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gibingus · 04-06-2004, 05:44 AM

oh it's interesting, mrs. gibingus reacted by taking all the baby einstein episodes off the shelf. i'm looking for more information, but i am a raging skeptic and cynic.

as with all major news reporting of studies like this, i'm suspicious of how truncated the article is, how high and mighty the conclusions are, and I am frustrated at how obviously narrow the quotes are.

it may take a careful eye to notice, but the einstein videos, sesame street and quite a few other video products aimed at very young children have very long cuts in them and are almost completely comprised of static shots. you don't see the rapid gun slinger music video editing style and fast tracking shots that now predominate commercial programming. noggin's programming is brilliant, i know many preschool teachers and child care professionals who are blown away by these products. they take full advantage of the medium as a teaching tool.

i personally find my toddler (22 months) has a normal attention span for his age, and i have read in many sources that children that age average about 60-90 seconds of focus on the high end. we are working on growing little gibingus' attention span, currently, he loses interest in anything longer than thomas the tank engine segment (5 minutes). this correlates with the length of the books we read to him. he will turn pages to keep the pacing going.

so, i'm not buying it based on this short and thin article. i recall reading anthropological studies that were obviously biased by race and dealt with attention span issues in black children back in the 80s. they basically proposed the idea that black kids needed more stimulus to mirror their chaotic home environments and couldn't just sit still in class. those theories have since been shot to hell.

in the end, we always seek to blame the cultural environment before we look to ourselves. we lie to ourselves when we don't accept that the tail wags the dog. if you use your tv as a babysitter, don't blame the tv.

04-06-2004, 05:44 AM	#28 (permalink)
gibingus Insane Location: 38° 51' N 77° 2' W	oh it's interesting, mrs. gibingus reacted by taking all the baby einstein episodes off the shelf. i'm looking for more information, but i am a raging skeptic and cynic. as with all major news reporting of studies like this, i'm suspicious of how truncated the article is, how high and mighty the conclusions are, and I am frustrated at how obviously narrow the quotes are. it may take a careful eye to notice, but the einstein videos, sesame street and quite a few other video products aimed at very young children have very long cuts in them and are almost completely comprised of static shots. you don't see the rapid gun slinger music video editing style and fast tracking shots that now predominate commercial programming. noggin's programming is brilliant, i know many preschool teachers and child care professionals who are blown away by these products. they take full advantage of the medium as a teaching tool. i personally find my toddler (22 months) has a normal attention span for his age, and i have read in many sources that children that age average about 60-90 seconds of focus on the high end. we are working on growing little gibingus' attention span, currently, he loses interest in anything longer than thomas the tank engine segment (5 minutes). this correlates with the length of the books we read to him. he will turn pages to keep the pacing going. so, i'm not buying it based on this short and thin article. i recall reading anthropological studies that were obviously biased by race and dealt with attention span issues in black children back in the 80s. they basically proposed the idea that black kids needed more stimulus to mirror their chaotic home environments and couldn't just sit still in class. those theories have since been shot to hell. in the end, we always seek to blame the cultural environment before we look to ourselves. we lie to ourselves when we don't accept that the tail wags the dog. if you use your tv as a babysitter, don't blame the tv. __________________ if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.