Inquiry

This week as we explored the topic of inquiry and watched They Might Be Giant’s music video anthology Here Comes Science, I questioned the effectiveness of children’s media such as this at actually educating children with scientific principles. The lyrics and accompanied animations aim at simplifying scientific facts and making them accessible and fun. However, while the music was energetic and exciting, it wasn’t always the clearest explanation of the thing. For example, in one song the band sings the names of planets and other space objects, not clarifying the difference or what exactly it is they are identifying. In another song they claim the sun to be made of gasses, but then correct themselves in a follow up song claiming the sun is made up of plasma. But what is plasma?

Which brings me to the topic of this week, which isn’t “information” or “education” or “precise answers for children,” it’s inquiry. Here Comes Science seems to leave its audience with more questions than answers, and I think that’s kind of the point. Media such as TMBG’s album, address very basic ideas in science that serve as a kid’s gateway drug into science. Children’s media that serves an educational purpose tends to foster an interest in the subject rather than quickly fill kids’ heads with all the information. These music videos address various areas of scientific inquiry and presents them in bite-sized bits (most songs are less than two minutes long) in order to give kids a taste to pique their curiosity. If this is indeed the purpose, then the simplistic aesthetic of the music videos make sense. The band sticks to primary color schemes, simple shapes, and animations that match sound cues to make their topics as accessible and exciting for kids as possible.

This aesthetic contrasts with the complex, detailed style of Cathedral. If Here Comes Science is the gateway drug, then something like Cathedral is the hardcore stuff. It’s more interested in answering questions, providing deeper knowledge on a subject, hence the aesthetic of the detailed black and white line drawings. Something like Here Comes Science might introduce children to something, whereas something like Cathedral is where they would go to better understand their interest.

The educational style of Here Comes Science assumes that children trust what they are told, rather than needing to always see it for themselves. If children are in fact truly learning science from these dudes in a band that they can’t even see or verify the credentials of, there is something about how kids learn that goes beyond empirical evidence. In fact, this article from the Child Development journal explores the idea that how children think about science is a lot similar to how we tend to think about religion. “Children appear to conceptualize unobservable scientific and religious entities similarly,” the writers argue. They rely on the testimonies of adults to understand the unobservable world, which is perhaps why a large portion of children’s media is dedicated to teaching moral, scientific, and religious principles.

Morality in Pinocchio: Bridging the Gap Between Childhood and Adulthood

Teaching morality to children is kind of like explaining that the earth is round to people in 1000 BC. We are convinced we are right based on fact and experience, but they haven’t figured it out for themselves, so being didactic might not be the best approach. The lessons I gleaned from this week’s viewing of Pinocchio have little to do with the cut and dry messages intended for children. Instead, I learned a lot from the character of Geppetto, from the choices in animation, and I learned a lot about ignorance.

There is a trope in children’s media that often empowers children by making the adults seem stupid, clumsy, and goofy. The children in these stories know better and can often outsmart the adults. Instead of dividing child and adult, we need to be bridging that gap, and I think that the relationship between Geppetto and Pinocchio does this. Before his wish, Geppetto is a kind and nurturing caretaker. He loves his cat and his fish, and he is a masterful creator: giving attention and detail to each of his wooden creations of which there are hundreds.

Geppetto is full of love, and his wish isn’t riches or glory, but rather another soul to look after. He wishes to be a father, and because of his pure intentions, he is granted his wish. Geppetto’s unconditional love is almost childlike, which bridges the gap between child and adult. He isn’t ignorant or clumsy, but rather he embraces the aspects of childhood that Christ asks us to embrace: meekness, simplicity, the ease to love and forgive, and joy.

While Geppetto embraces the virtues of childhood, he has also learned the balance of maturity. Pinocchio’s sin that causes the conflict in the film is ignorance: he is new to existence and like Adam and Eve, is unaware of consequence and must make mistakes in order to progress. Pinocchio has not yet learned the difference between what is good for him and what is not so good, and he is easily persuaded by the snakes of the world. But when he gets in trouble and is taken away from his home, he with the help of his “conscience” Jiminy Cricket can only do so much to save himself. He is able to escape Pleasure Island only when he understands the consequences of his action, and through his mistakes he is able to shed the ignorance of childhood. As he sheds this ignorance the gap between child and adult is further narrowed. His ultimate redemption is when he seeks out Geppetto (it should be clear now that Geppetto is a Christ figure in this narrative) and they are able to escape the stomach of the whale and they receive their ultimate desire: for Pinocchio to become a real boy.

