I had an event just now where several of my villagers fell sick - lots of sneezing all over the place. I've had that particular event happen before, so I didn't really bother too much. In fact, I deliberately made that particular choice to give my healers some practice so they could get their skill levels up. It took a minute or two, but eventually all my doctors clustered round in a group "healing someone" like they'd done the first time.

Then I noticed the kids. They were all rushing off to the centre of the village. I thought they were just playing as usual, but they all stood still, spaced evenly apart. I selected one and it said something about "learning lessons". I selected another one nearby and it said the same thing. ALL my kids were standing by the research hut being taught!!! Unfortunately, I had to quit the game then because I'd left myself logged into my Instant Messager and heard it chime to tell me one of my friends was online so I didn't see who was teaching them.

Has anyone else come across this?

if you drop an adult on achild you will either get story time, or lessons

both add points in parenting

Regular adults tell the children stories and it does build parenting skills for the adult but nothing for the kids, and somone who is more then adept at parenting allready, you can Teach the children, then the parent gains parenting skills, but again the children gain nothing, its like the school in VV1, just a place for the kids to gather. The difference between teaching and telling a story is the ammount of parenting skills the villager allready has, and i found that when they *teach* all of the kids come, when their *telling a story* only a few show up, most of the time ive seen its the kids withing view of the screen. and the ones out of the screen area at the time, dont come.

I'm glad you guys are getting to see that! I spent so long getting that behavior to work, I almost got in trouble; (because I was delaying the implementation of so many other necessary behaviors.) But I think it was worth it. I actually have yet to see it in one of my games, but I saw some really cool pictures of it in the "post your own pictures" thread, and of course I've tested it about a million times, but I still can't wait to see it work in a real game.
..."Ok kids, today's lesson is *FISH* "

Yes, I have a village that did the same yesterday. It was extremely amusing. I clicked on the nearest adult who happened to be a master farmer and she was teaching the children. I was so proud of them!!!

we LOVE you for that Walt! it is my completely favorite action of the whole game!

I like the way the teachers will grab any item they fancy from the science hut to show to the kids. I can understand a lesson about fish, but I've seen them giving lessons on a clump of dried grass and a basket of laundry before now. There can't be much to learn about there.

i'd love to see them with the collectables!

wait wait wait

i just realized...they are teaching the kids LAUNDRY? no no, that is bad

they do enough of it without having classes

I have had more than one lesson on vegetables.

i usually see they grey bowl

I have seen the kids looking on to the researchers and I have seen them listening to stories.
But I have yet to see any of them being taught anything.
That will just tickle me pink.
How did you get them to do this????
I have to look on these posts because I have found out some astoninshing things about my little villagers that are new.
That is exciting to me.

Your adult villager must be at least an adept parent to be able to teach. If you drop an ordinary villager onto a kid he'll start telling one or two kids a story, instead of teaching them. Both earn parenting skills for the adult, though.

I've been meaning to ask for a while: What do you figure the kids say when they go to listen to a story and the adult telling the story fails (shaking head at the end!? Something like:

"Sheesh, you stopped me playing tag for this!!"

or

"What kind of adult can't even tell a simple story?"

lol

The adult probably fails because the kids are making too much noise and not listening to the story. Or maybe they all shout out, "Heard it!"

i saw one of mine teaching couconuts and i cant even get those yet lol

I thought someone said that they could get the kids to actually learn something while being taught. I've had no success with it yet though.

>>but again the children gain nothing, its like the school in VV1, just a place for the kids to gather. <<

School does do something, it gives them skills. I've seen it in VV1, I had a bunch of kids. They had little bars, i mean tiny ones, a little blue bump. I spent 15 minutes clicking the school drum once a minute. When I was done, almost half of them had reached trainee status. One girl was a scientist, almost adept. She became adept in 2 hrs. Which never happened before.

Teaching in VV2 gives them skills too. Very little but do it continually and you will get smarter kids.

I have to add to the love, Walt! I adore the teaching aspect. It's just too cute to see all the kids running and sitting to listen. And that the teacher will grab a variety of stuff just makes it better. Yes, even laundry! 'Cause really, you don't want to mix those colors and whites. I did have one elderly teacher though, who had a huge group of kids gathered but she took so long to get to the hut that by the time she made it back to class, they were all gone! It was kind of hilarious watching them just kind of wander away one by one, with me yelling at the screen, "No, wait! She's coming, she's coming!". Heh. I am perhaps, too attached.

Oh, and about the kids sitting down to listen to teaching or story time, I've had really little kids appear to sitting on bigger kids' laps. Don't know if it's an accidental appearance or on purpose, but it is the cutest thing ever.

The teaching action is great -- but it doesn't seem to be increasing my Adept Parent's skill at parenting (I'm trying to get her to Elder and this is her third skill.) She's taught and taught and taught I've received the message that she is "improved at parenting" a zillion times but her little blue line won't budge!

