Everything I really need to know
nellebelle
Everything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy
cartoons.
OK, not really. But, I have made a transformation over the past few years. I
used to think that TV was bad in general (books always better!), and at the
very least, children's exposure to TV should be limited.
We are now going into our 3rd year of removing all limits from TV. It
started when Pat back-doored a new large screen TV into the house. This
coincided with the winter Olympics, so we hooked up to cable after a couple
of years without it. We got the expanded cable, since that offered many more
stations that appealed to us.
The girls and I did a *unit study* on the Olympics. I use the term loosely,
because I didn't sit down and plan units or require reports on what they
learned. Basically, we watched and watched and watched Olympics coverage,
bought the official program in order to follow events more easily, got
library books about Michelle Kwan and other Olympic stars present and past,
and recorded some of our favorite events for repeat viewing. We even got
the Olympic soundtrack CD. While watching, all sorts of tidbits came up for
discussion. Where our favorite athletes were from had us frequently
grabbing the globe or an atlas. How were events scored, why did some
countries have many participants and others only a few, what is a sport,
sportsmanship, and much more. Some nice unplanned things occurred at the
same time. Pat was working with some people from Spain, and a couple of them
came to visit. They came to dinner at our house and spent the evening
watching and discussing Olympics with us. This was the night that Ice
Dancing was on, and we had a spirited discussion on whether this should
qualify as a sport, or not. It was exciting for all of us to have a foreign
person associated with the international sports industry spend time with us.
That it happened during the world's most popular sports competition was
really cool.
Some friends went to Austria that winter and brought the girls hats like the
ones worn by some of the Austrian cross country skiers. The hats are gray
with a tuft of bright colored fluff at the top, so it looks a bit as if you
are wearing a headband with bright hair sticking out the top. These hats
came about because some performance enhancing drugs used by some of the
skiers caused their hair to turn gray. The skiers would dye their hair
bright colors to mask it. This presented an opportunity to talk about drugs
and their possible effects on one's health and career.
Since that time, TV viewing has waxed and waned. Sometimes it is on way too
much for my taste. Other times the girls go days without watching. Nobody
would disagree that some TV programs are *educational* and well worth
watching. But my kids have also learned so much from what I would have once
called "stupid cartoons". Last night, Lisa was watching a cartoon - The
Proud Family. The episode involved a girl going back in time to the 1950s
and covered many of the realities of segregation. She even quoted part of
MLK's famous I Have a Dream speech. I have a children's picture book about
that. I need to dig it out and read it while it's fresh in our minds.
Besides, his holiday is coming up on Monday.
The Simpsons, although not always *polite* are very funny and are always
making references to things that many people would consider education
material. Watching an episode with my children always brings up many
interesting topics to discuss. Besides, we laugh a lot.
Up to now, we have never had any video games in our house. It wasn't that I
purposely avoided them, it was just something we'd never done and the girls
had never asked for. I had a vague idea in my head that they were negative
along the lines of TV and other electronic media. Generally, when video
games make the news it is not positive. I had never before questioned these
ideas. Lisa had mentioned playing a race car game at her friend's house. We
decided to give the girls a Nintendo64 for Christmas. This morning I played
Crusin World with Lisa. The game is full of famous landmarks. It is not
totally realistic, but does match many real aspects of the countries you
race through. While cruising Germany, I mentioned the autobahn. I don't know
too much about it, except that people drive really fast there. This led us
to consider mph vs. kph, which led to the metric vs. US system of
measurement. I told Lisa that I had bought some stuff to help learn the
metric system because I wanted to understand it better. She said, "We can
learn it together".
It never ceases to amaze me how doing one thing can lead to learning about
something else.
If we do get around to learning more about metrics, I wonder how much she'll
absorb. I studied this in school, but I never internalized it. I mean, I can
look up the formulas and use them to figure out conversions, but hearing a
metric measurement still doesn't mean much to me. I wonder if she will
learn it more easily, because she will not be pressured to learn it for a
test. If she learns it, it will be because she wants to. Due to Pat's
recent trip to Asia, however, I now know that 20 C is close to 68 F. I
learned this because I went on-line to check the weather where he was
staying. It was in Celsius, so I googled a site to convert that to
Fahrenheit. Lisa's comment to all that? "Wow, Daddy's in warm weather and
I'm in the snow!"
Mary Ellen
cartoons.
