Kids and TV shows

[fabrisse]

This isn't going to be a diatribe against letting kids watch too much tv.

The title for this entry comes from a strange synchronicity that's occured, and it gives me a chance to say something I've wanted to say for a while. Don't lie to children.

Just over a week ago, I talked about the kids I'm tutoring. Well, the 13 year old girl and I had a very good talk this week during her lesson. Let me emphasize that I am teaching something, not just shooting the breeze here.

She came in dressed for softball and admitted that she'd left her work at home. I had brought some information about the Civil War that my father had sent me for her, though, and we discussed how it put the fictional work into context for her. We also picked out the other books that she'd read off of her summer reading list.

Her fear at taking the exams has been the only completely unguarded emotion that I've seen from her, until I showed her those three little pages. Anger flared as she said, "That's more than my social studies teacher ever gave me."

It all came pouring out then. She hungers for facts. It bothers her that the Gettysburg address was mentioned but not quoted, that she's never read the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights even though they spent most of the school year covering the Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath.

The week before she'd asked me why a ten year old would feel that he had enough education and farm skills to look for work to help his family. Her follow-up question was "What could a ten year old do?"

I answered from my own stories. I fixed dinner for a family of four and did all the laundry and ironing as well from the time I was ten until I went to boarding school at fifteen. My mother had raised rabbits for meat (during World War II rabbits weren't on the ration books so it was a very popular supplemental meat). My father had held down the hogs for slaughter, helped with plowing, weeding, and harvesting, gathered eggs, and milked the cow (I have it on good authority this cow had a mean disposition and used to growl at him). My grandmother had been a field hand in the cotton fields from the time she was five.

This urban girl thought a minute, and said, "That wasn't Civil War time, that was in the twentieth century." She started talking about what children could do and what they weren't allowed to do now. She wanted to know why her teachers wouldn't give her facts. Why did her summer reading list have things on World War II and the suffragettes but only from a teenager's point of view? With the exception of Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank, there wasn't anything that was non-fiction, and she was fed up with it.

I'm bringing her printouts of the Gettysburg Address, Ain't I a Woman, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. We've already discussed what books she'll borrow from me during her first semester at school. All will be history books at her request.

How does this relate to TV? Well, over at TWoP we've been having a discussion of the Stargate SG-1 episode Learning Curve. It snatches a happy ending out of stupidity at least partially because the stupidity is committed by the star of the show.

Anyone who's interested in the debate should go read the SG-1 topic there. Suffice it to say that I get very angry at anyone who decides that his version of fun is superior to my version of fun. More than that, the idea that children can't make their own decisions has always been abhorrent to me (all right, Daddy or Mommy has a better job 2000 miles away, the kid should have to pack and move. But I also think that the kid should have the reasons explained to him/her and have some prior knowledge that it's a possibility.).

So, rant over. Anyone who can suggest the best ways to provide my little historian with facts (she doesn't have a computer at home) that she won't get at school, please let me know. It was so good to see passion, even a negative one, on her face.

Comments

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

This is a good story Fabi. I enjoyed reading it. It would give me such a rush of pleasure to know that I am helping a child learn. I adore and admire you tremendously for tutoring these kidlets.

This young girl's comments remind me of a couple of beefs I had with my public schooling. For one, I never felt like I was taught how to do research. Sure, they took us to the library and taught us how to read the card catalogue, but what we really needed was a practical research workshop. I don't think a semester spent learning how to write a research paper would have been wasted.

Another issue was that I didn't understand why we were being taught a particular thing. What relevance does this have in the scheme of things? What am I supposed to be taking from this? These were questions that were on my mind as a child--but were never spoken (probably because I didn't quite have the words, and because even if I did, those words would have been considered disrespectful).

It sounds to me like your girl needs to be taught how to do her own research--so that she can find the answers to these questions she has.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

The big question is how do I teach her to do her own research. I can't take her out of the building and we only have an hour a week. I have a few thoughts once school begins again, but any suggestions are welcome.

Relevance is a big thing. I know that there were subjects that I hated in school, but if someone explained WHY we were doing them, I'd at least make a concerted effort to pass them.

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

Well do you have access to the Internet during your sessions? Because it seems to me that research is a lot easier today than it was when we were in school.

If I was teaching someone how to research, I'd have them pick a topic that the are interested in and I would teach them how to use Google to find out more about that topic.

It would probably be helpful to talk a little about critical thinking and how you determine when information is reliable and when it is not reliable. You can't teach that critical thinking early enough as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps it would be interesting for her to come up with a why-type question and encourage her to do some research on it. You guys could spend a few minutes talking about it during each of your sessions (a little bit of an update).