Is it just me?

[Warning: If you're really strict about playing the game realistically, don't read this post!]

bbvv - No, it's not just you. It really does seem to take forever. Part of the reason it takes so long is that there are only two ways to improve parenting skill, and one of them must be used wisely! I'm able to create Master Parents only by "cheating".

Well, it's not really cheating, it's just not any fun.

1. Drop your villager onto someone of the opposite sex over and over without going to the hut. The skill improvement appears right away, so you can do it as fast as your hand can move. Depending on how filled up the skill bar is, this could take anywhere from a minute to ten minutes or more. Be sure to rest if your hand gets sore! To use this method your villager needs to be a woman over 50, or you need to be at a population maximum. (i.e., The little box pops up saying you can't have any more kids because there's not enough housing.)

2. The second method takes longer, but is more realistic and less of a "cheat". You can make teaching the kids more efficient by watching for the "This villager has improved in parenting!" message at the bottom of the screen and then immediately picking up your villager and dropping her on a kid again.

Hope this helps. I imagine a lot of people use these methods, because they are quite obvious.

I only see them telling stories and then I see teaching but I didn't notice that the kids were actually learning! Thx

I don't think the kids learn. I've never seen my kids' skills change as a result of being taught.

I have, but it took a LONG time. I mean not just once, but over and over and over and over. It's like adding 5 pts to 11000 there's indiscernible progress... now do it say 20 times then you have 100 pts, right? that you can notice ::shrug:: sometimes it's easier just to not teach but i do it, a little is better than nothing

Thanks, guys, for letting me know it not just me. My would-be elder died so I'll have to work on someone else.

I love the teaching part. I use it mostly when one of the children is a little lonely.

maybe in VV3 the kids could gain some experience from the lessons....just a suggestion...

what do you need to teach the kids?

Place a villager on a kid. If the villager you use is at least an Adept Parent, they will teach the kids, otherwise they will tell a story.

The task may also earn the Adult more parenting skills. The additional skills after storytelling will come at the end, but the skills earned from teaching will be in the middle of the lesson. (Keep the villager selected, and you will see the gain, or the failed attempt.)

For teaching, I really like using a mum over the age of 50 and/or an Elder. I think it's a pity that the lessions don't count on the learning bar.

I wish the children's lessons were NOT in the same place as the fishing traffic and the nursing moms.

Once my village has reached its maximum population (90 or more) I don't find any difficulty in creating master parents, especially women. Once a (female) villager reaches master in her first skill, she is usually over 18 and I'll switch her to parenting. I'll drop her on a boy a few times until she becomes a trainee parent. The pop-up maximum population warning is a nuisance, but can be suffered. She'll then run around on her own looking to kiss some poor guy and drag him to the loveshack. With plenty of rests for enjoying the pond and cooling her feet, naturally. After a day or so she will have become a master, and I can switch her to her third skill so she can become an Elder. The men aren't so lucky. I'll normally only create one or two male parents at a time, or nobody would get any work done.

RE:I wish the children's lessons were NOT in the same place as the fishing traffic and the nursing moms.

Yes I agree totally. I have mentioned before in another thread about suggestions for VV3 that we need the school building as well as a teacher. We could choose who we want to be the teacher. That would be another job like farmer, researcher, etc. Then have the kids go in to the school and stay in there for several min with the teacher. That gets them out of the traffic and away from the nursing mothers. The building could be open on one side like the hospital so that we could watch the action or drop the teacher again to make them teach longer.
I have found that by dropping the adept parents on the kids many times in succession (once it says "this villager has improved in parenting") that the parenting bar definitely moves up. However I use that method in combination with the other one of dropping the man on the woman over and over or vice versa. The two methods together gets that master parent quicker. But still it takes awhile. I have to take rest periods because my mouse hand gets tired.

Good idea Arnie. I use your method all of the time. It works well for the women. Once the village reaches maximum poulation it's ok to use it on the men as well. But not before. It depends on where you are in the game. At the latter ofcourse is best.

They do spend an awful lot of time doing laundry, but ya gotta learn how somewhere!LOL! I just love it when I get a kid that hates laundry, Wish they gave lessons on running!

Thanks, Walt, that's a great feature of the game. I love the way they line up for lessons.

Ive been checking new kids with no skills before having Esteemed Elder teach them. Some get build and others get research, some get nothing, im not sure about farming yet. Laundry, I just realized, gets tech pts., usually i stop them and set them to another task but finally waited and watched. It makes more sense to stop them and set back at the table to save the time of walking to and from the water though. I'm testing right now to see how many pts but needed info on something first. Mouzzee

Well, we can always hope that they're teaching them to do it more *efficiently*! That way they'll do it less.