Week 3: To Be and to Have

Watching “To Be and to Have” brought me back to a specific part of my childhood. I didn’t go to school in a one room school house, but every summer, my grandma put together a summer school program for all of her grandchildren. We weren’t learning quite the same things you’d learn in school, but I couldn’t help being reminded of it while we watched the movie. My grandma taught us a little about science and English, but also how to be courteous of each other and work together.

To Be and to Have focused on teaching children, which was part of our topic for last week’s discussion. There are a lot of resources for teaching children, and a lot of media that is focused on education. I know that as a child I was exposed to a lot of interesting educational books and documentaries, but I can hardly remember them. We had large, beautiful books about dinosaurs that my great grandparents gave us, and my parents were very fond of science documentaries, but the only thing I remember from the books is coming up with stories in which the dinosaurs were characters, and the only documentary I really have any memory of is one about bees that gave me nightmares. While reading “Cathedral” I was amazed by the beautiful illustrations and the fascinating story, but I know that when I was younger, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the book at all. On the other hand, I have vivid memories of going to museums and the zoo, so there are some forms of educational children’s media that are exciting and interesting to the children.

Not much of what I learned from the educational media I was exposed to as a child stuck very well. But I do think it had an impact. My love for learning comes mostly from how much my parents and grandparents seemed to care about education.  And maybe that’s an important part of educational children’s media. Even if only one or two facts from a book or documentary stick, the children do get the idea that learning things is important. In “To Be and To Have” several of the children expressed desires to be teachers when they grew up. Most children want to emulate the adults they respect when they’re older. Exposing children to media that is educational surely has an impact on their willingness to learn and even to understanding of how important education is.