There are some obvious parallels to Christianity in this morality tale, which is interesting to me because a very preliminary reading of this film was that it is a simple black and white right versus wrong story. But if at it’s core is a Christian allegory, how can it be so black and white, when human morality goes beyond Christianity? Perhaps it seems straightforward for a WASP audience, but I am glad that children’s morality tales, while still stemming from traditions such as the wolf narrative, are showing signs of more nuance for a contemporary audience born in an age of diversity, moral relativism, and new technologies. This weekend I watched Zootopia, which struck me as a fitting morality tale for our age, as it embraces ideas such as diversity, moral relativism, and new technologies. I am fascinated by this evolution of the morality tale, which goes back to our discussion on how old fairy tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, are revisited and remixed as deemed necessary.

Son of Rambow: What is "Children's Media?"

The kids in  Son of Rambow are most likely the kind of kids that will be the first to tell you that they aren't children. Yet, as adults we see this film as being one about childhood. Perhaps it's because we understand that children deal with hardship in a very different way than we do, and that's what this film is about: it's about kids kind of doing self-therapy for hard stuff. First we have Will, who doesn't seem to have any friends, doesn't have a dad, and is held tight to the strict guidelines of religion. He isn't allowed to watch movies and then the first movie he sees is Rambo, which is hardly a movie for kids. Yet, it is more important for him than what we might deem an "age appropriate film" would be. Then there is Lee Carter, who is mostly left to his own devices and has an inclination towards filmmaking and manipulates Will into helping out, most likely using him as a way to exercise control over someone the way his brother is able to over him. The third is Didier, a foreigner in a new land, seemingly bored by everything except his desire to be a movie star. It's clear that the common denominator among these three is that they aren't properly equipped to handle this middle ground of being a kid yet having adult problems. It makes sense for them to cling to a film like Rambo, where the hero is able to handle anything that comes at his way with absolutely no problem. It makes sense that Will fancies himself as the son of Rambo, since his father was killed by something beyond his control, whereas Rambo is the master of control: physically and emotionally. it makes sense that Lee takes on the role of director and producer, assuming creative control of the film and becoming frustrated when that control is taken away from him. It's like Max in Where the Wild Things Are, frustrated with his mom and escaping to a land where he gets to be in charge. It makes sense that Didier wants to be an actor: his whole persona seems like an act. He puts on costumes and says lines as if in a script. Probably because he is not sure who he is, and he is teased back home in his school in France.
So is this film media for children? Media about childhood? Or media consumed by children? As we determined last class, it's not really a question that can be easily answered. This film is unique in that it is about children and media. These kids basically work through their problems by creating a response to a film they have seen. It's a productive way of working through things and is teaching them how to take a situation and react to it in a creative way. Sometimes they slip up and deal with things through violence, but they are also learning empathy by trying to recreate scenes they are familiar with and by building relationships with each other, so the violence is always met with guilt. Ultimately, what mends the relationship between Will and Lee is the completion of Son of Rambow and it becomes a testament to friendship, the joy of being able to exercise creative control over a project that has a final product to show for, and being able to experience closure with the problems they unconsciously worked through with the making of this film. This film prompted me to do research on publications about how filmmaking might be beneficial for children and I came across a wide range of examples and theories about how kids can develop better thinking skills, awareness of space, overcome illness, and control emotions through media. This particular article does a good job of exploring what I expect this film is suggesting.

"Some educators believe that
 reading and language are directed most
 effectively when they are used in action.
 Jerome Bruner argues that when language
 conveys the content of experience, there is,
 . . more often than not a requirement of
 developing correspondence between what we
 do, what we see, and what we say. It is this
 correspondence that is most strikingly in-
 volved in reading and writing, in school learn-
 ing, and in other abstract pursuits."
 If this is true, then filming and role
 playing are ideal ways for children to em-
 ploy language and reading actively, and to
 make reading and language live. George
 Spache calls this kind of activity "active
 reacting to reading"and maintains that
 it is a key aspect of good reading compre-
 hension. It is my belief that there are few
 activities elementary children would find
 more interesting, stimulating, or active than
 filmmaking."