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...

Pushing Charities on Kids

The Mystic River Press (story is on B2) has what is meant to be a feel-good story about a teacher spreading moral responsibility by teaching her middle school class about a charity she likes, Heifer International.

Before you get too angry with me, I need to set a few things straight. Of all the charities out there, I really believe in what Heifer is doing. I love the idea of "passing on the gift", and it seems like a really well-assembled program without a lot of political ideology tainting it. Furthermore, giving to charity is one of the most important things that any person of privelege can do (and let's face it - if you can read this, then you have a computer and are thus a person of privelege).

The thing that really bugs me about this is that promotion of a specific charity has no place whatsoever in public school. Giving to charity, and specific choice of a charity to give to is a personal choice that should be reserved for the individuals doing the giving. A teacher telling her students that they should give to Heifer makes the children feel compelled to believe that she is right. She is in the position of power. But a child should give to a charity in which he or she believes very deeply. Middle school kids have a pretty well developed sense of values, and are quite capable of making a decision about who to give money to.

Fortunately, in this case, it is a good neutral charity with a mission just about anyone can appreciate. But what if a teacher did this for some charity with a deep social or political agenda? Would you want your child subjected to this type of captive marketing for MoveOn.org? How about if Focus on the Family came into your school to preach to your kids? What about the ACLU? Or GreenPeace? Maybe Michael Moore as a guest speaker? Or Bill O'Reilly? Once you have school officials condoning specific charities, it is a slippery slope towards political influence coming into your classrooms.

I also don't like the idea of some guy coming into the class with a handful of rice to show the kids how most of the world lives. This is a blatant attempt to make the kids feel guilty for their abundance of food choices. Their response to the guilt will be the programmed response by their teacher to give to Heifer. It is a dirty sales tactic that is being used here. And it is being used on your children.

Now let me say again, that I like Heifer. We have given money to them. My young children love the idea of giving real animals to kids in some other part of the world. But the thing is that we chose this ourselves. Nobody that we put into a position of power came onto us in a situation we could not escape from to tell us to give to Heifer.

This is just another example of the absence of personal freedom and choice that is the hallmark of public school.

"School is not a happy place"

To quote the great Dave Barry, "I am not making this up."

I heard a 14-year old kid from Texas say this on the radio herself. The context was a story on NPR about school shootings, and basically asking "why?" The girl said that basically unless you are among the top 10% "cool" people, school is not a happy place.

Well, yeah - duh! That was my experience. As an outsider that never could figure out how to be a part of the cool kids, school was not a very fun or happy place. Add on to the popular issue the fact that you have to go to a different class every 40 minutes or so, and have to do stupid homework that you don't care about, and have to get good grades so you can get into a good college and get a good job, and school is not a fun place. And it turns out I didn't even want their "good job".

Fun was skipping first period to just go get breakfast or do nothing. Fun was getting out at noon because you crafted your schedule so that you had no afternoon classes. Fun was hanging out in the graphics and photography area of the building, where everyone was just hanging out doing graphics and photography.

Not Fun was wondering why Justin and Matt were laughing, seemingly at you. Not Fun was having to read Shakespeare or Wuthering Heights (although I now might read Shakespeare) and take tests on it. Not Fun was carrying a ton of heavy books all the time.

Now I am not in the homeschool department to protect my kids from the possibility that they may not be popular in school. My wife was socially successful in school, and I'm pretty sure my kids already have the social savvy to be able to make it very well in large groups of people (e.g. at school). For me, it is more the forced learning angle that I am against, and the strict scheduling and intense pressure and testing (even though I was awesome at taking tests). These are all the things that make school an unhappy place.