Hope this doesn't feel to preachy, but this is how I feel
"We are living in a society where our relationship with the written word is being stretched far too thin. All this sensory overload is putting our ability to follow our own imagination at risk." - LeVar Burton
I haven't posted on LiveJournal in more than a month. I keep meaning to post more, but things have been really hectic with school and the kirtan-ing and I'm about to go up to New York next weekend. I want to post an update soon, but right now I feel moved to talk about the information I just received that Reading Rainbow has been canceled and the very last show will be aired today.
This makes me sad on so many different levels. I grew up watching that show. I remember the original intro with the really trippy animation that made you just know you were part of the Jim Henson generation. I remember the episode where LeVar Burton went on to the set of Star Trek: TNG, and how cool it was that he was both Geordi and LeVar at the same time. I remember when he went mucking about in the swamp to look at water under a microscope. Everything seemed really magical and interesting.
I can't say for sure if Reading Rainbow influenced my love for reading and imagination, because I feel like that was always there. But then, I always watched Reading Rainbow. I feel like Reading Rainbow being cut due to budget issues and money allotments for educational programing, is just another example of the precedent this country has set for rote learning. Imagination and ingenuity are not handled as attributes that are essential to learning.
Reading Rainbow's funding has been shut down because it doesn't teach children how to read, but why to read. It gives them a motivation to want to pick up a book and find out what words mean. To realize that by learning to read you are unlocking an unlimited number of doors to exploration and discovery. This trait is apparently not important in our country, anymore. As long as you can read and understand instructions enough to sit in a cube everyday, everything else is excess.
I recently went to a school picnic for the new program I have entered into at UVa. I was speaking with a couple of people about my disappoint that I was unable to take a class with one particular professor, who I had found very interesting. I mentioned that I felt that she had a very holistic approach to writing, both creative and otherwise, that was very intuitive and thought provoking. The response I received was "I felt like she was a waste of time. I think creative writing isn't what we should focus on. Research writing is more marketable."
Comments like that always take me back. If it wasn't for creative writing and my overly active imagination, I would have shriveled up ages ago. It makes me wonder how many kids have shriveled up. Was this woman standing before me the shell of child whose desire to explore and question had been abandoned years before, in exchange for a life as cog with a good paycheck? If I shook her would I hear the child rattling around inside her?
I feel like creativity and spirit are slowly being pushed down and under and aside in this country. If we feel like we don't have enough money and time to show are kids curiosity and wonder, how can we say that family is important, that looking to the future is important. I guess imagination will just be inspired in re-runs. Video tapes of the good old days, when we looked into books and looked up at the stars.
I haven't posted on LiveJournal in more than a month. I keep meaning to post more, but things have been really hectic with school and the kirtan-ing and I'm about to go up to New York next weekend. I want to post an update soon, but right now I feel moved to talk about the information I just received that Reading Rainbow has been canceled and the very last show will be aired today.
This makes me sad on so many different levels. I grew up watching that show. I remember the original intro with the really trippy animation that made you just know you were part of the Jim Henson generation. I remember the episode where LeVar Burton went on to the set of Star Trek: TNG, and how cool it was that he was both Geordi and LeVar at the same time. I remember when he went mucking about in the swamp to look at water under a microscope. Everything seemed really magical and interesting.
I can't say for sure if Reading Rainbow influenced my love for reading and imagination, because I feel like that was always there. But then, I always watched Reading Rainbow. I feel like Reading Rainbow being cut due to budget issues and money allotments for educational programing, is just another example of the precedent this country has set for rote learning. Imagination and ingenuity are not handled as attributes that are essential to learning.
Reading Rainbow's funding has been shut down because it doesn't teach children how to read, but why to read. It gives them a motivation to want to pick up a book and find out what words mean. To realize that by learning to read you are unlocking an unlimited number of doors to exploration and discovery. This trait is apparently not important in our country, anymore. As long as you can read and understand instructions enough to sit in a cube everyday, everything else is excess.
I recently went to a school picnic for the new program I have entered into at UVa. I was speaking with a couple of people about my disappoint that I was unable to take a class with one particular professor, who I had found very interesting. I mentioned that I felt that she had a very holistic approach to writing, both creative and otherwise, that was very intuitive and thought provoking. The response I received was "I felt like she was a waste of time. I think creative writing isn't what we should focus on. Research writing is more marketable."
Comments like that always take me back. If it wasn't for creative writing and my overly active imagination, I would have shriveled up ages ago. It makes me wonder how many kids have shriveled up. Was this woman standing before me the shell of child whose desire to explore and question had been abandoned years before, in exchange for a life as cog with a good paycheck? If I shook her would I hear the child rattling around inside her?
I feel like creativity and spirit are slowly being pushed down and under and aside in this country. If we feel like we don't have enough money and time to show are kids curiosity and wonder, how can we say that family is important, that looking to the future is important. I guess imagination will just be inspired in re-runs. Video tapes of the good old days, when we looked into books and looked up at the stars.