Aunty say, children do

ABC Television has been a source of education for countless Australian children since its inception in 1956. It is unlikely that any more than a handful of children growing up in Australia have managed to avoid an episode of Play School, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2006. That other children’s programming stalwart Sesame Street along with older fixtures like Why is it so? and Mr Squiggle or newcomers like The Wiggles and Bananas in Pyjamas have come to symbolise our publicly funded attempts to educate through art, science, songs and simple storylines – Australia’s idea of a balanced television education.

Australia’s commercial networks have also contributed to the mix of children’s learning programs. Here’s Humphrey, The Book Place, Mulligrubs and Playhouse Disney are shows corporate attempts with ostensibly the same goal: giving children necessary skills for navigating the world. The reader can judge how successful they have been in following the publicly funded productions.

Yet Play School undoubtedly remains Australia’s model for effectively teaching children a variety of skills from reading and counting to art and construction. Indeed its emphasis on education above entertainment or the promotion of spin-off products has been the key to the show’s enduring success, at least with parents.

While a show like Hi-5 appears more concerned with transfixing children with a barrage of well meaning songs and catchy dances – and even The Wiggles fall into this trap – Play School takes the time to actually teach children the dance moves, understand the words of the songs, and learn from them. Entertainment-based children’s shows end up creating spectators and consumers. Parents have by and large welcomed Play School because the show seeks to create participants and creatives.

The makers of Play School have hit on something that the Bible has taught for generations: doing is an essential part of learning. If something is taught but the student fails to apply this knowledge it is questionable if the student has ever really learnt anything. It is only by practicing what is taught that we cement our learning.

Prior to giving the Ten Commandments to the Israelites Moses tells them, “Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them” (Deuteronomy 5:1). God clearly sees practice as the natural outworking of learning. Anything less amounts to disobedience and results in ineffective adults among God’s people. The same process applies to the children of the Kingdom: “Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, ‘Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children’” (Deuteronomy 4:10). It’s more subtle but the link between teaching and living reverentially makes itself felt in the education of the younger generation as well.

Of course, while we can trust that the Bible’s content is indeed worth learning, trusting and practicing, parents will need to be mindful of the teaching even the most thought-out children’s programs provide.

Educational programs teach children a worldview that includes what is good or bad, true or false, acceptable or unacceptable. For example, Play School and Sesame Street encourage the tolerance and acceptance of different races and cultures by consistently featuring presenters and participants from a wide range of backgrounds. Christians would agree this is good.

However not all world views that emerge in children’s programs are as plain cut. For example, a recent episode of Play School teaching about babies featured a mother breast-feeding her baby. I was not expecting to see an exposed nipple on television at 9:30am, but presumably the Play School producers were aiming to normalise the practice of public breast-feeding. Several online forums can be found which praise the program for the move.

A more controversial incident was the infamous ‘through the window’ segment referred to as ‘My two mummies’ which appeared on Play School in 2004 and featured a young girl and her lesbian parents. At the time, Prime Minister John Howard entered the debate saying he would not accept Play School’s claim that the segment merely reflected the variety of the contemporary world. “This is an example of the ABC running an agenda in a children’s program,” he told The Age. “If people want to debate that issue, do it on a program like Lateline, but not on Play School.”

Sesame Street has also come under fire. The 2006 addition of the Muppet Abby Cadabby – a carnation-pink, motor-mouth fairy-in-training was criticised in the Los Angeles Times for having “that creepy, throaty little-girl Lindsay Lohan kind of voice, and a Paris Hilton-esque catchphrase: ‘That’s so magic’.” Christian websites such as the Rapture Ready were concerned with Abby’s supernatural powers because they implied witchcraft. Some right wing groups in the USA were also concerned in 2002 when an HIV-positive Muppet named Kami was introduced to the South Africa version of the show to reinforce the idea that children with AIDS can be fun loving and happy too.

Christian parents ought to be aware of the content of the television programs their children are watching. Just because a show appears in a children’s timeslot or is broadcast by a generally responsible public broadcaster, it doesn’t mean parents can trust the television to be a baby sitter. The temptation has been made all the more difficult to resist given that the launch of ABC2 now means, in combination with ABC1, parents now have access to children’s programming from 6am to 6pm. And not all programs were created equal. Every time a television producer chooses a script, or a programmer slots in a show, they select a worldview. A loving parent will want to accompany their child as much as they can in their televisual education experience.

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