supersix2

The first thing I'd like to do is start off with a little background about me. I was born in 1985. I have two great parents who aren't the most book smart people when it comes to science and math but they know there stuff (my dad a businessman and my mom a nurse). All throughout my life since I can really remember (my most lucid memories are from kindegarten and up) I have always been very interested and good at math and science. As of now I'm studying aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Ok so I was sitting in class today thinking about something. When I was growing up there were quite a few science and in general educational shows on TV. From the top of my head I can remember Mr. Wizard, Nova, Beakman's World, Bill Nye the Science Guy, the Magic School Bus, Wishbone, Reading Rainbow, Sesamee Street, and Mr. Roger's. I know there were atleast 1 or two more that I used to watch religously but I have long since forgotten thier names. I know they were on PBS. Anyway I would ALWAYS watch all of these shows just absorbing the information. It was these shows that made me realize my love for math, science, reading, and education. I value education beucase of these shows. Aside from NOVA all of these shows were geared toward's kids. They were entertaining yet informative and they made liking learning a good thing.

Fast foward to my days in highschool. I begin to develop friendships with people who have the same intellectual interests for me and we would always discuss how awesome those shows used to be.

Now most of my friends are studying other forms of engineering, or they are majoring in math, physics, education, pharmacy, computer science, and other like high tech fields.

I look at the programming geared toward's kids now and it is acutally appalling, there are almost no education shows, most of the shows are actually rather violent, and macbre in nature (all of those damn japanese cartoons and anime shows). Then I look at the kids who are around 8-10 years younger than me and I look at thier behaivor and even see how some of them are in school and its completely different than I remember my childhood to be. These kids are not nearly as mature as I remember my peers being at that age. From what I've see most of them don't value education as much as my peers did and the ones who do are outcasts. In my school the smart kids were also the popular and likeable kids. A lot of my college friends said the same things about thier schools. To me, the bulk of these kids that are half my age are just not on the same level as my generation. There is a drasitc difference in kids born in the 80's and kids born in the 90's.

There are so many other issues that I can go into as far as behaivor is concerned but I'm mainly focused on the fact that math and science seems to have been fed to me and others my age in a way that is not being done now. And that idea has got me thinking that maybe somehow my generation was being designed to be the new thinkers and innnovators. Or maybe I'm all wrong and its not that we were being made a certain way but that this new generation is being disadvantaged by today's system. Maybe our whole culture has changed so drastically that kids today are missing out on all the oppotunities I had.

I'm not in anyway bashing an entire group of kids because I know there are a lot of bright kids out there who are way smarter than I am. It just seems like they are being overshadowed by a much larger group of kids who are geared purely towards pop culture.

Has anyone else observed anything like this or am I just a ranting fool?

shesus

I am an elementary school teacher and what you are saying is very true. I have been teaching for 5 years now and although I have had some very bright students, the majority of them are not motivated to learn and want everything handed to them. It is like pulling teeth to get them to write spelling sentences or a paragraph. Of course, I am now at an inner city school where the population is 100% black and 99.9% free lunch. These children have other issues besides what to watch on television, even though I believe that this can be one factor of their attitudes. Since the shows are not available, they do not have anything to let them know why it is important and fun to learn, except me of course. They are more interested in learning how to draw Yugi-O, mimicing the latest WWF moves, and what rated R movie they were allowed to watch. Unfortunately, they are not interested in the mystery of 3-2-1 Contact and what zany thing Bill Nye will do today.
I often had the same thoughts comparing this generation to my own. However, I am not sure how valid that thought is. I am not going to walk around calling my generation lazy, stupid people. However, the generation of teachers who were teaching us could have easily been having this same conversation about us. I have always wanted to talk to my old elementary school teachers and see if they had similar issues to what I am facing.

Dbass

This is a pretty puzzling question...I too an a child of the 80's and my brother is 9 now, and not nearly as inclined to school as I am. I think to address the TV education of the 80's you have to look peripherally to the rest of the world at that time. In the 80's, the main driving force for politics was the Cold War. Politicians wanted to create the best (and the better) set of young learners they could so that we could take up the mantle of war against communism with better technology, more advanced science, etc. The result was - let's get kids interested in science. Consequently all these programs were created, and in general (maybe) the budget for each kid was increased, so that everyone would have to chance to invent better nukes and more effective defense tech.

Just a guess, but kinda makes you think, eh comrade?

Xell101

We could really go for some communist-era style propaganda where the sworn enemies who are out to kill you and use your resources for the advancement of Communism have Soviet third graders doing American college level math.

