TV Turn-Off Week- Why Not Just Toss It?

Turning off the television is always a fabulous idea. I don’t have one to turn off, but if I did, I’d certainly be happy to celebrate TV Turnoff Week. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to sit and stare when they could be living!

Sponsored by the Center for Screen-Time Awareness, TV Turn-Off week has been celebrated during the fourth week in April since 1995. According to the Center’s website,

“Television cuts into family time,

harms our children’s ability to read and succeed in school,

and contributes to unhealthy lifestyles and obesity.”

Well, duh…

It reminds me of the television poem in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Have you read it? I won’t reproduce it all here, but you can read it all at the Rice University website.

I totally concur with Dahl’s first stanza:

“The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out….”

Dahl goes on to point out exactly what happens to these lolling and slopping TV watchers:

“But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!”

Not a pretty picture, eh? You notice Dahl was using all caps to ’scream’ long before it became an internet convention! But he obviously felt deeply about the issue, and so do I.

Dahl doesn’t leave us with nothing to do, though. In the final stanzas of the poem, he implores:

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.”

And to that I would add, “Go out and play!” Children should have free time to build forts, play in the dirt, swing on the swingset, play hide and seek, run Tonka trucks over each other’s sand forts (and learn to resolve squabbles;-)), play dolls or teddy bears, draw, paint, practice cooking (”yes dear, that’s a very interesting cake”), smoosh clay, climb trees, play the piano, harmonica, guitar, or accordian, throw snowballs (and possibly dirt clods), splash in creeks, build with Legos or Fischertechnic, catch crawdads, re-enact famous battles or scenes from favorite books, learn to knit, crochet, and embroider, and just run, jump, and play.

As they grow older, they need time to learn hand skills as well as head skills. If they are sitting and staring, being mindlessly entertained, how can they can travel, plant gardens, lay brick paths, learn to use tools, practice cooking (edibly), hone sports skills, hike, bike, climb, trim trees, start a small business, write letters to the editor, lend a helping hand by volunteering, write a book, or have any real fun? And when will they ever have time to play hide and seek in the back yard with the whole family? That’s fun!

There’s so much in life to see and do, and it’s all so much more rewarding than lolling and slopping! If you have a television, I encourage you to seriously consider tossing it. You really won’t miss it!

And finally, brain scientist Jane Healy’s classic, Endangered Minds, offers many more compelling reasons to toss the television. If you have children and you haven’t read it, please do so. It’s scholarly, but very accessible, and the evidence she provides that television actually changes children’s brains is truly unsettling. Healy’s scientific evidence supports what common sense has told us all along– heavy television watchers are less literate and have more learning difficulties than children who grow up with books. No surprise there! There’s a lot more, though, so it’s a book I highly recommend.

This week, I hope you enjoy many tv-free hours. Life is waiting!

Carpe diem…

Endangered Minds

Death Be Not Proud

In memory of those who died at Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007.

Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne (1573-1631)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms…

(Deuteronomy 33:27)

Wordless Wednesday

Greening treetops against an April sky.

Frost’s Prayer in Spring

I love Robert Frost’s gentle reminder to enjoy the beauty of today. It helps me remember to enjoy not only spring, but also my sweet boys. I hope you enjoy the poem as well.

A Prayer in Spring
by Robert Frost (1915)

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Celebrate with Free Poems!

In honor of National Poetry Month, I’ve gathered some of my very favorite poems, and I’d love to share them. I’ve created a new mailing list for poetry only, so if you’d like to be inspired with free poems, please sign up at the bottom of the column on the right. You’ll receive one poem a week for as long as you care to. Think of it as a cup of coffee for the soul!

I wandered lonely as a Cloud…

Daffodil-copyright freefoto.comSpring just isn’t spring until I can share Wordsworth’s delight in daffodils. Poetry is experience distilled to its essence. Once you’ve enjoyed an experience through poetry, you’ll find that both experience and poem are enriched.

The daffodils are in full dress in our yard today, like scraps of sunlight scattered about. If you don’t have daffodils in your garden, do plan to plant some bulbs next fall. They’re absolutely easy-care, and they’ll reward you by multiplying year after year.

Enjoy!

Here is the 1815 poem by William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Read more

Enjoying Spring With Thoreau

Forsythia embracing an azalea...I took my own advice this afternoon and went for a walk outside. It was a beautiful, balmy afternoon, so I walked the path my boys made through the woods for me, then went down to sit by the creek for a little while. The sky was daubed with Constable-worthy clouds, and buds are swelling at the ends of countless twigs. Our tiny creek had enough water to burble gently, and it all felt so peaceful.

Back in the yard, the daffodils are beginning to bloom, and sweet box is spreading its sweet fragrance near the front porch steps. I’ve seen bluebirds trying out the houses we’ve posted around the edge of the woods, and the goldfinches are beginning to turn yellow once more. Spring is bursting out everywhere, and it reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s lyrical description of spring on Walden Pond:

“The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and moist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh hawk, sailing low over the meadow, is already seeking the first slimy life that awakes. Read more

Spring & Compulsory Schooling- Carpe Diem!

I’m thinking about spring, and the need to seize the day, and do the thing that is appropriate for the moment. It’s time to emerge from our winter cocoons!

Spring means being outdoors, breathing great gulps of crispy-fresh air, moving winter-weary bodies and bones in unfamiliar ways, clearing mental cobwebs along with the physical. It’s simply not human to be confined, institutionalized, imprisoned, when life is waiting.

Even in the heart of the largest cities, there are pockets of green in which to rejoice in the new season (I know, because I grew up in the heart of a very large city, and green was nourished and cherished). For your children’s sake, clear the calendar of obligations, and go outside. Work in the yard, take a picnic to the park, ride bikes, play basketball, walk, walk, walk!

Finally, here is a quote from John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education, page 129. Call it a thought for the day!

“What should make you suspicious about school is its relentless compulsion. Why should this rich brawling, utterly successful nation ever have needed to resort to compulsion to order people into school classes– unless advocates for force-schooling were driven by peculiar philosophical beliefs not commonly shared?”

If you’d like to read more of Gatto’s thoughts on education, I recommend Dumbing Us Down. It’s interesting, to say the least!

Now… how about enjoying those daffodils?

Thoughts on Choosing Literature from a 1903 Reader

Old booksI love old books. Although I strongly advocate reading whole works for high school literature, I find that old readers can be very useful in introducing an author and creating a taste for his or her work.

I was browsing through The Jones Fifth Reader by L.H. Jones, A.M., published in 1903, this morning, and I was struck by the high quality of the works it contains. I found the reasoning behind the choices in the author’s mission statement / preface. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve seen in modern texts, and well worth sharing. Enjoy!

“This book is intended as a basal reader for pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eight years in school. These years make up a period of high enthusiasms and noble impulses. During this period ideals of life and conduct are rapidly shaping themselves in the minds of the growing girls and boys. Susceptible as they are at this age to evil influences, they yet respond most readily to the call of higher motives. Noble, daring, and heroic action, when properly pictured to them, seems native to the human spirit. Read more

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