Who's Watching the Kids?
The December issue of Wired magazine has a little blurb about the Mattel Media Player for Kids. It displays only shows and movies prerecorded in Mattel's video format. Purchased separately, an SD/MMC cad adapter and USB reader will allow it to handle digital photos or MP3 audio. Yada yada, blah blah blah. The part that jumped out of the magazine at me was the line that it "dishes up hours of brat-distracting video".
The academic achievement of so many of our kids sucks big time. This gadget is one small part of the reason why. You have kids? Don't let that interfere with your lifestyle! Why should you bother yourself about what they're doing? Just plunk 'em down in front of the idiot tube; or the DVD player; or one of these gadgets, and you've got hours of concern and responsibility taken off your hands. What's even better is you don't even have to pay a babysitter. Just let their minds vegetate and rot through endless hours of "cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh!, music vids, extreme sports, and wrestling."
Take them out to the park? Don't be silly. Sit and read to them? Get real. Spend time with them showing them how to play games that actually require a little of their own imagination. Not bloody likely. When you can manage to tear them away from this portable brain stifler, bundle them off to school where they will continue sitting through more hours with little or no challenge in the non-intellectual atmosphere that so many of our classrooms specialize in, and then try to figure out where it all went wrong when their academic careers go belly-up.
The academic achievement of so many of our kids sucks big time. This gadget is one small part of the reason why. You have kids? Don't let that interfere with your lifestyle! Why should you bother yourself about what they're doing? Just plunk 'em down in front of the idiot tube; or the DVD player; or one of these gadgets, and you've got hours of concern and responsibility taken off your hands. What's even better is you don't even have to pay a babysitter. Just let their minds vegetate and rot through endless hours of "cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh!, music vids, extreme sports, and wrestling."
Take them out to the park? Don't be silly. Sit and read to them? Get real. Spend time with them showing them how to play games that actually require a little of their own imagination. Not bloody likely. When you can manage to tear them away from this portable brain stifler, bundle them off to school where they will continue sitting through more hours with little or no challenge in the non-intellectual atmosphere that so many of our classrooms specialize in, and then try to figure out where it all went wrong when their academic careers go belly-up.
1 Comments:
A lot of people who have kids don't figurre on the investment it's going to be. They seem to forget that they were once kids, they too needed constant stimuli.
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