Pros And Cons Of Childhood Television viewing

Matter of debate in every household - television viewing especially by children. It is not unusual to find children glued to the television screen when they ought to be playing outdoors in the crisp and clear evening air. Parents have varying viewpoints regarding this issue.
One school of thought labels the television as an idiot box and abhors having children exposed to it. They insist that TV viewing is a very passive activity and does not require the child to use his mental faculties at all. Besides, it restricts physical activity and may stunt their physical growth not to mention the fact of dulling their intellectual capabilities.

Well, those who hold this opinion are not altogether wrong. They are in fact right on both counts. However peer pressure is one reality that needs to be taken into account here. The child interacts with several others in school and while at play. He has to take part in conversations that more often than not center around popular TV shows. Not being able to participate might give rise to an inferiority complex. So it is not advisable to ban the television altogether.
Some amount of involvement by parents is also a good idea. Maybe parents and the child can put their heads together and agree on certain shows. At times watching it with your child and enjoying it at his level might also be a good idea. A few good laughs are great for relieving stress.
A few parents feel that their children have every right to watch whatever they want on television for as long a time as they want to just because it is available. They want to give their children all that they could not have in their own childhood.
Stop and think - are you not spoiling your child? Would you feed him mangoes throughout the day just because he loves it? Certainly not. He would suffer from indigestion, wouldn’t he? Well, watching too much of TV would have a similar effect on the mind. As mentioned earlier, it would stunt physical growth and mental alertness.
Go ahead and indulge them, but within limits, or else you will be doing them a disservice. Weaning a child away from television is not an easy task. You will need to use all your ingenuity to make an alternative task more interesting and stimulating for him to willingly take it up. The best bet would be to encourage the child to take up an outdoor sport along with other children of his age.
Never use the television as a tool for keeping your child quiet when you have some important tasks to wade through. Spend some time with the child and gently guide him towards informative programmes. Sit through a few of them yourself. When he sees you preferring an informative program to ones that merely entertain, chances are that he will emulate you. Enhancing your general knowledge would not be a waste of time either.

It would also be a good idea to make news hour a family viewing time. This will automatically cultivate an interest in and an awareness of current affairs.
Television is here to stay. Whether we turn into the TV’s slaves and plan activities around TV schedules or we turn the TV into our slave to be at our beck and call to amuse, inform and hone certain skills, is totally in our hands. Television is going to have some impact on your lives and the secret of channelizing this impact in a beneficial way lies with you. So go ahead and take charge of both the television and its effect on your life.

Grade 9 PE students get their Yellow Belt in Taekwondo! Congratulation!

Before the exam. All excited and a teeny weeny bit tensed.

Proud moment !

Grade 9 Physical education students get their Yellow Belts.... a start but a great road ahead !

Want to Learn?? Try Comics….

Comics, as well as cartoons, are an integral part of today’s world. It’s almost impossible to walk a mile without our eyes getting stuck on some ad featuring a comic or a character. Modern world has grown so much in its use of pictures (moving or still) that we find ourselves embedded in a virtual reality most of the time. So much is the importance of graphics and pictures that now a days it is an essential part of the education systems all over the world. It is one of the basic facts of education that children can be taught through the medium of cartoons and comics both essentially the same because they tell things using pictures. But, at the same time, the puritans in the academic world run a silent campaign against this newly found importance of the pictures. Whatever those debates may be, it has become an established fact that the use of pictures could be an easier way of teaching things to children since they seem to be paying more attention to these rather than the boring bunch of words in lessons.

In my opinion, comics and cartoons should also be incorporated in the book reading sessions in schools so that the students will get a better chance to understand the importance of the ‘picture culture’ prevailing around us and how new studies revolving around this new culture has been established in the academic circles.The whole new field of animation and advertising had been in the top of all the creative fields that we enjoy it almost every day without even realizing it.

Cartoons can be used as ‘visual aids’ in classrooms by teachers as an easier way of explaining concepts. For example, editorial cartoons from a particular period in the past could be used as an interesting way of looking at the history of that period.

 

The above given picture shows a student giving a reason for his inability to solve a mathematical problem due to his lack of the ‘math gene’ from his DNA.

Napoleon Bonaparte had once said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But, I believe that one cannot exist without the other. So, comics and cartoons could be a medium for an easier acquisition of knowledge.