The Media Madam

Early childcare development is an important topic for parents. