Via Lani at Possibilities Abound I’ve just run across an article by NPR that reports on the fact Reading Rainbow has been canceled after 26 years on the air.
“Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday; it has won more than two-dozen Emmys, and is the third longest-running children’s show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.“
This is terrible news for so many reasons. Certainly nostalgia comes into play, and the thought of children today not being afforded the same joys that I experienced as a kid tugs at my heart strings and makes me very sad.
PBS has always delivered really solid programming, but for me this program was always head and shoulders above the rest. It was entertaining, inspiring, and really motivated me to explore what creativity and imagination meant to me. More than that though too, it made learning fun, by addressing “the why” rather than “the how.”
This is why I have such a huge problem with the logic behind why the show was cancelled.
NPR goes on to quote John Grant, “who is in charge of content at WNED Buffalo, Reading Rainbow‘s home station.”
Grant indicates that the decision was based in a couple of points, the lesser of which relate to the current budget crunch and issues of funding. Apparently no one wanted to pick up the cost of the show’s broadcasting rights, which ran several hundred thousand dollars.
Realistically that aspect of the decision is reasonable to me. The financial crisis has affected all aspects of society, and an unfortunate consequence of this has been that tough decisions have to be made sometimes.
No, it’s the educational and philosophical logic behind the decision that I take exception with, and frankly I discredit it to its core.
Grant goes on to discuss the philosophical changes that have slowly been unfolding since the era of the Bush administration, when the Department of Education “wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.”
Program funding was increasingly allocated towards shows that addressed fundamental elements – “the how” of reading, rather than “the why.”
According to Linda Simensky, vice president for children’s programming at PBS, “research has shown that teaching the mechanics of reading should be the network’s priority.”
What research is this exactly? Is this the same research that once saw books chained to tables, while a lecturer ruled over an unquestioning, subservient classroom with an iron fist, forcing students to learn by rote, endlessly repeating the alphabet over and over and over again, without the slightest emphasis on what it means for them? Only that there are 26 sacrosanct letters and something called numbers, and you cannot possibly be passionate about learning without them?
I’m over-reacting here of course, but the point is that other PBS shows have been addressing the topics of letters and phonics for an even longer period of time than Reading Rainbow was on the air – and in fact continues to this day. Sesame Street was aways brought to you by a letter and a number, and featured them as central themes throughout the episode – taking children through repetitive use of the concepts, yet in a fun way.
To put this another way, “the how” of reading has been addressed by public television for decades now. This is not in question. What in my mind is far, far more crucial than that in the facilitation of learning, and the empowerment of learners is addressing “the why.”
If you pique a child’s interests, stoke the fires of their enthusiasm and passion and show them what reading can actually mean – not just what the words say – it resonates. It establishes a reason to learn and the motivation to practice. Much like recognising an amazing destination on the horizon; appealing to our passions and creative soul helps us see the wider landscape and say “I want to go there. How do I get there?” Phonics and letters by themselves don’t do that.
“The Why” is what Reading Rainbow was all about; and it conveyed it better than any other show on television before or since. The fact this beacon of inspiration and creativity is going to be replaced by yet another vanilla show that makes us endlessly repeat the sound “th...” over and over again is a travesty for learning.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
