• Gr. 9 PAT - LA Part A on May 14, 2012
• Gr. 3 PAT - LA Part A on May 15, 2012
• Gr. 6 PAT - LA Part A on May 16
• Edmonton Gauss Math Contest on May 16, 2012
• No School - Day in Lieu, May 18, 2012
• Elementary Track Day on May 25, 2012

Just Say No… to T.V.

“The development of skills requires time, thought, and active engagement of the visual and verbal imagination. We encourage students to replace non-instructional television watching, which is passive and discourages creative play, with the myriad of activities that will foster the development of imagination and skills. Television viewing is diametrically opposed to reading, may stifle cognitive development and imagination, trivializes information, undermines values, distorts cause and effect, and is unable to portray thought. Excessive viewing (greater than 10 hours per week) is discouraged.”

In Neil Postman's “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, a review of 2800 studies on the general topic of television's influence on behaviour, including cognitive processing, was unable to point to persuasive evidence that "learning increases when information is presented in a dramatic setting." Instead, the studies suggest the opposite conclusion is justified, i.e. retention drops. Marie Winn describes similar results in “The Plug-In Drug”.

A few of the rather striking findings cited by Postman and Winn include:

* Only 3.5 % of viewers were able to answer successfully twelve true/false questions concerning two 30-second segments of commercial television programs and advertisements.

* In comparison to TV and radio, print media significantly increased correct responses regarding names of people and numbers contained in news programs.

* 51% of viewers could not recall a single item of news a few minutes after viewing a news program on television.

* The average television viewer will retain 20% of the information contained in a televised news story.

* Children who were read a story were better able to recall details, repeat exact words or phrases, and make inferences drawing on personal experience and real world knowledge in comparison to children who watched the story being read on TV (with the same narrator). The "TV children" relied overwhelmingly on the visual aspects of the story as seen on the screen.

These studies concluded:

* The meaning secured from television is more likely to be segmented, concrete and less inferential, and those secured by reading have a higher likelihood of being better tied to one's stored knowledge and thus more likely to be inferential.

* Television viewing does not increase learning, is inferior to and less likely than print to cultivate higher-order, inferential thinking.

* Television emerges as a much more self-contained experience for children. The visual component emerges as paramount. The book experience allows for greater access to the story's language and encourages readers to make connections with other realms of life.

* While television appears to have the potential to provide useful information to viewers - and is celebrated for its educational function - the inherent nature of the viewing experience actually inhibits learning as we usually think about it. Very little cognitive, recallable, analyzable, thought-based learning takes place while watching TV.

* The continuous trance-like fixation of the TV viewer is not attention but distraction - a form akin to daydreaming. The AAC adds that this may explain why it takes time to get children refocused on learning after video viewing.

In “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”, Jerry Mander cites brain research that helps explain the phenomena.  "Since the television information is taking place where the viewer is not, it cannot be acted upon. The viewer must deliberately inhibit neural pathways between visual data and the automatic nervous system, which stimulates movement and mental attention." The left-brain, "centre of logic, logical human communication and analysis, integration of sensory components and memory, the basis of man's conscious, purposeful, and time free abilities and actions" effectively quits processing, and "goes into a kind of holding pattern." The AAC adds that this is the opposite of reading.

The brain research cited by Mander goes on to explain "The right half of the brain, which deals with more subjective cognitive processes - dream images, fantasy, intuition - continues to receive the television images. But because the bridge between the right and left brains has been effectively shattered, all cross processing, the making conscious of the unconscious data and bringing it to usability, is eliminated."

It is for these very reasons that we, at Parkview School, strongly encourage reading and discourage watching excessive television. In “The Plug-In Drug”, Winn notes: "Inferential reasoning is the ability beyond the mere mechanics of reading, to draw conclusions, form judgments, and interpret and create new ideas out of what one reads. It is the crucial factor that underpins meaningful reading in literature, history, science, and other subjects. Without this complex ability reading becomes a superficial exercise."

Hopefully this information has inspired everyone to think twice about the potential negative effects of watching too much T.V. We would much rather see the students of Parkview School spending time reading wonderful works of literature than sitting in front of a television.

Equipping Students For The Journey,

Mr. D. Beharry

Principal