Preschool TV

I know I don't post here that often. I don't really seek out things to complain about if I can avoid it. But this morning watching PBS Kids, I can't help but shake my head in disbelief at some of the themes and messages they're putting out there.

First, there's the interlude sections. The preschool-like setting with a woman (Miss Laurie?) and a little rat (Hooper? - actually a hamster or something) and a bunch of little actor kids now and then. They do learning-esque things, all compressed into two minutes of in-between time. Today they filled in the blank at the end of every line of the little rhyme with the monsters jumping on the bed. You know, mama called the doctor and the doctor said no more monsters jumping on the bed. It was pointless to say the least. I would almost rather just see a lowercase and uppercase 'A' side by side for the time it took to do that.

Then the next show came on. SuperWhy. This show is pretty annoying in the first place. Most especially because the faces of the main characters are pretty much devoid of emotion, except for minor eyebrow movements. But the hollow blank stares of their computer-animated eyes leaves you feeling like they are some kind of cute kid zombies. Then they're always preaching a lot of moralistic hard working puritan stuff that I am not a big fan of. You know, like the main point of the three little pigs, that you gotta make a fortress of bricks to survive.

But the kids love the show. They do a lot of words and letters stuff, and Iris seems to actually follow along and maybe even learn a tiny bit of reading-type-stuff each show. But at the same time she learns a lot of silly worthless or even possibly damaging ideas. Boden loves the superhero theme of the show, and the super computer (which is another annoying part - this so-called supercomputer is just like the most primitive handheld device - it doesn't really do anything. Actually the handheld device does all the work and the "super computer" is just a big display monitor). Boden doesn't pay enough attention to learn anything, which is fine. And at least SuperWhy isn't a monster or mean animal or anything else that might inspire him to hit something or someone.

Today the princess character was nervous because she had to pass a test before she could become a junior princess. This makes me sick in several ways.

First of all, tests are the worst. They don't prove anything. They mainly just make most test-takers unduly nervous and stressed out. Scoring well on a test doesn't indicate actual learning of the subject matter, and choking on a test doesn't mean you didn't learn anything. Tests are an artifice made by teachers to "objectively" measure the progress of their students.

Second, what is a junior princess anyway? It is like a meaningless step towards true princess-hood that must be achieved for some reason right at the specific ascribed time. Sort of like a test for a belt upgrade in martial arts. It is just a symbol of progress, but not really indicative of real progress necessarily.

Third, the princess character is nervous. Being nervous for a test doesn't help anything. She was all "what if I fail?" That's the worst type of thinking to have around anything, especially something like a test. This goes deeper. The reason they portray it this way is to make kids that feel nervous about tests feel like they're not alone. That seems like a noble goal, but it really says that its acceptable, or even normal to be afraid of tests; afraid to try new things or step up to challenges. Furthermore, it can also make kids that aren't scared of tests feel like they should be scared of them. Even if you don't detest tests, it still isn't that great to make harmful behavior like fear of failure seem normal.

Fourth, the test she's scared of is trivial. It is a six-piece puzzle. This character can read and spell and things, and she's scared of a six-piece puzzle? Maybe she isn't ready to be a junior princess, after all.

Since I was writing this, I missed the end of the show. They come up with a super duper computer secret word or phrase that solves the problem. Iris said that this word was "Smart" so I can only assume that they told the princess she was smart enough to solve the problem, so she gained confidence to try the trivial puzzle, then achieved her junior princess milestone goal.

This leads me to another issue. The underlying theme of the show is that nobody can solve their own problems. While there's a benefit to asking for help when you're stuck, constantly leaning on others for confidence and answers to some of the extremely simple problems they highlight on the show is no good. The takeaway that I get from today's show is that you should be unsure of your own abilities, especially when the stakes are high and you really want something. Then you need to get confidence from others in order to even try to achieve your goals. This is not a belief that I want my kids to have in any way.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think that these messages are part of what our public schools are all about. They have to make every kid feel welcome, and can't make anyone seem less smart than the others. But at the same time they push a uniform cirriculum on the kids every day, enforcing the message that you have to be like everyone else, and you have to learn all at the same time. When they force knowledge at an unenthusiastic crowd, the learners need to be extrinisically motivated by fear, e.g. fear of bad grades. The whole preschool TV agenda is aimes to teach kids that you have to learn what they're being told when its being told, on a schedule out of the kids' control. It's self-un-confidence and lack of control messages like this that are one of the big parts we're keeping our kids away from publicly funded child prisons known as schools. We want our kids to believe thay can achieve whatever they want to, and that they don't have to endure any forced learning just for the sake of compliance.

I just hope that the small doses they're getting on TV is not too much already. I better go turn off the TV. Because now Dragon Tales is on, and don't get me started on that show...