[email protected]

>... I realized your comment about "marching their little butts around"
>was facetious, but I've just become more aware in recent years of an
>unconscious attitude that children are second class citizens. I make
>comments like yours myself at times, and then I try to imagine saying
>the same thing in the same way about a respected adult, or hearing my
>husband saying it about me. It's an eye-opening exercise.
>Imagine a husband saying to his friends about his wife "I marched her
>little butt all over creation today and she *had* to keep up."

Well, for one, I have never considered children to be second-class
citizens; au contraire -- they're about the only people I understand.
Second, my wife and I tend to be on the silly side, and I'd be surprised if
one of us DIDN'T say something like that about the other at one point or
another.

>> I fully realize that there are some here who believe a passive session
>> of
>> watching TV is as valuable to a developing mind as an active session
>> of
>> looking for bugs, playing in a sandbox, taking a hike through the
>> woods and
>> chasing the local jackrabbits and squirrels, or building forts out of
>> boxes. I frankly think the TV is not a good substitute for anything
>> that
>> involves activity.
>
>This is interesting. I have a few questions if you don't mind...
>Do you feel the same way about other non-physically active pastimes-
>like reading for example?

I don't consider reading necessarily a passive activity. It's a bit
different than TV, where cascading images with a total duration averaging
three seconds apiece are spoon-fed to the viewer.

>In other words, would you say "reading is not
>a good substitute for anything that involves physical activity"?

No, I wouldn't.

>And why is tv automatically a "substitute" for something else in a way
>that other activities are not?
>Everything we do is a substitute for something else we could be doing.
>Hiking in the woods or looking for bugs might be a substitute for
>painting a picture or baking cookies, but that doesn't make hiking in
>the woods wrong. It's just the choice for the moment.
>Also, what about watching tv while simultaneously doing something else?
>We've watched tv while folding laundry, while playing with legos or
>other building toys, while drawing pictures, while having a conversation
>about what's on the tv, etc. Some people even exercise while they watch
>tv. Watching tv doesn't automatically equal inactivity.

Understood. We simply have a different view of its value.

><< And why is tv automatically a "substitute" for something else in a way
>that other activities are not?
>Everything we do is a substitute for something else we could be doing.
>Hiking in the woods or looking for bugs might be a substitute for
>painting a picture or baking cookies, but that doesn't make hiking in
>the woods wrong. It's just the choice for the moment. >>
>
>I was wondering the same kinds of things. And wondering whether Marc isn't
>heavy on Gardner's nature intelligence, and lighter on visual and musical,
>perhaps.

Maybe that's the impression I've given you; if so, I apologize.

>Because all the bugs in the world you can find and watch life
>cycles on will not bring you pictures of Nepal,

But traveling to Nepal for a month is even better. My wife has traveled
all over the world; I've traveled all over the U.S. This fall, we're
taking our son to Australia.

>nor opera,

While I was born to a musical family with an opera singer, I don't have
much taste for opera. I do like orchestras and used to play the viola. In
any case, seeing either on TV is no substitute for attending a concert or
playing.

>nor Shakespeare.

I played Romeo and other Shakespearean characters in my youth, and while
watching someone else acting it out is fun, being one of the characters is
even more fun. In doing so, I learned the lines in a way that I wouldn't
from even repeated viewings.

>Yet on TV there are also bugs!

Granted.

Like I said, we simply have differing views on the value of video.

-- Marc

[email protected]

In a message dated 6/7/02 8:19:21 AM, rambler@... writes:

<< I don't consider reading necessarily a passive activity. It's a bit
different than TV, where cascading images with a total duration averaging
three seconds apiece are spoon-fed to the viewer. >>

What's the duration of a word or phrase when you're reading?

Sounds like you've read an anti-TV book without really observing kids
watching TV, or being really analytical about your own viewing of something
that's really making you think.

