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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.

#nature #education

in reply to Tio

Dinosaurs are real, and a big pathway to STEM careers for kids.
in reply to Angela Miller

Of course dinosaurs WERE real, but the living creatures are far more important and complex. No need to push the "dinosaurs" so much into people´s faces. Read the article please. This is not Facebook where you only have to read the title of a shared link.
in reply to Tio

I did, actually.
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.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Angela Miller

Kids are exposed to nonsense fantasy a lot more than real stuff which is many times more complex and important. That is the point. Fantasy has its place, but it has become the main or only stimulant for kids and adults too. The real world is something that is not much at all showcased to kids.
in reply to Tio

As a librarian, I beg to differ. Kids books not only cover everything in both fiction and nonfiction, but kids love exploring the nonfiction and non fantastic just as much as anything else.
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.
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).

in reply to Tio

Really not sure I agree at all. People learn best following their interests, so deciding for people what they should be exposed to will not make them automatically interested in it - quite the opposite. This is a problem encountered worldwide 8n schools because they are expected to take the approach of telling kids what they are to learn. Lots of research into child learning runs counter to that and as a consequence, education is changing, albeit slowly.
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.

in reply to Tio

in reply to Rokosun

@roko
Definitely. We told ourselves stories of all kinds of fantastical things in the dark evenings for millenia. Imagination is the engine that drives curiously.
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.

in reply to Tio

@roko
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.
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…

This entry was edited (12 hours ago)
in reply to Tio

Yes! Show the wonders of the world we live in, and the world which today's children could be adults in.
in reply to Tio

BTW, I think we should make a Videoneat for kids one day. Just remove all of the sociopolitical stuff and keep it focused on science and nature documentaries - maybe we can do that by filtering our current catalog by tags. Let me know what you think.
in reply to Rokosun

idk...kids need to know about the society they live in as well. If you mean documentaries for little kids then hm, idk. Maybe. But they need parents to get these documentaries for them so maybe the parents are going to filter them anyway. But we can eventually do that.
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.