European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 6, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Sidelight Quayle clawed at tvs screen but we need program Clarence Page no wonder vice president Dan Quayle wears the scorn of the cultural elite like a badge of Honor. Yes now that he also has Felt the scorn of America s voters let us give Young Danforth his due. He was perhaps Foremost among his duties the crash test Dummy for president Bush a Domestic policy. It was a thankless Job but he did it faithfully and Well. The administration let him run around Loose smack himself up against mainstream society a conventional Wisdom and if he survived embraced his policies As its own. A it happened with lawyer bashing who among us does not distrust lawyers Media bashing who among us does not distrust the Media even Morea family values and the a cultural elite a particularly those of its members who produce the to show Murphy Brown. Sure Quayle sometimes sounded silly but his remarks always resonated with at least a Kernel of truth. In fact he flattered the poo Bahs of american television by calling the culture they put on an elite is trying to put a High brow gloss on lowbrow stuff judging from a recently released Survey by a coalition of consumer groups looking at what 58 stations filed with the acc As a educational and informational programming for children. One Ohio television station had listed an episode of Donahue on a teen age strippers and their Liberal several other stations claimed the Jet sons because it allegedly teaches children about life in the 21st Century. Another broadcaster claimed a Chip v Dale cartoon show episode because it showed the rewards of team efforts. Another praised a leave it to Beaver episode for showing youngsters the value of a communication and Are to programmers trying to pull a fast one that a pretty much what the Washington based Center for Media education working with other consumer groups and researchers at Georgetown University Law school concluded after turning up these examples and others the 58 stations filed to comply with a 1990 Law aimed at upgrading the Quality of children a television. Peggy Charren reached the same conclusion. She is founder of the 20,000-member action for children a television a Leader among watchdog groups that prodded Congress to pass the Law. The networks argue Back with a time tested Chestnut you can to legislate morality. A a who a to say what a appropriate for our Young a Newsweek quoted Judy Price head of children a programming at lbs As saying. A How can you have rules about something that subjective and with All respect to Peggy Charren who elected her to represent the values of this nations parents a a still Charren made a Good Point in a Telephone interview with me when she pointed out that a red Flag should go up at the acc or in the minds of parents when a station claims a show like the Donahue episode even though it was broadcast at 9 . On a school Day. A for did they presume the topic of teen strippers was important enough for children to skip school to see a said Charren. Good question. Like Quayle she should Wear the networks scorn As a badge of Honor although she has greater claim to having been part of the solution not the problem. You see it was Carter Reagan Era deregulation that aided networks in substituting Pap for Quality kids shows like Captain Kangaroo 30 minutes and in the know. The Industry and free Market theorists like to claim the marketplace with its abundance of new technologies like Cable la provides enough alternatives to make unnecessary such governmental intrusions As Federal mandating of children a programming and taxpayer subsidies of Public broadcasting. But if stations Are going to Call entertainment shows a educational a the Market is obviously and stubbornly reluctant to do the right thing without1 Public prodding. Since Cable is missing from half of americans Homes and an even greater percentage of poor households,.where children presumably could use helpful lessons the most deregulation May give us a phase Charren describes As a the Rich getting a Richer information base and the poor getting poorer offerings than the poor ones they have As viewership of the three major networks has shrunk because of Competition children have been Dan Quayle tried to tackle a cultural increasingly pandered to As Little Consumers not Young minds to be properly educated. Is that tvs Job interestingly to programmers have always tried to claim the Best of two uncomfortably contradictory worlds As Hollywood critic Michael Medved puts it. To televisions critics and who among us is not one they claim that what they put on the air has absolutely positively no negative Impact on Young viewers. None. But at the same time they claim to their advertisers that 30 seconds of commercial time will change the buying habits of millions. What magic one might reasonably ask do the commercials have that the surrounding programs done to those of us who As parents have seen our own flesh and blood learning their first words and for that matter consumer buying habits More quickly from television than from us need to ask ourselves what kind of lessons is television teaching. Once the election was Over Victor Bill Clinton also was moved to remark that he and his wife Hillary were increasingly dismayed by How Little programmers of television seemed to care about using their mighty medium to uplift the spirits of americans. Perhaps As devoted advocates of children a rights Bill and Hillary might put political clout behind those words. But they can to do it alone. The Public owns the airwaves. The networks Are tenants. Good tenants need Good landlords. Tho Chicago Tribuno after adding it up kids could follow a tougher course Andy Rooney schools spend a lot of time sugar coating the learning process. God to Diu Aon i Tell the kids this May be hard its As though schools Are trying to slip something past the kids because the teachers know it will be Good for them but they re afraid that if they Tell the children what they re giving them they wont take it so they mix it with Orange juice. Last week i went to a fourth Grade class in a Good school with a 9-year-old granddaughter. I was surprised at the colouring Book style of much of what the children were being Given. In an arithmetic class each child had been asked to make up Lay out and color an elaborate Board game. The games the kids made were All in memory of monopoly. Some of them were Well done but they involved a lot of Cra Yoning. The educational part came when a child played his or her game with another Pupil or on this Day a grandparent. For our game you threw the Dice and moved a Small object the number of squares indicated by the Dice. Each Square would say something like a take 9x 12.�?� the child who landed on the Square wrote Down 108 As his or her score. I noticed in questioning her later that my granddaughter was Good with 9 x 12 but not Good with 8 x 13 or other numbers that were not part of her game. When we finished each of us had a column of numbers and i said a wok now let me see you add them a i have to wait a my granddaughter said. A we have Only one she thereupon went to the teacher in another part of the room and asked for the Little hand held computer so she could add the numbers. Learning by Rote got a bad reputation years ago. Progressive educators deplored it. They Felt that learning words and the Quot Bersby memory without any relation to the meaning behind the functions was a mistake. Memorization seems like a mistake but there a no substitute for memorizing the multiplication tables. 1 Learned them Quot by heart a although in a not sure where the term a by heart Quot came from. It must have been a Way of separating the memory from the brain. My granddaughter is an enthusiastic Reader. She a often caught with a flashlight under the covers Reading Long after her bedtime. Most of what she reads involves princesses and fairy godmothers or mythological characters that can be Gau Dily painted in the profusely illustrated books. In a afraid i think children a books Are a greatly overrated literary endeavour. Why can to 9-year-Olds read Well. Books my granddaughter read and liked Jack Guidon s Call of the wild and it seems to me she could be weaned from the kid stuff a although i recognize that Between teachers and parents trying to do what a right its not my place to say so because i done to know what in a talking about. And 8 x 13 is 104. Tabuno Media services Andy Rooney is a former stars Andrj stapes reporter december 6, 1992 sunday a j Page 9
