Since Eric was a tiny baby, we have participated in a publicly-funded program whose purpose is to educate parents about their child's development. A "parent educator" visits once a month to tell us what Eric is up to, and we go to weekly playgroups. There are also educational seminars, but we've never gone to any of those.
Every week's playgroup has a theme, and we are always given a handout with more information. "Developmental stages of block play" and "Introducing your toddler to new foods" are pretty typical topics. But lately, the handouts haven't just been the usual cheap Xeroxes from the program: some of them are glossy handouts from corporate sponsors.
I know that schools accept these kinds of materials becuase educational aids are so expensive. So I'm sure that the program we're in, which is underfunded and has had its budget cut every year of its existence, is also grateful when companies offer shiny materials. But I'm increasingly uncomfortable with it.
Today's playgroup theme was "Active TV viewing," and we even had a visitor from our local PBS affiliate to hand out the goodies herself. A Teletubbies CD played in the background while the kids played, and Eric and I came home loaded with paper: a copy of "PBS Families," a magazine about how good TV is for our children (this issue's theme is on using TV to promote physical activity); an alphabet book; a Teletubbies postcard; and a whole stack of handouts from "PBS Ready to Learn," which is "supported by a cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Education." You'll be glad to know your tax dollars are being used to produce materials which assert that the Teletubbies support your child's essential development in eight specific ways and a Teletubbies FAQ which acknowledges that, with regard to one-year-olds, "each family must make the best decision about the use of television in the home" but that "Teletubbies is an exciting opportunity to extend the reach of PBS' mission to the youngest viewer."
My favorite in the stack of pages I brought home, though, is "Why Not Just Turn It Off? Answering the Critics," a two-page question-and-answer-format document that tells us not only all the reasons it's a bad idea to prohibit children from watching TV at all, but asserts that it's good for TV to be used in daycares and schools because it can model "a different--and more productive--way of viewing" than kids are exposed to at home, and can "support and expand learning."
The PBS woman who came to visit was very nice. But it hardly seemed to me that in a culture in which the average preschooler watches 2.75 hours of TV per day (according to one of the handouts), TV stations need to be going out evangelizing parents to turn the TV on.
I'm not anti-TV. Eric likes to watch Winnie-the-Pooh videos and the Teletubbies, and under my policy that he is allowed to bring whatever he wants home from the public library, he has also seen a couple of Thomas the Tank Engine videos whose covers attracted him. He's seen occasional episodes of Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, and other shows, usually when we're traveling and find ourselves in a hotel room with a convenient TV (ours is in the baesment rec room, and we rarely work up the energy to go all that way for a show). I like TV myself, and for the last few months have actually found myself feeling that I don't watch as much as I'd like. But that doesn't mean I liked my playgroup turning into one big Teletubbies ad. Avoiding this kind of pseudo-educational advertising is one of the many reasons we don't plan to send our kids to school. I'm frustrated to have encountered it already, and am wondering what it portends for our future with this program.
Posted by Su Penn at November 11, 2003 01:32 PM | TrackBack