Documentaries Can Offer Perfect Blend of Learning and Fun

      Taking school-aged kids to see a documentary mixes the fun of going to the movies with powerful learning opportunities.  As Vlatko, proprietor of the website Top Documentary Films, says, “gaining knowledge through several senses simultaneously is better than through just one. So, educating through watching educational videos, in this case documentaries, is really a total different experience than educating only on books.” 

            Perhaps the most commonly known brand of family-friendly documentaries is the IMAX dome (or Omnimax) movie, that delightful but sometimes overwhelming movie-going experiences in which the film is projected onto the inside of a huge dome.  From deep seas to deep space, from Everest to the Grand Canyon, these productions have been bringing the wonders of science and exploration to viewers for decades.  (This summer, Cleveland-area readers can check out IMAX films on the Hubble telescope and on sea life at the Great Lakes Science Center.)

            But Omnimax films aren’t the only documentaries available to share with young people.  A recent screening of Waking Sleeping Beauty at the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Cinematheque reminded me that family friendly documentaries are available in a variety of venues if you’re willing to dig a little.  Waking Sleeping Beauty, which is playing now through July 9, 2010, at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, offers a fascinating look behind the scenes at Disney’s animated films operation.  Directed by Donald Hahn, producer of such blockbuster animation classics as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, Waking Sleeping Beauty offers parents of upper elementary through high school-age kids easy bait for the documentary hook:  “Want to see how a Disney movie is made?”  Once they bite, kids will not only get a fascinating introduction to the history of animation and to the people who created some of their favorite animated classics, but for those who are interested, the film also offers valuable insights into the way that overinflated egos can threaten the vitality of even the most successful teams.

            As is the case with feature films, of course, not every documentary is appropriate for young people, and parents should do their homework beforehand.

            So, where, outside of IMAX films and the occasional nature doc that hits the commercial cinemas, do you find good documentaries in your area?  Museums, as well as colleges and universities, often screen films not readily available in theaters. 

            I invite readers to share experiences of taking young people to documentaries or recommendations of family friendly docs.

            Thanks, and have a great day!

            Tim

“Reading With Kids”

Regina Brett’s wonderful column in today’s Plain Dealer offers wonderful examples of parents and grandparents reading to and with older children.  If you think your teens are too old, or you’ve gotten out of the habit but wish you hadn’t, check it out!

“You May Not Listen to What I Say, But I Know You’re Listening to What I Do”

Parents have probably always known that command, “Do as I say, not as I do” is as fruitless as it is hypocritical.  Indeed, much more important that what we say to kids is what they see us do. 

The famous “Bobo the Clown” research of psychologist Albert Bandura brought this reality chillingly home in the 1960s.  In this experiment, children were shown video tape of an adult interacting with an inflatable clown doll.  Some children were shown video of the adult acting aggressively toward the doll—striking it with a hammer, tossing it up into the air—and others were shown video in which the adult simply sat quietly next to the doll.  Anyone who’s ever worried that his or her smoking, drinking, swearing, or overeating would rub off on the children will not be surprised to learn that the children who watched Bobo being treated aggressively were much more likely than the other group to act aggressively with the clown when their turn came. 

Bandura’s research helped to develop what has come to be known as “social learning theory,” which describes the ways in which children and adults are influenced by their environment.  Social learning has powerful implications for parents and teachers, helping to explain, for example, the commonly known and tragic phenomenon of children of smokers being more likely to become smokers, children of abusers being more likely to abuse, etc.  Social learning theory also helps to explain how much gender-role learning takes place and why racial and other stereotypes can be so difficult to weed out of our culture.

But the news here is not all bad.  Whether they are always conscious of it or not, effective parents and teachers regularly use social learning to the benefit of the children in their care.  Fortunately, our children pay attention to our laudable actions as well as our less impressive ones.  When our children see us being kind, honest and compassionate, they are learning from us how to be good people.  By our habits of reading for pleasure and self-edification or of working hard for long-term goals, for example, we may do more to support our children’s long-term learning and success than by any advice we give them or fail to give.

Bottom line:  better watch your step, because your kids sure are.

Empower Kids by Helping Them Identify with a Positive Role or Value

If the idea of projecting an as yet unverified positive attribute onto a child in your care (see last week’s post) strikes you as a bit disingenuous, consider the equally powerful cousin of this approach:  rather than project a belief about the capacity of a child, many parents, teachers and coaches find it very effective to project onto the young people in their care a sense of group identity, an identity which plays a powerful role in shaping behavior and therefore potentially leading a child to success.  So, for example, rather than wait till a player argues with an umpire or criticizes a teammate, a coach might remind his players at the beginning of each game that “Bulldogs don’t argue with umpires; it’s not how we play” or “Bulldogs play positive.”  Rather than reprimanding a player for breaking a rule, the coach in this example has invited his players to buy into an identity, to make it their own. 

Teachers who have studied Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory will recall that Vygotsky taught that cognitive development is largely influenced by the environment in which children grow up, and that language is the key to how children internalize ideas about the world and their role in it.  Through conscious, thoughtful use of language, effective teachers can shape the roles and values with which the children in their care identify.  Just as the coach in the example above used language to invite his players to identify with a team value, an effective teacher might remind her students that “Mrs. Robinson’s class is a role model for the younger children about how to behave at an assembly” or that “Mrs. Robinson’s students know their times tables.”

Parents can also consciously use  language to help their children to identify with roles and values embraced by the family, including those related to what it takes to be successful in school.  Thus, when my 10-year-old lamented that I wouldn’t let him turn on the TV even though he had “already read a lot today,” I simply shrugged and said, “Well, Tibbittses are readers.”

The Pygmalion Effect: The Beneficial Power of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

My last post focused on the potentially devastating effects of labeling, in which a student suffers from the low or negative expectations of parents or teachers.  The flip side of that too common phenomenon might be called “positive labeling,” the happy result of which is kids growing into positive, successful behaviors or roles based on expectations projected onto them by loving adults.

Educational psychologists call this dynamic the “Pygmalion effect.”  Studies by Jere Brophy and others suggest that students for whom teachers have higher expectations of success perform better.  This tendency for “the better students” to perform better seems to hold true even when the status of “better student” had been assigned at random by researchers.  In other words, all other factors being equal, the belief of an adult that a kid is going to be successful is an independent predictor of that child’s chances of success.  

The implications for this are huge:  If you want to help children succeed, let them know that you know they’re going to do just that. 

But what about those times when you aren’t sure?  I say, why not risk seeing the glass half full?  A marvelously gifted Cleveland area pediatrician I know makes it virtually a policy, when examining a very young child, to tell the child’s parents that their kid is very limber and is likely to be athletic.  If it increases the chances that Mom and Dad stop to buy a soccer ball on the way home from the well visit or make a priority of spending time at the local playground early on in the child’s life, what’s the downside of making this positive prediction? 

Stimulating a self-fulfilling prophecy is so easy it’s almost scarily powerful.  A team that’s greeted at the first practice by a coach who says “I see a lot of talent on this team, and I can see it your eyes that you are winners” is a team that’s on its way to becoming winners.  An English teacher who informs her class on the first day of school that “I’ve heard that this class is full of good close readers, and I’ve been looking forward all summer to hearing your thoughts on our summer reading” is likely headed into a rich, engaged discussion of the book at hand.

Projecting success onto students lets them know that someone believes in them, which makes it a lot easier for them to believe in themselves, and when it comes to academic success, that’s half the battle.

I look forward to hearing from parents and teachers who have had success with this strategy.

Have a great day!

Tim