I rarely see such articles:
"Enough with unicorns and dinosaurs – show children the magic of real, living animals instead" - theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Congrats. We need more of these! And TROMnews is meant to bring such articles to light.
The real world is many times more mindblowing than any movie, book, or story humans have invented. Not to mention it is real. If we want people to care about it, then they have to know about it. Expose children to real wonders, real stories, real life.
Enough with unicorns and dinosaurs – show children the magic of real, living animals instead
Put up pictures of lemurs, penguins and wolves, and introduce tomorrow’s environmentalists to the amazing nature in our world, says author Isabel LosadaIsabel Losada (The Guardian)
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Angela Miller
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •like this
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Angela Miller
in reply to Tio • • •Surprised to see.Dino Park near Dumfries name checked as its pretty small and not terribly serious.
My point is thereare a lot of people lured into STEM through Dinosaurs, so it's hardly invalid.
Neither is imaginary stuff like Unicorns, because that leads into Story Telling and mythology, which are perfectly valid interests too.
Actually reeks a little of snobbery, especially since kids can love those AND real creatures too.
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Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •like this
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Angela Miller
in reply to Tio • • •I genuinely think the article is a bit biased and not really based in what is going on with kids.
Dinosaurs are popular still though. Particularly in non fiction.
Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •My experience and of many people I know from other parts of the world, is different. Libraries are one thing, what kids are exposed to is another. If you look based on numbers what is popular among kids is definitely not nature documentaries, or similar things related to the real natural world, but mostly silly fantasy.
Dinosaurs are popular and the article was arguing that is not ok if you put it in perspective to the creatures that exist. Why make dinosaurs so well known and popular while the creatures that exist today not? Probably Hollywood and movies like Jurassic Park made dinosaurs a lot more popular.
Point is kids, and all humans actually, should be exposed more to the real and wonderful world we live in rather than fantasies that are mostly made by those who want to sell (movies, books, art).
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Angela Miller
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •Schools are a livestock-like way of "educating" children unfortunately. Teachers have "jobs", kids have parents who work, and so they end up being forced to go to that place and "learn". They are labeled based on how well they do in school and all that.
I cannot see that as "education" as much as "forced" daycare.
That being said yes you should not force kids to learn this or that, you should make them curios. Expose them to real stuff. What you end up being excited about comes from enculturation/upbringing. So we need a saner environment. Part of it is exposing kids to real and wonderful information about the natural world.
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @Angela Miller
I don't think fiction and nonfiction should be exclusionary to one another, we can certainly enjoy both. Humans have written about flying long before we actually invented airplanes, and we have written about going to the moon long before we actually did it, and some like dystopian fiction warns us about a future we should avoid - so I do think fantasy and fiction has a place in our world. However I also agree with this statement of yours:
... show moreI often feel like documentaries and other nonfiction media is far less popular than fictional stuff. And even the fiction these days lack creativity, just look at Hollywood for example and see how many sequels, prequels and remakes of already popular stuff instead of novel ideas.
@Tio @Angela Miller
I don't think fiction and nonfiction should be exclusionary to one another, we can certainly enjoy both. Humans have written about flying long before we actually invented airplanes, and we have written about going to the moon long before we actually did it, and some like dystopian fiction warns us about a future we should avoid - so I do think fantasy and fiction has a place in our world. However I also agree with this statement of yours:
I often feel like documentaries and other nonfiction media is far less popular than fictional stuff. And even the fiction these days lack creativity, just look at Hollywood for example and see how many sequels, prequels and remakes of already popular stuff instead of novel ideas.
And let me share my experience with a 3 year old, when I showed her nature documentaries on my laptop she watched it with the same curiosity she has when watching any other stuff, and she often asks questions about the animals or ask me to show her certain animals she likes. I don't think anyone else in the family really shows her documentaries other than me, and that's the point that article was trying to make - we don't expose kids to the real world as much as we expose them to fantasy, so they don't even have a chance to form their interests around real stuff. And don't get me wrong I also show her cartoons sometimes, but I feel like documentaries is not something she often gets to watch.... And the interesting thing is that no matter what she's watching she often gets bored after a while and wants to play in the real world, and I remember entertaining her by spinning a coin on the table one day - she asked me to do that again and again, I got bored after a while.... she did not! 😂 My point is that we often make assumptions about what kids like and don't like but we really have no clue what they could be interested in, we don't need to force kids into liking anything but we certainly do influence them.
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Angela Miller
in reply to Rokosun • • •Definitely. We told ourselves stories of all kinds of fantastical things in the dark evenings for millenia. Imagination is the engine that drives curiously.
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Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •Imagination cannot work without en environment we are exposed to. And often that was the real world - observing birds fly, observing that thing in the sky we called the "moon", and so on. The more we are exposed to the real world, the more of that imagination can become complex and useful.
People could not imagine flying to the Moon without this knowledge.
Martians look like lobsters or human like creatures with eyes and a head, first attempts to fly were by using wings like birds, and so on.
Reality is what inspires humans to think and imagine. Kids and people of all ages are mostly exposed to bullshit content, from movies to videos, books to "entertainment". Of course they become uninterested in the real world.
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Angela Miller
in reply to Tio • • •Honestly, I think you are going pretty overboard with this. Children literally don't just get exposed to Unicorns and Dinosaurs. Children who aren't compelled by those things won't be forced into them, and Children who are also enjoy other things. They also actually live in this world, so can't avoid it.
Worrying about curating what children are exposed to in this way is a bit redundant.
Tio
in reply to Angela Miller • •Parents have to trade themselves in this society and often do not have much time for their kids. It is easy to let them in front of the TV or a tablet/phone - and since most content is simplistic and fantasy/nonsense produced to get more views (meaning money) since this is also easier than producing good content, the result is obviously unicorns and dinosaurs :)
Same reason why so many movie remakes or based on books that are already popular. If something was selling well, why not continue to do the same content?
We made a book about this - tromsite.com/trombooks/#flipbo…
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @Angela Miller
I'm just gonna leave this link here 'cause I think this is what happens to a society when the general population gets too detached from science and reality. It's not just about what kids watch or read, we want them to become knowledgeable adults when they grow up so that they don't fall into the same pits of ignorance that many have unfortunately. And you only have to look at the popularity of movies vs science documentaries to see where we're headed right now...
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Angela Miller
in reply to Rokosun • • •Aye. It's literacy and the ability to reason at fault here. It's essentially the method of enquiry that is passed on, not the content of how that's delivered.
mkj
in reply to Tio • • •Tio likes this.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •Roma likes this.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •I feel like most of the documentaries about society are rather depressing or too complex for kids to understand the nuances. I don't want any little kids to get traumatized by watching war documentaries and such lol 😅
And yeah I was thinking of making something I can recommend to parents as well for their kids.
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