<<But traveling to Nepal for a month is even better. My wife has traveled
all over the world; I've traveled all over the U.S. This fall, we're
taking our son to Australia.>>

When taveling to Nepal isn't an option, a TV show on Nepal is better than
skateboarding in the alley (again), as to learning about other places.

<< In any case, seeing either on TV is no substitute for attending a concert
or
playing.>>

Most people in the U.S. live hundreds of miles from any opportunity to see
live opera, and if you pay bucks to go to an opera and you don't like it
you're stuck. If you can turn one on for fifteen minutes with option to turn
it off, it's a huge luxury people for the past four hundred years would all
have LOVED to have had. It's only been available for the past 40 or so, and
it doesn't suck.

<<I played Romeo and other Shakespearean characters in my youth, and while
watching someone else acting it out is fun, being one of the characters is
even more fun. In doing so, I learned the lines in a way that I wouldn't
from even repeated viewings.>>

Knowing Romeo's lines is no substitute for having heard some really great
actors do six or a dozen plays where you can wind back and watch the good
parts twice.

Sandra

Patti

rambler@... wrote:

> I don't consider reading necessarily a passive activity. It's a bit
> different than TV, where cascading images with a total duration
> averaging
> three seconds apiece are spoon-fed to the viewer.

Yes, it is a bit different. With reading, words are spoon-fed to the
reader instead of images being spoon fed to the viewer. I still don't
get why one is passive and the other not.

> >In other words, would you say "reading is not
> >a good substitute for anything that involves physical activity"?
>
> No, I wouldn't.

I'm genuinely curious why not.
Isn't going to Nepal better than reading about it?

Thanks,
Patti


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fetteroll

on 6/7/02 10:17 AM, rambler@... at rambler@... wrote:

> In
> any case, seeing either on TV is no substitute for attending a concert or
> playing.

But, see, *no one* is saying TV is "instead of". It's an *additional* tool
to access the world. It's not *instead of* going to Nepal. It's instead of
not being able to go to Nepal.

> Like I said, we simply have differing views on the value of video.

And we should all choose for ourselves. But when unschooling our views
affect what resources are available to our children. A view that some
resource is lacking value can impact a child's access to something that may
be of great value to them.

If music did nothing for me so that I decided a child was perfectly fine
without it, a musical child would find the environment limiting. If being in
nature, or manipulating numbers, or being physical did nothing for me, those
too would limit a child whose intelligence leaned those directions.

Some children are visual learners. My daughter is one. She gets a great deal
more in terms of imagination fodder out of cartoons than she does out of
listening to books or being out in nature. She enjoys both of those, but
it's cartoons that have inspired the most creativity in her.

> I played Romeo and other Shakespearean characters in my youth, and while
> watching someone else acting it out is fun, being one of the characters is
> even more fun. In doing so, I learned the lines in a way that I wouldn't
> from even repeated viewings.

If someone has that kind of access. If someone has that desire.

What if they don't? Shakespeare live is superior to Shakespeare on TV. But
Shakespeare on TV is superior to reading it. In fact watching Shakespeare,
especially different productions -- which may be beyond the means and access
of many people -- will give someone greater insight than even repeated
readings.

(Assuming someone likes Shakespeare of course. My hsuband would choose none
of the above ;-)

> But traveling to Nepal for a month is even better. My wife has traveled
> all over the world; I've traveled all over the U.S. This fall, we're
> taking our son to Australia.

Most people don't have that kind of money or time. Are you saying that if
someone can't go experience something, then they shouldn't bother with a
lesser acess to it?

If I had the choice of going to Nepal or watching it on TV, I'd choose
going. If I had the choice of denying myself Nepal or watching it on TV, I'd
choose TV.

Of course I have other choices too: books, music, people. None is a
substitute for going there but they're a lot cheaper, easier and more
accessible to those who can't go. And I can visit 1000's of places through
those, but I doubt that I'll have the opportunity to actually visit more
than a handful or so of exotic places.

Joyce