https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81750412?s=i&trkid=25859316...
Made me think reading was probably a scam.
Big Book out to get u
(How the fuck did you know what "propaganda" was before you could even read btw?)
It was mandatory watching by the state education program. It had product placement and a clear message.
I mean, I feel like it would take more education to not see it as propaganda.
I didn't like The Magic Schoolbus either though. Same reason.
Oh, and Scholastic everything.
Only problem I have with those shows for kids is the lack of real people.
In what way, do you think, a show can have no room for critical viewing? Does being related to "reading or books" sufficient for such unquestionable and noncritical acceptance? Or was something else about it that makes it so cocksure good?
The woke right is no joke. You guys and the rainbow-haired gender people speak in the same distorted stepped-on 8th-generation Freudian dream logic. There's no limit to the nonsense that one can be led into when one assumes that all of the wealthiest people on the planet who share the least (and own the media, publishers, etc.) are all committed collectivist Soviet agents bussed in from 1915, rather than as likely as not old German firms inherited by the children of the literal ex-Nazis that ran them until the 80s.
It felt like it was indoctrinating kids into believing that the right way to raise them was the way that Fred Rogers preferred.
There's this strange point of view that once it's decided that something is good and it's being made by good people, it's absurd to look at it critically and anyone who does should be mocked.
Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like most teachers - don't like it when their students already know the material they're supposed to be teaching.
Yes, "don't do it that way, you're not suppose to know that yet" is depressingly common. Also unfair, since it usually only applies to certain kids - we don't tell artistic kids that they shouldn't paint so well, because kids aren't supposed to be at that level yet, nor do we tell athletic kids this. But it's extremely common in subjects like math.
One of the things that's frustrating is the one size fits all mentality when it comes to education. Even if some kids don't get a lot out of home education, some really enjoy it, and it can be a great bonding experience for many parents and children. It feels irresponsible to dismiss it all together.
In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library. It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was just a short walk.
I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time. Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
My city (Seattle, a pretty large US city) has 27 public libraries. I only live a few blocks from the closest one but could fairly easily walk to at least 2 more.
It doesn't seem like "A lot" for a country the size of US TBH.
Poland has 7541 public libraries. Which is 1 per 41 km^2, but of course big cities have many libraries, so the actual distance is larger in the countryside. But it's a number.
17000 libraries in US is like one per 580 km^2.
And yes every school has one too, there's 35 000 schools. But many of these are very small libraries that mostly carry mandatory lectures for school + some classic books. In my village the school library sucked.
I lived in a village of 500 people and had a library within 5 minute walk.
What's more important is the qualitative offerings and impact:
1. Spectrum of a. most common services and collections offered everywhere to b. the most comprehensive of those offered by a specific library.
2. What people can do at them: read, research subjects, borrow things, accomplish tasks, host meetings, etc.
This is very hard to measure and not something a business person running the government "like a business" would understand.
But nowadays people have internet, so I guess it's not THAT important anymore. The ideal library is just a website that lets you download pirated ebooks for free.
The utility of the brick-and-mortar is that some/(many by state) libraries include services and physical items that can be checked out besides media. Plus, besides free Wi-Fi and meeting rooms, it's a non-consumption location to exist in a physical public space. There aren't many more free spaces in America. And, there are millions of people who can't afford internet, a tablet, a computer, or have a place for books. Millions of books and historical local newspapers don't exist in electronic form!
But no, really, (most of) America is truly unwalkable for almost any activity.
A _lot_ of them (nearly 125000 about 250 people per library on average). And you can do inter-library loans, and you can check out DVDs and BluRays.
There's a few other words with "gm", like "gmerać" (to fiddle with sth), "gmin" (plebs, common people - same root word as gmina I'd imagine), "gmach" (a huge building, usually of some public institution).
It's not a digraph tho, it's just pronounced as "g" and then "m"?
I'm like 99% sure it's a German loanword. Most of city/administration/building language in Polish comes from German - dach (roof), szyba (glass pane), rynek (main market square), ratusz (city hall), burmistrz (city mayor), rynsztok (gutter), etc.
All through middle ages Poland imported lots of germanic settlers and had them build whole new towns from scratch in Poland in exchange for tax breaks. There's a town called "Niemcy" (Germans/Mutes) like 10 km from where I live :), and there's a village called "Dys" nearby.
What's the problem with using latin script for gm by the way?
English has entered the chat
Looking back on the list of Reading Rainbow books: https://knowtea.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/rea...
I can't say I've read many of them.
With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the 90s.
The only downside is that Wishbone holds up better to a modern rewatch in comparison, as opposed to how RR is very much of its time. But that's ok, too; someone needs to inspire kids to be adventurous with their reading so that they can go out and find the next classics.
The whole show is to motivate people to want to pick up a book, which to me sounds like an emphasis on doing.
If you’d replace this with posters or shows that just say “READ A BOOK”, it would not be as effective.
On the other hand, doing is a totally different skillset.
I'm not against reading just that it's very unlike doing something in general.
Reading can be active, if I'm taking notes on nonfiction its a somewhat active process.
Reading can be passive, if I'm cruising on a fiction book.
They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.
You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
aspenmayer•8h ago
twoodfin•7h ago
Not unheard of in today’s tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids & streaming apps, but much harder to find.
aspenmayer•7h ago
dotancohen•1h ago
jimbob45•6h ago
plemer•6h ago
FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a ton and loved the feel of the show, but the actual content was a little slow.
aspenmayer•6h ago
aspenmayer•5h ago
Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series)
> The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences.
> Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.
Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)
postalcoder•5h ago
thaumasiotes•2h ago
Was there a show? To me Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was a reoccurring segment on a show called Square One. I liked it, but it didn't feel like it was the source of Carmen Sandiego mythology; it felt more like a minor epiphenomenon.
There was also a computer game, which I didn't play much of because it was a lot of work. It felt a lot more fully developed than the TV segments, though.
bagels•5h ago
fracus•4h ago
monkeyelite•5h ago
This is a weird comment. He’s a professional actor. I hope he does
aspenmayer•5h ago
pfannkuchen•4h ago
If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
aspenmayer•4h ago
> If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus compared to most tv programs, let alone “educational” tv programming.
I wasn’t seeking a hyperstimulus. You don’t even know me. I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my first schooling outside the home.
pfannkuchen•4h ago
Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is often hard to see where the line is between what is evolutionarily congruent and what is greater.
I don’t see how knowing you is relevant. This is my position on what most people do. Either you have a different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I gotten wrong?
eclecticfrank•2h ago
The stories we grew up to were indeed those which won "a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability". Only interesting stories got retold. Stories travelled further when made into songs. They became artworks when tranformed into plays. They became myths and legends in the luggage of those travelling the planet. And the art of telling stories also became a way of making a living much before our contemporary society produced the first pop star.
thaumasiotes•2h ago
burnt-resistor•5h ago