into potential expulsion. Frustrated, her counselor  asks her quite plainly to make a decision: Stay or go?

You can see the desire in her eyes for “normality” as she has defined it. And you hear about her reaction to the disappointing reality of her home life from her house parents at the school, teachers, and counselor. However, as one reviewer put it, the film seems a little “superficial.”

Somewhere someone made the decision to include the story of two boys at the school (though that story was not as developed as Jerrica’s). Instead of adding to the film, the story of the two boys is distracting. Thinking about the film, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been more effective to focus on the story of Jerrica and her family, peppering it with the “cameo-like” reflections from other students on similar circumstances?

The film had a fair amount of these reflections and they worked to bring the points being made home. However, a stronger, more focused storyline was needed to fully carry the film into greater depths. As it is now, neither the two boys or Jerrica gets enough screen time to make the movie poignant.

But regardless, the film did succeed in changing my shopping behavior. Hershey will certainly be my first choice in chocolate and candy products from now on. Until I saw the film, I never thought of Milton Hershey as a dedicated philanthropist and humanitarian. 

Whee Wee Wii!

When someone gives you something regardless of whether it falls short of your expectations or not, it does not change the fact that it is a gift and you should smile and say, “Thank You.”

So, I want to say, “Thank You” to 47 Communications for providing me with an opportunity to play and review D3 Publisher’s Family Party: 30 Great Games Outdoor Fun for Nintendo Wii.

I also want to say that I am not a “gamer” so my ignorance might have been my greatest obstacle to fully enjoying the “family party.”

Believing that video games have the capacity to be serious educational tools is not breaking news. In fact, the notion of video games as learning tools have become legitimized to the point of having its own conference. This summer marked the second annual Game Education Summit.

The academic impact of a video game can be far reaching in terms of cognitive and physical skill development. However, in order to make a difference the game has to be played.

D3 Publisher’s Family Party: 30 Great Games Outdoor Fun has the potential to build critical thinking and problem solving skills as well as improve hand-eye coordination. But the prerequisite skills required to advance in the game might be set a little too high.

There are two general ways to play Family Party Outdoor Fun. Up to four players may choose to play in Challenge mode or Battle mode.  The former consists of six game areas. Three are immediately accessible (Muscle, Athletics, and Sports). Three are locked. I have yet to successfully complete the three accessible areas, so am unable to speak about the locked areas.

Each area in Challenge mode consists of four games and one mystery game which needs to be unlocked. Games like The Floating Island, the Obstacle Course 2, and Boat Race were initially engaging but quickly proved frustrating. For example in the Floating Island, the player’s objective is to reach the finish line by jumping on a series of floating platforms without falling into the water. The frustration was not the difficulty of the game but that there was no map to assist players with orienting themselves in the game environment. The finish line is not clearly visible on the playing field.

Why wasn’t a map provided to help players find the finish line? Though I understand their tracks are much more complex, Mario Kart (the only other racing game I am familiar enough with to use as a point of reference) provides a map for players to orientate themselves.

The lack of visibility also plagued The Pole Climb 2 game in the Athletics Area. The goal of the game is to avoid the caterpillars and other obstacles as you race to ascend the poles. If you are unable to keep up with the other players, your character disappears from the visual horizon of the game. You cannot see where you are to avoid the obstacles.

The screen in many of the games is divided into four separate smaller screens showing the progress of each of the players. Why wasn’t this done for the Pole Climb?

To frustrate matters even further, the remote is unresponsive.  You are instructed to hold A+B and move the Wii remote up and down vertically. My kids and I tried this (then different variations of this) with overwhelming failure.  We tried shaking the remote slowly, quickly, pressing A+B again and again with no success. I even went as far as changing the remote’s batteries and moving the Wii’s sensor bar thinking the signal wasn’t strong enough.

The Homerun Match and The Quarterback in the Sports Area also suffer from a lack of remote response.

Perhaps anticipating players’ frustrations with Challenge mode, Family Party Outdoor Fun’s Battle mode allows players to mix and match the available games into their own Challenges. Players may choose up to 10 games in a single self-created Challenge. The games they chose from are those accessible from the first three Areas. Not having made it far enough to unlock the remaining three areas, I do not know whether players are eventually able to mix and match the games from those Areas too.

Family Party Outdoor Fun features some curious game ideas. Inner Clock 2 requires the player to estimate the amount of time closest to the one stated on the game’s clock. For example, if the game’s clock is 30 seconds, the player must wait as close to 30 seconds as possible before pressing “A.” The winner has the closest time to the one displayed.

Boxercise is another one. Like a game of Simon Says, players mimic the different jabs and punches thrown by the instructor. The player who does this most accurately wins. But right from the start the game moves too fast. And while it does provide a brightly drawn visual cue, it might have been helpful to have an audio cue as well. For example, if the instructor’s voice were heard saying, “Hook,” when the image of a hook came on screen.

Sadly, despite the interesting games and its potential for skill building Family Party Outdoor Fun demands too much from the novice player to encourage engagement. And the lack of remote response and unimaginative settings make the games frustrating instead of challenging.