You know what might be a good book for her to read? Sophie's World. It's a sort of philosphy for children (and others) book. I've already decided that it is going to be required reading for my own children. Not only is it the history of philosphy (in a simple straight-forward language), it also attempts to teach how to think. The first part of the book relies considerably upon the Socratic method and the questions it asks spur the main character Sophie (a fifteen year old girl) and the reader to look at the world in a different way.

I realize that I am giving you a lot here, but maybe there is some amalgamation or edited version of these ideas you can use for your student?

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the Sophie's World recommendation. I've had a couple of other people suggest it too, but you were the first. When I have money, that's on my book list.

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

No problem. I hope everything is going well with your tutoring.

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

Her school library should have nonfiction books availiable. At least, they're supposed to. Out here, each class goes to the libaray once a week, sometimes they have a minilesson (sometimes not depending on the school) and then are allowed to check out a book. If she asks the libariaran where the nonfiction section is/history/etc. she should be able to find information there. If not, suggest to her parents that they take her to the public libarary.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

The branch of the public library nearest us is terrible. She's the one student whose parents I never seem to see, so I can't even ask them to take her to the BPL.

I thought school libraries were supposed to have non-fiction. Mine certainly did, but this is a working class school district. Money isn't spent on books as often as its spent on metal detectors. I really don't know what her options are. I can see why her mother wants her to get into one of the exam schools, they're the ones that get the funding.

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

Mine certainly did, but this is a working class school district.

So is the district I volunteer in, and it's stocked with nonfiction. Some of the books tends to be old, but it's still there. That's really the only thing I can think of without knowing the area or situation better. Sorry.

[eanja]

Have they stopped putting all the speeches and things in the back of textbooks? I remember that we never covered the words of the Gettysburg address or the Constitution in class, but they were all in the back of the text and I just read them on my own. Hell, half of the Declaration of Independence was on School House rock and I heard in between cartoons on Saturday mornings while I was still of single digit age.

This lack of facts is demoralizing to hear- Patrick is still little enough that his textbooks, to the extent that he has them, are very basic, so I don't know if they've really been dumbing things down or not. But I think I picked up so much of my basic knowledge of history from outside reading, and from shows on PBS, that I really can't remember what I learned in school versus other places. Of course, I was lucky enough to be in a very good school district as well, which may have made a big difference.

I'm afraid I don't have any useful suggestions for where to get her information. But I am finding all your tutoring related comments quite fascinating. Also your comments about skills- I don't think I did as much as you when I was 10 (and I had a sister to split chores with), but I could definitely cook a simple meal and iron, mow the lawn, do basic gardening, and look after my toddler sister. I tend to be slightly boggled by how many of the kids I meet who are entering their teens seem to have no idea how to cope for themselves. I am hampered a bit in regard to Patrick by his only being here a few days a month, but I find myself thinking that there are all sorts of things he should be getting old enough to do for himself (although, as far as cooking goes, he's still small enough that size is a issue- he can follow directions, but lacks the strength to safely drain pots, or even to neatly pour from a full gallon of milk.)

I really wish I had a better memory for when I learned things, academic or otherwise, so I would know what I should be trying to pass on, or encourage him to be looking at.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize how much freedom my parents let me have. Yes, I had chores -- more adult ones after Mom went to work (like cooking and laundry), but I also had a paper route and was allowed to spend my money as I pleased.

For me that would mean theater tickets. I saw James Whitmore in "Will Rogers, USA" alone. I had standing room only for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, alone. I went to old movies with my sister, or museums after church all by myself. It's not just that these kids, and this little girl especially, can't imagine chores of the type that would be required on a farm, they can't imagine the freedom of going somewhere to do something they want to do.

Schoolhouse Rock can look dated and a little sexist (it was a little ahead on the race stuff, though), but I know that the no longer resident four year-old loved them and can recite at least some of her multiplication tables already.

The small fry that lives next door and got me started on this a couple of years back loved going to the Museum of Fine Arts. We left at 4:30, took the T together, got there just in time for it to be free at 5:00 on a Wednesday and stayed until it closed at 9:00. She fell in love with the Babylonian stuff, especially the statues and the jewelry. She adored Van Gogh (he's never been one of my favorites) and hated the historical portraits. There was a demonstration of Taiko drumming and she found the Japanese stuff very foreign but beautiful.

This was FREE. On a summer evening. I didn't see another child her age there. There was a yuppie couple with a 3 year old, and a few kids who looked like they might be high school seniors, but no one between 9 and 15. That's the age they really develop their own tastes and ideas and opinions. What were the other kids doing? Playing video games and watching the sequel to Scary Movie.