OK, not really. But, I have made a transformation over the past few years. I
used to think that TV was bad in general (books always better!), and at the
very least, children's exposure to TV should be limited.
We are now going into our 3rd year of removing all limits from TV. It
started when Pat back-doored a new large screen TV into the house. This
coincided with the winter Olympics, so we hooked up to cable after a couple
of years without it. We got the expanded cable, since that offered many more
stations that appealed to us.
The girls and I did a *unit study* on the Olympics. I use the term loosely,
because I didn't sit down and plan units or require reports on what they
learned. Basically, we watched and watched and watched Olympics coverage,
bought the official program in order to follow events more easily, got
library books about Michelle Kwan and other Olympic stars present and past,
and recorded some of our favorite events for repeat viewing. We even got
the Olympic soundtrack CD. While watching, all sorts of tidbits came up for
discussion. Where our favorite athletes were from had us frequently
grabbing the globe or an atlas. How were events scored, why did some
countries have many participants and others only a few, what is a sport,
sportsmanship, and much more. Some nice unplanned things occurred at the
same time. Pat was working with some people from Spain, and a couple of them
came to visit. They came to dinner at our house and spent the evening
watching and discussing Olympics with us. This was the night that Ice
Dancing was on, and we had a spirited discussion on whether this should
qualify as a sport, or not. It was exciting for all of us to have a foreign
person associated with the international sports industry spend time with us.
That it happened during the world's most popular sports competition was
really cool.
Some friends went to Austria that winter and brought the girls hats like the
ones worn by some of the Austrian cross country skiers. The hats are gray
with a tuft of bright colored fluff at the top, so it looks a bit as if you
are wearing a headband with bright hair sticking out the top. These hats
came about because some performance enhancing drugs used by some of the
skiers caused their hair to turn gray. The skiers would dye their hair
bright colors to mask it. This presented an opportunity to talk about drugs
and their possible effects on one's health and career.
Since that time, TV viewing has waxed and waned. Sometimes it is on way too
much for my taste. Other times the girls go days without watching. Nobody
would disagree that some TV programs are *educational* and well worth
watching. But my kids have also learned so much from what I would have once
called "stupid cartoons". Last night, Lisa was watching a cartoon - The
Proud Family. The episode involved a girl going back in time to the 1950s
and covered many of the realities of segregation. She even quoted part of
MLK's famous I Have a Dream speech. I have a children's picture book about
that. I need to dig it out and read it while it's fresh in our minds.
Besides, his holiday is coming up on Monday.
The Simpsons, although not always *polite* are very funny and are always
making references to things that many people would consider education
material. Watching an episode with my children always brings up many
interesting topics to discuss. Besides, we laugh a lot.
Up to now, we have never had any video games in our house. It wasn't that I
purposely avoided them, it was just something we'd never done and the girls
had never asked for. I had a vague idea in my head that they were negative
along the lines of TV and other electronic media. Generally, when video
games make the news it is not positive. I had never before questioned these
ideas. Lisa had mentioned playing a race car game at her friend's house. We
decided to give the girls a Nintendo64 for Christmas. This morning I played
Crusin World with Lisa. The game is full of famous landmarks. It is not
totally realistic, but does match many real aspects of the countries you
race through. While cruising Germany, I mentioned the autobahn. I don't know
too much about it, except that people drive really fast there. This led us
to consider mph vs. kph, which led to the metric vs. US system of
measurement. I told Lisa that I had bought some stuff to help learn the
metric system because I wanted to understand it better. She said, "We can
learn it together".
It never ceases to amaze me how doing one thing can lead to learning about
something else.
If we do get around to learning more about metrics, I wonder how much she'll
absorb. I studied this in school, but I never internalized it. I mean, I can
look up the formulas and use them to figure out conversions, but hearing a
metric measurement still doesn't mean much to me. I wonder if she will
learn it more easily, because she will not be pressured to learn it for a
test. If she learns it, it will be because she wants to. Due to Pat's
recent trip to Asia, however, I now know that 20 C is close to 68 F. I
learned this because I went on-line to check the weather where he was
staying. It was in Celsius, so I googled a site to convert that to
Fahrenheit. Lisa's comment to all that? "Wow, Daddy's in warm weather and
I'm in the snow!"
Mary Ellen
[email protected]
In a message dated 1/16/04 12:05:24 PM, nellebelle@... writes:
<< Everything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy
cartoons. >>
Enshrined.
http://sandradodd.com/tv
fourth box
WONDERFUL.