If you start the kiddo on the right path while young, on the right path that kid shall be. If you start the child off on TV and unrealistic expcations, it's like being stunned beyond belief that someone died, I'm not sure what you expecting but it follows like the night the day that if you set off on a path and go forward, it is down that path you'll go. One thing I still can't get is why someone would be motivated to not do work. I don't understand it, and I don't think it's something one should.

Lak

I can't help but totally, totally agree.
I'm an '85, and Beakmans World totally rocked my socks. I have definately noticed, and so have a year-level peers (and a couple years above) that the year levels underneath us, well, for the most part they're stuck up little bastards, to be honest. And it seems that they become more and more bastidious with each years intake. When I was 7th form (last year high school - not sure what that is in america) I would see 3rd formers (first years) mouthing off to seniors all the time. When I was a 3rd, that was simply unfuckingheard of! You... you just didn't! I have witnessed many times that the year levels below myself and my peers have a distinct lack of maturity and respect (I feel old now) and yes, I would say tv programming and other media contirbute to this reasonably significantly (I feel really old now).

Havn't seen an educational programme for years and years, unless it was aimed at toddlers/infants, or just plain earthshatteringly boring. Bring back Beakman.

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d*d

hmmmm... this sounds familiar, only I could have sworn I heard this in reverse from the generation above me. I too am a child of the 80's and am appalled by the state of the youth of today, but then when I was their age all I heard around me was talk of slipping standards of education compared to the strict 60's style of teaching.
We all look to our own youth through rose tinted glassess and whilst the media will always find stories of education standards plummeting and violence in the youth culture sell, stories about how wonderful everything is don't. As for the tv programme argument, the schedules aren't arranged for you to see kids educational programmes - they are still made. I believe what you are noticing is that you have grown up and another generation below you has created a culture you are not part of. To say we were created to rule them is insultingly egosistical.

y'see in my day.......

flstf

I agree. I'm older than most of the posters here, grew up in the 60's, and my father would always tell me how good I had it. I had part time jobs throughout most of high school, but he would tell me how he had to walk miles to and from school everyday and still do all his chores on the farm. He said our generation was just lazy.
Also back then we never concerned ourselves too much with getting punished in school for screwing up, it was nothing compared to the trouble we would be in at home.

wnker85

I beleive that it is the Children's tv shows that are the downfall. The Telatubbies was the worst thing to happen to children's TV, and the beging of the end. There is nothing there at all. And now there is some other thing with gum drops that light up and bounce around. No one wants to teach there children anything.

Now I was born in 85 as well, but I am weird. I was always intrested in learning and being with those that are older. Kinda screwed my school social life, but I don't care.

But back to the point that it is not TV's fault. It is those who have children not caring. They came from a time where there were no real hardships, and lots of partying. Now that they have children, most have not grown up and allow there kids to screw around. There is a cycle that goes around. One generation works really hard and has a war then the next generation plays so much that their children pay for it with a war or hard times.

Our grandparents worked hard and were drivin to do well. The fought and made this country great. If this cycle keeps going then we will end up fighting a horrible war or going through a huge depression. (and it won't be Bush's fault) It will be our own, becuase we have allowed people to slack off and not learn and work hard.

C4 Diesel

This is the same as has always been said. I'd attribute it to hypocracy, only I feel that it's more appropriate to label it "ignorance" or something similar. Before people start getting mad at me, let me explain... (and no, I'm not calling anyone ignorant). I think that people are, to an extent, inherently self-rightous. We think that the way we do things is best. When people see children doing something different from what they would have done at that age, it is easy for the elders to think that "they know what's best" and immediately attribute that difference to any negative behavioral traits. Now do the elders really know what's best? Who knows. But the assumption that one automatically knows "what's best" is what I am calling ignorance, however I find this to be a common method of parenting. Mind you, it is necessary, because a child will pull the 100x "why?" and the elder will eventually run out of answers or talk in circles. The child, not knowing this questioning is illogical, will continue asking until the elder assumes the position of omniscience (at least relatively speaking) and asserts to the child that he/she has knowledge the child does not - end of story. Hence we have the elder/minor "I know better" conundrum.

Now there are 2 things that need to be shown to see who (if anyone) actually does "know better":

1) The younger generation's performance in the area of interest needs to be quantitatively measured against the statistics from previous generations. Are standardized test scores decreasing (if so, have they gotten harder)? Are children less emotionally mature with more emotional problems? These are measurable characteristics and can be statistically analyzed.

2) Any discrepancy needs to be attributed to a condition. Okay, so say children are less literate, but is that really because they're watching more TV? Perhaps TV isn't the issue and the real factor is that parents are not reading to/with them at a very young age? Maybe the school environment is not as condusive to learning as it used to be for whatever reason? Who knows.

