I am bipolar when it comes to my preferred television
programming: I tend to
either seek out scientific documentaries for passive learning or allow brain
atrophy via such vapid shows as The Flavor of
Love (I'm only slightly ashamed
to admit that I'm looking forward to the new episodes). Unfortunately there's
much more selection when it comes to junk TV than educational programming.
As a child, I really enjoyed shows like 3-2-1 Contact and Mr. Wizard (not to
be confused with The Wizard,
though I could learn a lot from him too). As I am
an audio/visual learner, these programs materially contributed to my education
at a young age; I specifically recall an early geometry class where I produced
a
parallelogram, shocking my teacher because the shape hadn't been introduced in
the
curriculum. Television provided supplementary education for me through middle
school.
Eighth grade. That's the intellectual target of general programming. It's the
greatest common denominator, and supposedly viewing falls off when you start
introducing vocabulary and concepts at a 9th grade level or better (I majored
in broadcasting before taking up marketing at ETSU).
Yup, and 8th grade is about
the age when television quit teaching me.
In the early days of television, the Hatfield-Wagner amendment sought to
allocate a quarter of the broadcast spectrum for educational purposes. But
capitalism eventually prevailed as universities sold their broadcast rights to
commercial broadcasters for a double whopper of financial gain. Today, the FCC
mandates television stations air at least 3 hours of educational television per
week between the hours of 7am and 10pm, targeted at kids age 16 and under. So
out of the 105 hours per week within that timeframe, less than 3% of time is
dedicated to educational programming--a far cry from the 25% target of the
visionaries.
Thanks to those who continued to advocate educational television, the
under-funded educational stations evolved into public television, subsidized by
"The Corporation for Public Television" and "Viewers like
You." Thank God for
NOVA.
Oh, but we have TLC: The Learning Channel.
Really? I tune in to TLC and learn:
that I can make my neighbor's living room look cheap for cheap, that you can't
hem jeans unless they are straight-legged, and that I'm not sure I ever want to
give birth. Okay, so Stacy
and Clinton are pseudo-heroes to me, but their show
borders train wreck sometimes too.
The Science and Discovery Channels, often in cooperation with the BBC, have
succeeded in producing the type of scientific documentaries I crave: string
theory, savants, and the classic Cosmos.
If only the programming were more
varied and consistent ... string theory once: outstanding; string theory
twice: reinforcing; string theory all weekend: seriously, it's just a theory! I
need more content, not content more often.
But I digress. Let's get back to the children.
Today’s obligatory 3 hours per week of educational children's programming
isn’t close to the quality of 1980's science delivered by 3-2-1
Contact and Mr. Wizard. They've been replaced by Beakman's World--lessons from
a man in a rat suit. And the explanations are as thorough as a selected radial
on a multiple choice test. For example, in answering a viewer's question about
how to reproduce seedless grape plants, Beakman states they root a cutting of
the original plant as the guy in the rat suit makes not-so-clever plays on
words like "thanks a 'bunch' for the question." I think this would be
a nice
opportunity to discuss splicing, but the opportunity was missed. (Ironic note: "Beakman's
World paid homage to [Mr. Wizard] by naming its two penguin puppet
characters "Don" and "Herb" after him.”)
Granted, you gotta keep the kids' attention, but when you consider the
attention-retaining filler in “educational” programming, how much verifiably
educational content is there?
And--getting back to me--what about adults who want to get beyond remedial math
and infinite Cosmos reruns? Sure I'm a bit geekier than the average American,
but there's more like me, right?
It all comes back to eighth grade and commercialism. The advertisers buy the
slots with the greatest reach, the highest numbers; the numbers drop off when
you start talking about light refraction and using words like ... refraction.
And I'll just leave it at that. I could continue the monologue for quite a bit longer and still not find the meaning of television, but I think you see my perspective. Educational television died with Don Herbert.