The scientific process is useful in any situation,
Perhaps even to turn an orphan back into a prince?
Tony's POV, Age 6
Did I mention I want to go home? I really need to finish the observation phase and move onto creating and testing a hypothesis.
Hypothesis: If I prove that I know everything taught in this place of "education" they won't have a reason to keep me here.
Experiment Goal: Score high on whatever assessments they are finally supposed to give me, to determine which grade I actually belong in. As this school only goes through the 5th grade, I am aiming to prove I belong in at least 6th grade.
Experiment Preparation: All experiments require preparation. For mine, I've taken up residence in the school's library, reading, or at least skimming, any book from which I may garner previously unknown knowledge. I'd much rather be creating, but this army doesn't care for the chaos that comes with imagination.
I know this because they got royally ticked when they discovered that I used the paint and brushes I'd nicked from the art room to paint a mural of a plane headed to the New York house on my wall. Part of a successful plan is to create a model of your goal, just like the people at Dad's company have to do before they get funding for their projects. That's why I painted my goal on the wall. It was a small mural. I didn't have enough paint to make anything big. But some of it spilled and 'accidentally' landed on the school uniforms that 'happened' to be on the desk below where I was painting. Lots of yelling from the drill sergeants AND they insisted on painting it beige again before any of the other soldiers clued into the idea of independent thought.
They don't mind bookworms. Unless the bookworm is ignoring their "lessons" on adding and subtracting. Excuse me for not needing to count cartoon drawings of dots on coccinellidae (ladybugs) to figure out that 7+4=11.
Weeks 2 and 3
Experiment Phase: i.e. testing in each subject area to determine appropriate educational level.
Reading: The teacher handed me a book with a bunny on the front. It had 15 pages and no more than 10 words per page. "You can't be serious." Neither Mom nor Dad would have put up with me being rude to adults. But neither Mom nor Dad treated me like I was two.
The teacher's glare indicated that she was serious.
With an eye roll, I read aloud the story of Boppity the Bunny and her adventure delivering Easter eggs.
"Now, tell me what the story was about."
Big sigh. Fine. But I was changing it to make it at least be somewhat scientifically and historically viable. "The scientists that experimented on the rats in The Secret of NIHM also experimented on bunnies, making it so the bunnies could speak English and complete task ordinarily impossible for such beings. People had begun drifting from their religious beliefs. In order to bring faithful contributors back to the pews, the merriment of birth, represented by the goddess Ester, was utilized. A.k.a., cute bunnies delivered Easter eggs. In the case of Boppity, presumably, his first task was to perform a heist on a local farm since A. rabbits don't lay eggs. And B. they don't have money to buy them. Boppity got chased by a cat, had to hide from a fox, and finally made it to her first house of the day. It is unknown if Boppity repeated this task for other homes or if, since rabbits reproduce like rabbits, there were plenty of other oryctolagus cuniculus around to cater to the other homes."
The teacher silently stared, blinked twice, as though to clear that bizarre explanation, then asked, "Your parents read The Secret of NIHM to you?"
"I read it to myself."
My next reading assessment involved a stack of fiction and non-fiction books containing far superior vocabulary. They finally found some with words that were new to me.
Assessment: elementary reading: passed
Mathematics: Aced adding and subtracting (duh). Multiplication and division, aced. Fractions- frustrated the drill sergeants by changing them all to decimals before calculating the sum, difference, quotient or product. Argument ensued. Over what? I'm not sure. They were unable to provide a real-world explanation of why it was necessary to complete the calculations while maintaining fraction form. Telling time. Really? Aced. Money math: I converted it to Francs, just to make the task mildly challenging. Exasperated sighs from the commanding officer.
Science: Science is a process. It involves observing, gathering data, hypothesis, experiments, laws and theories. What it does not involve is "facts". Yet their assessment of my scientific knowledge was based solely on the Q&A of "facts", a.k.a. replicable data gathered from repeated observation. Day one- aced. Day two- based on the observed language used in day two of science testing, I conclude that I have surpassed elementary science and they are trying to determine which higher-level courses I require. Sadly, probably biology- ugh. Cells. Boring.
Social Studies:
Teacher's POV
I discovered that Tony had an extensive knowledge of the European front of World War II, practically giving a dissertation, along with model representation of battles, which he built with whatever was in reach, such as paperclip soldiers. At one point, he seemed to forget I was there, because instead of lecturing, he was fully in make believe world. The stapler had become a tank, and a crayon general was giving orders in French. The name Captain America came up several times.
Then the child moved on to the Pacific Front, detailing the movements of troops and explaining how his father's bombs had destroyed two cities in Japan, leading to the end of the war in that part of the world.
I fretted asking the child about other significant events in history. I had other task that required my attention, and once he starts it is hard to stop him. I also needed a true assessment of his knowledge of social studies, beyond that of WWII.
