Nice post over at Schools Matter on the power of SchoolHouse Rock lyrics (I can still recite them to this day) and the reduction of courses in music, history, and the arts in this era of high-stakes testing. But all of those kinds of classes — and media like SchooHouse Rock — are just “fluff”, right? They do nothing to increase student achievement in science and math, do they?…
SchoolHouse Rock is a great example of using a specific medium to increase student learning. It merged the television medium, which at the time was THE medium, with music and animation (to capture the attention of children), to teach basic knowledge and concepts in social studies, grammar, math, and science.
I don’t keep up with current children’s television programming, but I would love to hear about any current programs that are effective with young children in the way that SchoolHouse Rock was for children of the 70s and 80s. Please post comments with links to websites or resources where we can learn more…
“…hooking up words and phrases and clauses
Conjunction Junction, how’s that function?
I got three favorite cars
That get most of my job done.
Conjunction Junction, what’s their function?
I got “and”, “but”, and “or”,
They’ll get you pretty far.“And”:
That’s an additive, like “this and that”.
“But”:
That’s sort of the opposite,
“Not this *but* that”.
And then there’s “or”:
O-R, when you have a choice like
“This or that”.
“And”, “but”, and “or”,
Get you pretty far.”
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Stephanie: I can still recite most of the Schoolhouse Rock jingles too from my cartoon watching days in the 1970s, clearly these were powerful communicators. I had a chance a year ago to take my family to see a theatrical version of Schoolhouse Rock that was written by students at Texas Tech and performed in their lab theater. It was great, and a lot of fun! I wish companies were sponsoring the creation of more catchy, thematic jingles like this. Of course, our kids should be authoring them too!
Wesley –
1) I’m jealous — I’m sure the theatrical production you attended was wonderful!
2) Our kids…authoring… I AGREE! It is encouraging that many schools are jumping on the video production bandwagon (although, based on my own experiences in this district, I do have some concerns about who the schools are hiring to teach video and graphics classes)… Music, animation, video, etc… those media are so seductive to our students and the power of these media to engage our students can not be ignored. Content is content — content (as in “standards”) can be delivered in so many different ways. Students producing animations or videos — to their own catchy compositions on any subject in any class — will do more to result in deeper learning of the subject matter than the worksheets, TAKS workbooks, and lectures that our students are subjected to day in and day out.
The problem of course is “time” — it takes longer to write a song, or produce an animation, or video than it does to “cover the materials” and have the students do worksheets or workbooks.
One personal anecdote — I’ve seen students stay on campus past 8:00 pm in the evening — by choice — to work on video and animation productions… getting them to stay after school for TAKS tutorials is nearly impossible…