Dream

I’m at Disney World with CJ, on a Pirates of the Caribbean-style ride, a car careening through a tunnel.  On the wall of the tunnel there are math posters, the kind you’d see in a high school classroom, about Pascal’s triangle, conic sections, etc.  And I feel sort of annoyed and depressed, because I know that Disney is going to make a big deal about how educational this ride is, but actually, nobody except me is looking at the posters, nobody who didn’t already know the math could get anything out of the posters, the way the car speeds down the track.

Please interpret and derive relevant policy prescriptions for math pedagogy in comments.

More Disney

More notes from Walt Disney World:

• I felt bad for Cinderella.  The wait to see her and Rapunzel was only 10 minutes; if you wanted Elsa and Anna, the line was an hour and a half.  If I were Cinderella I’d be pissed.  “Enjoy it while you’ve got it, Flavor-of-the-Month, but in ten years, I’m still here, and you’re Mulan.”
• Speaking of deprecated Disney Princesses, you know who’s totally absent from Disney World?  Pocahantas.  That was a pretty big movie!  Is Pocahantas absent because of newfound cultural sensitivity about depictions of Native Americans?  Highly doubtful, given the fact that the heap racist Indian Chief is still front and center in the Peter Pan ride.  Also, a little digging reveals that Pocahantas can indeed be seen at WDW, in the Animal Kingdom park.  Because, you know, state of nature!
• Disney World at Christmastime is very, very Christmasy but not at all Christian.  This is a delicate tightrope to walk and I think they do a nice job.  No cross, very little use of the word “Christmas.”  Lots of trees, lots of secular carols.  One small nativity scene tucked away at the back of Hollywood Studios.
• Most underrated attraction:  The Hall of Presidents.  Animatronic Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg address is authentically moving.  And it seems a nod to modern ways of doing history that Andrew Jackson is singled out in the movie as one of the most important Presidents, by virtue of being the first non-aristocrat to hold the office.  (Though not much is said about Andrew Jackson’s record in office, which brings us back to the “sensitivity to Native Americans” issue.)
• Epcot was the weakest of the three parks we went to.  Too much shopping, not enough riding.  It would be improved by having fewer massively packed sit-down restaurants and more snack stands of all nations.
• Speaking of the future:  it’s weird that the cars on the Tomorrowland Speedway aren’t futuristic at all, but rather big gas-guzzling go-carts.  Why not go electric?  In general, Disney seems content to let Tomorrowland rest in a nostalgic “what the future used to look like” mode.  In 2014, could they really build something that felt like the future and also felt like Disney?
• Finally:  lost in all these words is the fact that Disney World is actually pretty fun.  Especially if you go with somebody like my brother-in-law, who knows the place inside and out and can dodge lines with expert efficiency.  We spent 16 straight hours in Magic Kingdom on the first day and it didn’t feel like too much.  I wouldn’t be inclined to go again, but I’m not at all sorry that we went.  And my kids, by no means Disney freaks, loved it.  CJ is still talking about the roller coasters and the tech of Soarin’.  And AB was just happy she got to see Olaf and R2D2 and bring home a stuffed Mickey.

Trader Joe’s is the Disney World of grocery stores

We’re back in Madison after three days at Walt Disney World.  CJ and I went to Trader Joe’s to pick up stuff for dinner and realized:  Trader Joe’s is Disney World.

Reasons:

• Part of what you’re paying for is a sense of, well, “fun.”  WDW employees — who are called “cast members” — wear costumes.  Trader Joe’s employees — who are called “crew members” — wear Hawaiian shirts.  It is part of their job, not just to be pleasant to customers, but to appear actively happy to be talking to customers.  And maybe they are!  You can imagine that if you were the kind of person who likes chatting with strangers you’d be drawn to working at WDW or TJ.
• Iron-clad branding.  Just about every single thing you can buy, see, or eat at Disney is Disney-branded.  Same for Trader Joe’s (even if the product is surplus Sabra hummus repackaged in Trader Joe’s tubs.)
• Limited selection.  Disney World restaurants have short menus; they need to get thousands of people in and out fast.  There aren’t twelve roller coasters like at Six Flags, there are two.  At Trader Joe’s there aren’t a hundred different kinds of Cheerios.  Just the Trader Joe’s kind.  The problems of choice are taken away from you and this release is itself a kind of fun.

Unfinished thought:  both Disney and Trader Joe’s are trying to project a spirit of California.