One of the issues  frequently brought up in threads about the new shows( especially In The Night Garden and Yo Gabba Gabba} is a percieved lack of educational values.

I have asked several times in various threads but have yet to recieve a reply.

Since when has it been necessary for children's,and in particular pre-schoolers , tv to be educational?

Who gets to make the decision on whether a show is suffiently educational?

What makes a show educational?

Which does do you feel fail the educational test?

Which shows do you feel  pass the educational test?

Why isn't adult  tv programming held to the same standard?


Please can we not have the gratuitous insult.

I'm with you too, on this one.  I don't expect TV to educate my child.  In fact, I'm not really too worried about educating DS about anything these days.  He's two and a half and I think it's important that he learns through play at his age, not through any formal pedagogical process implemented by me or anyone else, and certainly not through TV.

I hold adult TV and kid's TV up to the same standard.  TV is for watching while unwinding, and for entertainment.  It doesn't bother me when he watches TV shows that don't appear to have any educational value - he's allowed to have pure unadulterated fun sometimes.  The only thing that bothers me is when he's clearly really wound up by a show - eg he gets extremely wound up by Dora and Diego.  He's a very high-strung kid so it can take hours for him to "come down" after an episode of those shows.  But that's just a personal issue - not something I'd say is inherently wrong with the shows.

tiya tiya:

Well I'm with you on this one...

Its not necessary for ALL children's TV programs to be educational, altho in the last few years most children's programs have tended to in some way or other try and educate the little ones about something. TV is a fantastic tool for education, and I feel that we are extremely lucky to be able to sit our children in front of the TV and actually have them learn something... GREAT!

Is that the same in the UK? Or is it purely  a Canadian/US thing?

I agree there if my child/ren learn something from a show, great. Especially if it's positive.

There have been times when DD1 and I have needed to look something up as a result of something she saw and we both learnt.

Violet Brown:

I'm with you too, on this one.  I don't expect TV to educate my child.  In fact, I'm not really too worried about educating DS about anything these days.  He's two and a half and I think it's important that he learns through play at his age, not through any formal pedagogical process implemented by me or anyone else, and certainly not through TV.

Tv has a place as a resource though.

Certainly play is more important than a lot of people credit.

Anything can be made educational. A trip to the supermarket or home improvement store has lots of oppotunities to be educational.

Violet Brown:

I hold adult TV and kid's TV up to the same standard.  TV is for watching while unwinding, and for entertainment.  It doesn't bother me when he watches TV shows that don't appear to have any educational value - he's allowed to have pure unadulterated fun sometimes.

There are plenty of educational shows around , SuperWhy is one that springs to mind. My friends 4 yo is learning her letters from it.

Sometimes I just  want to sit in front of the tv and not do anything, other times I wasnt to watch that documentary about World War I or discoeries in Egypt and both are fine.

Violet Brown:

The only thing that bothers me is when he's clearly really wound up by a show - eg he gets extremely wound up by Dora and Diego.  He's a very high-strung kid so it can take hours for him to "come down" after an episode of those shows.  But that's just a personal issue - not something I'd say is inherently wrong with the shows.

I used to have that problem with DD2 and The Wiggles. I too never blamed the show , just tried to avoid it when possible.

For something to have educational value, it generally needs to have several components in place.

1. Learning Objectives
2. Learning Outcomes
3. A Lesson Plan
• Introduction
• Background Material
• Instruction/Lesson
• Activity
• Feedback Mechanism
• Review/Repeat

There has to framework, i.e ROPES method, etc.

Television is far too passive and is a one-way form of communication. If you want television to be somewhat an educational experience, a parent should watch the show with the child and ask questions, "what is the character doing?", "Are they being good or bad?", "What are they baking?" with follow up, "What goes into an apple pie?". For this to work, the parent would need to have the ability to stop and rewind the program back to inquire and review.

In addition, there needs to be a means of establishing learning scaffolds for the kids. Were something is built upon from week to week. If I was to teach a child to do read, the foundation would be the alphabet and word association. A is for apple for example. Recognizing the letter and the sound it creates.

Most of the programs do not deal with reading, but with concepts such as sharing. However, the story arc of a cartoon does not have the mechanism to a build a learning scaffold for the concept and then have an activity. Television is too passive a means of delivery. Now if Dora and Blues Clues there are some pauses for kids to give "answers" but there is no means of saying whether or not the answer is correct. Generally, if correct - continue activity, if not - repeat foundation.  So if the child has the concept or idea of sharing, then it is time to have children demonstrate sharing i.e. asking - giving - sharing, maybe introduce manners, say "thank you" for getting an item from another child.  What are possible positive outcomes, what are possible negative outcomes? Child does share, child does not share.

Sesame Street follows some of the rules, especially when a given show is "brought to you by" a letter and a number. This is the review but not really.  Dora has a review, but it to lacks many educational elements.

Adult television is informative - news, discovery channel. Or entertainment - movies, sitcoms.