I decided to have him write about what he knew. His penmanship was awful. It was painfully slow. The letters had the appearance of being drawn from memory rather than written properly with the pencil starting and stopping at the correct positions. Anthony had insisted that if I allowed him to use a computer, or at the very least, a typewriter, he'd be able to respond faster. Personal computers are a new invention, not yet on the market. But they seem to be commonplace in the life of this six-year-old. There are very few typewriters in the school, and none available for students.
Eventually, I gave up on the writing task and instead decided to bring a timer with me and give him 20 minutes, each day, to ramble about history. For a six-year-old, he knows far too much about "financially advantaging political decisions" but has only a peripheral understanding of the Constitution and the structural components of government. He knows bits and pieces of world history from visits to museums or tours of historical places of import, but nothing cohesive to form timelines or cause and effect of those events. Anthony was oddly silently about the war in Vietnam, stating, "I know more than the public is allowed to know and I don't know which bits of it I'm allowed to disclose." And wasn't that enlightening. A six-year-old with governmental secrets. It was probably an act, but as the child of Howard Stark, it was possible he had been privy to conversations he wasn't allowed to share.
Tony's POV
Analyzing Experiment Results: I have found a glitch in my previous education. I can read. I can calculate numbers in my head. But somehow, it didn't occur to Jarvis, Obie or either of my parents that I might need to know how to use a pencil for things other than drawing and making designing. I know how to type, slowly, because my fingers are short, but this building has an extreme lack of computers, and the teachers don't let you touch their typewriters. Many of the drill sergeants here seem to be under the impression that the only way you can prove you know anything is to write it with a pencil. I disagreed, verbally. Bye, bye recess.
Observations, Phase II Week 4
They have deemed me ineligible to skip elementary school. They have assigned me a varied schedule.
I have to suffer the indignity of handwriting lessons in the kindergarten room.
I am to attend both 4th and 5th grade math. They are bound and determine that I "show my work" for math, particularly with fractions. Why? And what work? Work, according to science, involves the physical movement of an object. I do not need to physically move a pencil across paper to complete such simple calculations. But the drill sergeants insist on persisting with their detainment from free time (recess), when not obeyed. I'm debating on whether to acquiesce.
They haven't disclosed to me my actual reading level, but they have placed me in the 5th grade reading course.
Apparently, they have deemed that my knowledge of the political world is both too broad and too specific. Ms. History stuck me in with the 4th graders so I can pick up on the formal details that my informal education missed.
They stuck me in with the 5th graders for 'science' class, i.e. read a book and answer questions class. About stuff I already knew before I got dumped in this building. Bored. Bored. Bored. Also, the drill sergeant isn't taking too kindly to me crossing my arms and glaring at her throughout these daily sessions. I want to build things, but even standing up to go seek out supplies gets you yelled at in this army.
They have deemed my spelling and written sentence structures to be sub-par, thus my placement in 2nd grade writing and spelling lessons.
At first, they had me attending recess, art, music, and p.e. with the 4th graders, because it fit best into my schedule. Those are the times of day where students are freer to speak their mind to each other. Bullies. All of them. Most of them anyway. Sigh. Perhaps only a few of them. But they are huge compared to me, so if you add size into the equation I'm completely outnumbered.
No worries. Dad taught me what to do about bullies through his stories about Captain Rogers. You've got to talk back and swing your fist and if they knock you down get back up and swing again. You don't run from bullies, or they'll never stop attacking you. A bit of mouthing off, a split-lip, and a blackeye later had the sergeants deciding it was best if I spent those time periods with the infants (1st graders). They seem unconcerned with the fact that I live here and that the giants can just ridicule and beat me up after the school day ends.
School sucks. On the bright side, I have my first personal assistant. Not a nanny. Not a butler. But my own personal assistant, like Dad has. She's 5'4", a brunet, long, wavy hair and wears bell-bottomed suit pants, with brightly colored paisley tops. I may be able to escape this army base simply by informing Dad that my personal assistant is a hippie. She keeps track of my schedule, walks with me to the designated locations, and in certain classes, such as social studies, she takes dictation of my responses, as my handwriting is currently slow and illegible.
Weeks 4-6
Phase II Problem: My plan to pass elementary school in two weeks of testing failed. My observations indicate that even if I learn everything typically taught in this building they'll just stick a higher level book in my hand and tell me to read it. Learning things faster won't get me sent home. It will just get me boring textbooks.
New Goal: Liven this place up. Get the verbal textbooks (teachers) to actual allow us to make useful things with new knowledge.
Phase II Hypothesis: I'll hate this place less if I can get the classes to start building and doing things.
Phase II: Experiment Plan: Be like Captain America; the man with a plan, a leader whose presence and charism cause others to follow and do as they are ordered. Be like Dad. Ready. Fire. Aim. i.e., when an idea strikes, jump on it, then iron out the details.