Portal 2 became an obsession in our household after W- shared with us the Youtube clips of the ending songs, Still Alive and Want You Gone. I downloaded the demo today, and J- flew through it eagerly. The final demo level came all too soon.

Aha. Teachable moment.

“Do you remember the three Greek words we have in the kitchen?”

“Ethos, pathos, and logos.”

“Right.” I wrote them down, with brief descriptions, under the title, “Why should we get Portal 2?” I read the title out: “Why should we get Portal 2?”

“Umm… Because it’s educational?”

“How?”

“Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out, that’s all I have to say.”

I look at her and do the you-can-do-better-than-that smile.

“I’m not good at this stuff.”

“Try writing all of your ideas down. You can make your arguments stronger by editing them afterwards.”

We’re still a bit fuzzy about the categories, but it’s great to see where she’s going. Here’s the list she came up with:

Ethos:

• helps improve sense of humour
• I will actually do my homework properly and thoroughly
• can create a topic of conversation
• can create more interesting stories to tell others

Pathos:

• spend time together solving puzzles and getting a good laugh or two (bonding factor)
• fun! (lolz!)
• more inside jokes

Logos:

• hand-eye coordination
• momentum
• solve puzzles – helps make you better at solving puzzles
• may help me with typing faster
• can create inspiration for writing a book or drawing a picture

“Try thinking of reasons why we might say no, too,” I said. After some thought, she listed:

• might take up too much time
• too close to screen too often
• may not play it as often, may be wasted

“Now think of ways you can address those concerns.”

“Maybe I can set a time limit, like 30 minutes…”

“That would take care of the first and second concern. How about the third?”

“It’s like you don’t want to play it too much, but you also don’t want to play it too little…” she said.

“Right. Because if you played only a couple of levels more, it would be a waste. But you played the demo and…”

“… it was amazing…”

“… so the rest of the game…”

“… will probably be ten times as amazing…”

“… and you know you’ll enjoy it. There, see what happens? When you think of why someone would say no and you address those concerns, your argument becomes stronger.”

“Oh, I get it now.”

“Great! Would you like to take this further by organizing your arguments into a proper speech, like this”, and here I sketched out what the speech would be like, with English mixed with fast-forwarded gibberish and hand-gestures so that she could get the sense of it.

She laughed. “Sure!” she said.

Persuasion is a useful skill. Good to find opportunities to help people develop it!

2011-06-22 Wed 21:21