If you hadn’t heard, Reading Rainbow was canceled this week. Like most things on PBS, it was first held hostage for the viewing audience to release enough coin for the executives to be satiated before finally pulling the plug.
Of the reasons given, Linda Simensky, the “vice president for children’s programming” – which sounds like an excellent title in a communist regime, explained that PBS felt that the mechanics are reading, not teaching the love of reading, should be the priority. They also mentioned the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were needed to renew the series.
LeVar Burton should give PBS the finger and start a web series. Those “reasons” are total bunk.
PBS, more than anyone – and maybe this is why they’re constantly begging everyone for money, should know that you don’t need several hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a good television series. You just need a Flip camera, someone who’s willing to be on camera, a computer that can make movies, someone good at Powerpoint to make the “motion graphics”, and someone to upload to YouTube. I’ve got all those things in spades. Hell, I’d do that for free, Mr. Burton. Hit me up.
There’s nothing wrong with mechanics, per se. This is especially true, if you’re teaching infants. But what about the older kids?
Reading is Fundamental, a non-profit that provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books and literacy resources each year, writes that “Studies show that the more children read, the better readers and writers they become.” Following up to say “Many forces in children’s lives pull them away from reading — television, video games, and after-school activities.”
To combat this problem, you have to make reading books worthwhile. There’s a FREE program called Book Adventure which provides K-8 kids incentives to read books (and provides resources for parents and teachers) – and there are many more like it online. They can’t all be wrong.
What exactly will teaching the mechanics of reading do to incentivize reading books? Teaching the mechanics will not encourage pleasure reading, and that’s the goal. To claim otherwise is total BS, Mrs. Simensky. The problem is not the “irrelevancy” of Reading Rainbow – it’s the increasing irrelevancy of PBS as a learning tool.
Reading Rainbow was perfect for the older child demographic – at that age just before their brain starts rotting away from Yu Gi Oh or whatever stupid thing comes next. My parents and school taught me the mechanics. But you sure as hell couldn’t get me to pick up those dregs they handed out at school unless LeVar had vetted ‘em first. Thanks to shows like Reading Rainbow and Wishbone that focused on the cool adventures I could experience while reading, I was eyeballs-deep in Jurassic Park in 5th grade and the Red Badge of Courage in the 4th.
If I was “coddled”, I probably would have turned off the TV. That clicking noise isn’t the cash machine whirring up – it’s TVs being turned off.
Mr. Burton, let there be no doubt about it, without you, I would have likely never laid a hand on most of the amazing books I’ve adventured with. Tell those jokers at PBS to get real – and start your own web series.
4 Comments
I couldn’t agree more with this post. I absolutely loved Reading Rainbow!
And “vice president for children’s programming” sounds EXACTLY like a title for a communist regime… um, perhaps I was wrong about what PBS stands for… perhaps its Public Brainwashing System? Bad move PBS, bad move.
Heidi – I couldn’t agree more. I’m glad that someone feels the same way I do about it.
I think PBS has a lot of room for improvement – they’ve become stagnant. And this is a huge demonstration of that.
-Nick
I have wanted to donate to our somewhat “local” pbs station for years and finally did it this year. My business donated 3 LumiLift Facials for a total donation value of $660. The first customer to bring in her donation informed me that the whole auction staff was fired and they lost over $100,000 just in production (airtime) for the auction. She said nobody knew what they were doing, all the volunteers are retirees and they just came in and manned the phones and left and literally there was no Captain of “the ship”. No Shatner to ask and demand for more power Scotty! you get it….. I guess they thought that their system was so well oiled – things would just work themselves out.
I would not be surprised that this type of “casual” management practices is standard at PBS. They probably need a good AXE person to go clean house and get it working again.
This is going to sound bad but – “too many 50+ year olds with old school management practices that are out dated and no longer effective”….my guess.
Where are the young geeks with a cause hiding? hmmmm. hee hee
Jan
Janet,
They’re at home, playing Mario Kart in mom and dad’s basement, playing barrista at Starbucks, back at school, or working on building out their own company.
I would say that even old dogs can learn the new ways of social media – evidenced by the soccer mom Facebook flood of late. It’s not too late for PBS – I’d agree with you. A good Axe man would do the trick, but so would a very good, very patient teacher.
Thanks for the comment!!
-Nick