You can try to talk me out of having it there by e-mail later if you want,
but I want to keep it there so other families will loosen up and see more light
(from televisions or inside their souls or the sun or lava lamps or
*whatever*)!
Sandra
<< Everything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy
cartoons. >>
Enshrined.
http://sandradodd.com/tv
fourth box
WONDERFUL.
You can try to talk me out of having it there by e-mail later if you want,
but I want to keep it there so other families will loosen up and see more light
(from televisions or inside their souls or the sun or lava lamps or
*whatever*)!
Sandra
Barbara Chase
Wow... I loved this story! Thanks so much for sharing it.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Krisula Moyer
You shoulda called this post " If you give a mouse a TV..."
--------------------------------------------------
cartoons.
OK, not really. But, I have made a transformation over the past few years. I
used to think that TV was bad in general (books always better!), and at the
very least, children's exposure to TV should be limited.
We are now going into our 3rd year of removing all limits from TV. It
started when Pat back-doored a new large screen TV into the house. This
coincided with the winter Olympics, so we hooked up to cable after a couple
of years without it. We got the expanded cable, since that offered many more
stations that appealed to us.
The girls and I did a *unit study* on the Olympics. I use the term
loosely,<<
----------------------
--------------------------------------------------
>>Subject: Everything I really need to knowEverything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy
cartoons.
OK, not really. But, I have made a transformation over the past few years. I
used to think that TV was bad in general (books always better!), and at the
very least, children's exposure to TV should be limited.
We are now going into our 3rd year of removing all limits from TV. It
started when Pat back-doored a new large screen TV into the house. This
coincided with the winter Olympics, so we hooked up to cable after a couple
of years without it. We got the expanded cable, since that offered many more
stations that appealed to us.
The girls and I did a *unit study* on the Olympics. I use the term
loosely,<<
----------------------
nellebelle
Wow, thank you, Sandra.
I never would have reached my current TV attitude if not for Sandra, this list and the unschooling list. I don't think I said anything new, just shared how it's been working in my family. And my title is a pretty blatant rip-off of from Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. This morning I noticed a similar title in a HEM article. Well, it is catchy, isn't it?
I sent my mom the link. She said she read several other articles while she was there and she enjoyed them! Maybe it will result in some small influence on my brother and sil, the next time they ask her not to let my nephew watch TV when she babysits.
I actually sent an email to this, or maybe it was the unschooling list, encouraging people to do the No TV week. That must have been about 4 or 5 years ago. One of the things Sandra said in response was to consider how I would like to have a no computer week for myself. Yikes! That made me think, especially since I wanted to impose the No TV week on my family, it wasn't their idea. I did end up going through with the no TV week that year, though. It was easy enough to do, but didn't make any difference in our viewing when the week was over. I'm glad I finally saw the light!
Mary Ellen
I never would have reached my current TV attitude if not for Sandra, this list and the unschooling list. I don't think I said anything new, just shared how it's been working in my family. And my title is a pretty blatant rip-off of from Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. This morning I noticed a similar title in a HEM article. Well, it is catchy, isn't it?
I sent my mom the link. She said she read several other articles while she was there and she enjoyed them! Maybe it will result in some small influence on my brother and sil, the next time they ask her not to let my nephew watch TV when she babysits.
I actually sent an email to this, or maybe it was the unschooling list, encouraging people to do the No TV week. That must have been about 4 or 5 years ago. One of the things Sandra said in response was to consider how I would like to have a no computer week for myself. Yikes! That made me think, especially since I wanted to impose the No TV week on my family, it wasn't their idea. I did end up going through with the no TV week that year, though. It was easy enough to do, but didn't make any difference in our viewing when the week was over. I'm glad I finally saw the light!
Mary Ellen
----- Original Message -----In a message dated 1/16/04 12:05:24 PM, nellebelle@... writes:
<< Everything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy
cartoons. >>
Enshrined.
http://sandradodd.com/tv
fourth box
WONDERFUL.
You can try to talk me out of having it there by e-mail later if you want,
but I want to keep it there so other families will loosen up and see more light
(from televisions or inside their souls or the sun or lava lamps or
*whatever*)!
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
nellebelle
Or "Ramona and her Video Game" :-)
Mary Ellen
Mary Ellen
----- Original Message ----- You shoulda called this post " If you give a mouse a TV..."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]