[eanja]

You had a remarkable amount of freedom at a young age- we've talked a bit about that before. Then again, I think very few children would have had the interest in doing so many cultural things at as young an age as you.

I do need to start taking Patrick to the MFA- he loves the science museum, but has limited tolerance for artwork yet. I took him to some of the Smithsonian's last summer, and I think the trick is that you have to let little kids look at what interests them, rather than trying to make them interested in everything you appreciate. (He has more typically boy interests- we went to a small military history musem a while back, and he spent hours making the teenage docent explain every single exhibit in the building. After spending half an hour just looking at dioramas in the lobby with me, while we tried to puzzle out which army the little half inch high soldiers in each scene were from.)

Unfortunately, I do think a lot comes down to parents - I grew up w/ routine trips to the library, and w/ my parents taking me to occasional concerts and plays. If you have to tell the parents to take her to the library, that probably explains her not knowing how to find things out right there.

It amazes me how little some parents do. Even really simple things- there is a big patch of woods next to my apartment, and Patrick and I have gone running around in it for years. But as far as I know, I am one of only two parents in the building who does this, ever. (The other is my Russian neighbor downstairs.) Some of the other kids come and ask me to take them in the woods if they see me out w/ Patrick, because they've never been in them otherwise. I simply can't fathom how you can have something that is literally w/in 100 yards of where you live, and never take a few minutes to explore it, even though your kids are clearly interested. I'm not talking about bushwacking either- you can follow a really nice big trail for miles, if you want.

On the subject of what children and teenagers can do, has your 13 year old read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? People get so used to the first few volumes being for small children that it's easy to forget that the latter ones, where Laura is older, are much more complicated. Aside from all the farmwork, at 14 she works 10 hour days making shirts for 25 cents a day, and jusst shy of 16, she gets a teaching license and starts working hours from home, with full responsibility for educating and discipling a room full of students, some of whom are older than she is. I read the first two or three books to Patrick when he was about 4, and ended up rereading the whole series, because there was just so much fascinating historical information in there that I'd forgotten.

[jerminating.livejournal.com]

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (plus amendments) were definitely in my 5th and 8th grade history textbook. I don't think they had the Gettysburg address until 11th grade. Unfortunately, public schools don't really teach research skills until high school and then only in passing. College is where I really research skills.

I know of two good fiction books on the American Revolution: Johnny Tremain and My Brother Sam is Dead. I don't know of any fictional Civil War stuff, but I do have a diary from the Civil War period that may be helpful. I haven't read it though, so I can't say whether or not it's age appropriate.

Museums and kids

[(Anonymous)]

Reading about your young student makes me wish she could have shared my parents. I don't remember the first time I went to a museum. I was too young. I do, however, remember my first visit to the Smithsonian at the age of nine. My two brothers and I scattered, and the elderly cousin of my father's we were visiting went into a panic that we would never be seen again. My parents just said, oh they'll be back. Somehow, we all just knew we were meeting at the pendulum at noon to go find lunch.

On that visit, I marvelled at the Hope Diamond, developed a lifelong interest in the First Ladies of our country, listened to the talking totem pole, and nearly laughed myself sick at the statue of George Washington in the guise of a Greek God. I wandered in and out of the buildings both by myself and with my mother.

When my brothers and I had questions about any subject, the first thing my parents did was buy us books. We lived about an hour's drive north of San Francisco, and went there regularly to visit museums and go to live theater productions.

When I had money of my own, I bought books. History and great novels and memoirs and playscripts and feminist thought, and all sorts of other subjects. My reading and TV viewing was never cencored with the exception that I wasn't allowed to watch The Three Stooges when I was a small child. By the time I finally saw an episode, I decided it wasn't anything I wanted to see, either.

When the Treasures of Tutankaman show came through in the late '70's, there was a woman there with a little boy of about five or six. The kid was whining with boredom, and every time he asked his mother why they had to be there, she would inform him:'it's art and it's important'. Eventually my father walked up and tapped the boy on the shoulder. He pointed out one of the scarabs and said: 'do you see that bug? it has a face.' Immediately,the boy got excited. He raced from exhibit to exhibit looking for the faces on the bugs. I have many memories of wonderful exhibits I've seen, but that remains one of my favorite memories, both of museum going and of my father.

Okay, so I haven't had any real practical suggestions, but at least I've had a chance to share some good memories. I hope you can find a way to help this girl find the bug faces she's looking for.

Twistie