I hope this answers your questions. If not private message me.

canadiandad:

For something to have educational value, it generally needs to have several components in place.

1. Learning Objectives
2. Learning Outcomes
3. A Lesson Plan
• Introduction
• Background Material
• Instruction/Lesson
• Activity
• Feedback Mechanism
• Review/Repeat

There has to framework, i.e ROPES method, etc.

Thanks for that information. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Now I'm getting a handle on the process.

canadiandad:

Television is far too passive and is a one-way form of communication. If you want television to be somewhat an educational experience, a parent should watch the show with the child and ask questions, "what is the character doing?", "Are they being good or bad?", "What are they baking?" with follow up, "What goes into an apple pie?". For this to work, the parent would need to have the ability to stop and rewind the program back to inquire and review.

Which I'm sure I have done on times, especially when there is behaviour issues( eg
the furball name-calling in Berenstain Bears, Franklin  stupid episode) and also Are we there yet? when we have talked about places me and DH went to before DD1 was born.

canadiandad:

In addition, there needs to be a means of establishing learning scaffolds for the kids. Were something is built upon from week to week. If I was to teach a child to do read, the foundation would be the alphabet and word association. A is for apple for example. Recognizing the letter and the sound it creates.

I was asked by the school not to teach my kids to read as they needed to learn to read in French before English and the teachers did not want the children to be confused.

However it didn't stop me helping out over the school holidays!

canadiandad:

Most of the programs do not deal with reading, but with concepts such as sharing. However, the story arc of a cartoon does not have the mechanism to a build a learning scaffold for the concept and then have an activity. Television is too passive a means of delivery. Now if Dora and Blues Clues there are some pauses for kids to give "answers" but there is no means of saying whether or not the answer is correct. Generally, if correct - continue activity, if not - repeat foundation.  So if the child has the concept or idea of sharing, then it is time to have children demonstrate sharing i.e. asking - giving - sharing, maybe introduce manners, say "thank you" for getting an item from another child.  What are possible positive outcomes, what are possible negative outcomes? Child does share, child does not share.

A smart kid soon learns that you can give the wrong answers and still progress though, which negates the learning through repartition which is part of the show.

canadiandad:

Sesame Street follows some of the rules, especially when a given show is "brought to you by" a letter and a number. This is the review but not really.  Dora has a review, but it to lacks many educational elements.

Adult television is informative - news, discovery channel. Or entertainment - movies, sitcoms.

I hope this answers your questions. If not private message me.

I just threw this out as soooooo many parents were deploring the lack of educational content of 2 shows in particular and wanted to know how important it is or it should be in childrens programming.

Is it a new thing because I'm sure most of the rather more limited selection that was available to me as a child was concentrated on story-telling rather than force-feeding information. Or else it showed you the best way to kill intergalactic warrior races

I agree not all shows have to be educational. Value play  and fun not just education

crazybrit:

tiya tiya:

Well I'm with you on this one...

Its not necessary for ALL children's TV programs to be educational, altho in the last few years most children's programs have tended to in some way or other try and educate the little ones about something. TV is a fantastic tool for education, and I feel that we are extremely lucky to be able to sit our children in front of the TV and actually have them learn something... GREAT!

Is that the same in the UK? Or is it purely  a Canadian/US thing?

tiya tiya:

I am afraid its the same across the pond, parents want the TV to educate their kids, or else the program is unacceptable. I think it all started when The Teletubies first came on the scene, and the whole 'eh oh' palava! Parents were complaining that their children who were previously speaking proper english started saying 'eh oh' instead of 'hello', etc.

 

That's strange, to me at least, being a parent in the firstwave. Yes there was some concern but were I was and with friends or friends of friends who had children of similar age, very few of us found this to be a problem

tiya tiya:

And children are very good at assessing who is good or bad in a show...

This is very true. One of the things that I am impressed with my two year old is that he will turn the tv off after a show or when he's had enough and moves onto toys or his tricycle.

tiya tiya:

However it does not mean that if you dont have all of these points, then learning cannot take place, especially where young children are concerned.

This is very true. As parents you have to provide various means of learning whether it be formative, constructionist, exploratory, situational,etc.

In my statement, I was trying to answer the questions put forward in the initial post in this section.

One of the problems, is that we do not put ourselves into the mindset of a toddler when we watch these programs. As adults we tend to stamp our own adult template and values onto something that is essentially an entertainment medium.

A flying Pinkey Ponk can make perfect sense to a 2 year old, not necessarily an adult.

I took sometime, but I found the article written in the 70's that basically blasted Sesame Street for its lack of educational value when it first was aired.

http://members.tripod.com/~hooperfan/chap12.html

"Carl Bereiter, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and an authority on preschool learning, complains that what he has seen of Sesame Street has been too far removed from structured teaching. He maintains that the show has been “based entirely on audience appeal and is not really teaching anything in particular.”

Additional criticism can be found here on Wikipedia on in the Sesame Street entry.