Last Friday, Reading Rainbow aired its last episode in a 26-year run, and it feels a little like I lost a friend. I grew up with this show; the likes of it and Sesame Street and Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood (to a lesser degree) swirl together in my nostalgia to create this rose-colored childhood memory.* I think on that time now as a golden age in children’s television programming, where leaving your young ones in front of the TV could actually be a good thing.
Now I can’t recall specific episodes, but like the NPR article states, everybody knows that soulful yet accessible theme song and those familiar three notes that followed the oral book reports. (“But you don’t have to take my word for it!) And if I recall correctly, there was great diversity in the children cast on that show; at the very least I remember thinking that I could be one of those kids.
In an NPR segment, Reading Rainbow is credited with teaching children why to read, rather than how. And as the focus has shifted from comprehension to phonics, “research shows” that children may benefit more from gaining skills like spelling and grammar than content. That makes my Humanities heart bleed. It’s like the difference between teaching children to read to expand their thinking and teaching them to read to follow instructions. Children are maturing much faster and becoming more savvy all the time, and I think the why is more important now than ever.
We need something composed of complete sentences and full thoughts to compete with the flash-bang! of texting, twitter and other malformed incarnations of language. I’m not so parochial as to want to eschew all new rhetoric and language conventions, but we not only speak with this language – we think in it. And I fear the more we shortcut and abbreviate ourselves, the more we shrink our thoughts and ultimately narrow our own minds.
I’m sure this makes me sound like some stodgy English teacher or librarian, but I think this is a great loss. I hadn’t watched Reading Rainbow in many years, but I’m still sad to see it go – and the era along with it.
* I would be remiss not to give Fraggle Rock and Zoobilee Zoo honorable mention.
(image from here.)
3 comments:
i LOVED reading rainbow. i remember sitting in front of the tv in my red corduroy shorts and rainbow t-shirt, just fascinated by the stories.
totally-i loved it too! my dad used to come home over his lunch hour just to watch it with us! i also liked zoobilee zoo too--but now, looking back, that show was WEIRD!!
p.s. i had the fraggle rock mini-lp record!!
I ALWAYS wanted to be one of those kids who reported on those books at the end...
Like, really badly.
Post a Comment