If you asked for my opinion, I think a lot of it has to do with both parents working and children being in the care of family members less often than in the past. Most of the time a paid child care provider will not do the same job of parenting as an actual parent (or grandparent or unkle or whatever). The duty of the average child care provider is not to "parent", but merely to "supervise". I just don't think that children get as much emotional and intellectual development from being with a child care provider as they would from a parent. This parental discrepancy is only more pronounced when the child grows out of child-care age. Then the situation goes from "parenting vs child care" to "parenting vs nothing".

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Yakk

ObCynicism:
When you are in a unipolar world, it is in the powers that be's best interest for their own subjects to be as docile and complacient as possible.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Jrock

I've often wondered that myself. Born in '83, I grew up on Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. When I was grade school age, I'd watch Bill Nye after school, and see Beakman's World on saturday morning. At school, we'd watch Reading Rainbow almost every week in class. I always loved the education programs. There were more shows that I saw less often, but I enjoyed too. But now there's hardly anything like that around anymore. Sesame Street and Mister Rogers are still around, but where's Bill Nye? Where's Reading Rainbow? I've looked, yet I've seen nothing on tv that makes math and science fun. I'm currently a physics major in college. Looking back to my freshman level physics and chemestry classes, the basic concepts were intuitive to me, while other students struggled. I am definitly not any smarter then them, I had just already seen the basic concepts from the science programs I watched as a kid. I'm ver disapointed to see that a lot of these shows aren't on anymore.

Unright

Y'know... I'm 25 right now, born in '79. This makes me about 5-6 years older than you. When I think back to when I was 19 I remember that it seemed like every little 13-14 year old kid and younger was into Pokemon, not educational stuff.

You didn't fit the mold of your generation, and yes, they are kids today that aren't fitting the mold of the future generation you're describing.

muttonglutton

Another child of the 80's here, '83.

I agree with you completely. (Certain) programming from my youth was amazing developmental material, and all thats on the networks now is such cess. Nothing is being taught through these shows except for overcomercialized public messages, and even they aren't getting through properly. Most kid's shows glorify arrogance and gigantic egos. I can't count the number of twelve year old I've met that felt the need to put me in my place. It's almost all of them.

In the 80's, parents that couldn't spend every waking hour near their kids could at least control their development by paying attention to what they watched on TV. There were a number of educational shows that my parents and I would watch together when I was nine, like Bill Nye, Beakman's world, and cool shows on the discovery channel. Now, that channel is all there is left. Cartoons are cess. Childeren's shows are cess (Caillou? There's nothing being taught. He complains a lot. Theres no education there), Kid's science shows, if they still existed today, would somehow manage to be cess.

Get your kids to watch the discovery channel. It's still good stuff. And that is all.

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Killconey

Now I don't want to defend Teletubbies and Boo Bah too much, since I firmly believe that they are inherently evil, but if you look at the PBS website you'll notice that they are designed for preschool kids and younger. Now I don't know much about child psychology, but I do know that if you're expecting your kids to learn about science at that age, you've got another think coming. From what I've heard from psych majors and educators around me, at that age the brain is stimulated positively by bright colors, movement and sound. It's kinda like those Fisher Price toys that go in playpens.

While I do agree that children's educational television is not what it used to be, there are still some positive influences out there. In addition to the aforementioned discovery chanel, there is a great show on PBS called Between the Lions that reminds me a lot of Reading Rainbow. Different books and cultures are explored and there is even a vocabulary emphasis that teaches kids new words. Games like Cranium are also a great influence for getting young kids excited about learning and thinking.

I think that in order to combat apathy, parents simply need to become more involved in their kids lives. While television may have been a great influence on those of us who watched educational programming, I also know many people my age, twenty-three, who's brains rotted long ago because their parents simply left them in front of the TV too long. Remember, Yugi-Oh was once He-Man, TMNT and the Simpsons and wrestling has been popular since the eighties too. Parents need to help teachers out by stimulating their children's minds at home.

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xepherys

I agree. My son has, thankfully, always been very motivated towards school and learning. He loves science and technology, and loves to learn about new things. A personally hold our family responsible for this though. His mother and I were not together after he was roughly two, but it was always very amicable. My family and hers got along, and we both had the same goals for him, learning, understand, etc.

I see a lot of kids with very little direction from their families today. It's okay for a mom to take her 14-year old daughter to a Brittany Spears concert once a year, but only if that same mom makes her kid do homework, sits down with her to talk about life and things of that nature. If the only interaction a kid has with a parent is receiving gifts and an allowance, how is the kid supposed to grow mentally and emotionally?

Also, this is the age of political correctness and litigious action... and it's slowly killing our society. Teachers and principals are scared silly that they'll be sued by parents or, possibly worse even, get bad press for the distrcit. Parents get sued by their kids for spanking them, kids get taken away from loving parents because they get "hit" in a store. Society is primarily to blame for our kids being this way. When did Americans become so afraid of themselves?

abaya

I admit I'm biased against television (even though yes, I watched it as a kid, too), but I think the solution is for parents to kill their TVs and spend that time with their children instead. This might not be direct one-on-one time, but even just reading or discussing the day's news in the same room as the child will develop her or his interest in books and stimulating conversation. Asking for the child's input, what they're reading lately, how's Harry Potter doing, doing little geography contests on where a country is that was in the news... making learning a part of the daily family environment, even just over dinner or something.

This kind of conscious quality-time is what cultivates a positive attitude toward school, I think... but I think a lot of parents get tired of even making themselves think about daily events, let alone stimulating their kids to do so. I think both parents have to be very committed to raising their children this way, otherwise it won't work. Whether they grow up to be Einsteins or Monets or regular Joes isn't the point... but if a kid feels loved and nurtured as well as mentally stimulated and respected for their opinions, then I think they can't help but find more intrinsic value in school.

Also send the kids outside to play in the woods and discover their own scientific experiments. I know that not everyone has the same opportunities or even the same results, but for me, growing up on a couple of acres of wood and pastureland instilled a great sense of exploration and intrigue with the natural world. I am SOO glad my parents kicked me out of the house and off the Nintendo to "go play outside!"

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Charlatan

Teletubbies and Boubah are aimed at kids aged 1.5 to 3. Of course they don't make sense to us. But make no mistake, as annoying as they are, they are very good at developing the creative minds of little children.

The original post laments the absence of shows he saw on PBS and then goes on to talk about shows today but fails to talk about what's on PBS.

You also need to know that the television Universe in 1985 is radically different from what exists today. In 1985 there was no Nick or Nick Jr, no Noggin, no N, you get the idea. The networks and PBS were where you went for programming for kids.

NBC no longer programs its Saturday morning block. It is run by Discovery. The ABC block is all Disney and CBS is a mixture of things...

PBS still consistently programs "family entertainment" with no violence and no commercials.




The real question is why do we let our kids watch so much television to begin with?

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Willravel

This trend is not limited to children by any means. Watch the news tonight. Tell me this, are tehy trying to tell you the news, or are they trying to sell you the news? The same applies to childrens programming. I know most of childrend programming has been fluff for many years (after the death of loony toons, probably), but there were always that small group of shows that had a driving intelectual purpose. While Sesame Street is still on, it is not there to assist anyone outside of maybe toddlers. I've just changed the channel to the local PBS station to see grover teaching about digging holes(?) and how rabbits hop. Just as I am about to change the channel back to the history channel, I see a cartoon come on. It's about sharing. "Not me, we." seems to be the message. While this is important, I see it as some of the most basic social and moral skills. When I go searching for educational programming for children maybe beyond the age of 6 or 7, I see nothing. Watch an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! and you'll quickly realize that you're watching a program to vege out watching. No storyline and all action. What do kids seem to want to watch? Based on ratings, they want to see serious violence, whether it is martial arts, machines, or monsters. So what do the networks do? They frantically change all of their shows so that tehy can get kids to watch.

I'm changing the channel to CNN. I'm watching a story called "Charming Crocs?" about the river crocodiles of Northern Ghana living in harmony with the local villagers. The villagers have given the crocodiles names and the crocodiles don't seem to mind. Yikes.

I think that much of what we get from media is simply there for it's entertainment value, nothing more. The reason behind this slow change is that with entertainment comes ratings, with ratings comes funding. Media is a buisness, and a good buisness does anything it can to gain profit. If your child turns on the tv or opens a magizine or newspaper, teach that most of it is tripe and that the only education your children might get will be from you and perhapse some of their teachers. It's a sad reality.

lindseylatch

Hmm, I have to agree with the hypothesis that it's the TV that's the problem.
As a kid, my parents read to my brother and me every night, and our favorite book was The Hobbit, when we were in grade school. I'm not even sure you could find a grade-schooler who has heard of the book (although they might make the connection from the movies).
I know a couple of parents, my aunt and uncle included, who use the tv as a baby-sitting tool. They just sit the kid in front of it and tell them to "stay," and go off on their own. I think this is encouraging kids to be apathetic about their education, and giving them a shorter attention span. i mean, most shows are a half hour, with comercials every 7 minutes or something. They CAN'T concentrate on anything for more than like 5 minutes at a time. They may even end up with social development problems, since they lack human conpanionship.
the best way to fix this, is to not do it with your own kids. Spend time with them, read to them, encourage them to be active. That's what my parents did, and my siblings and i turned out pretty well, I think.

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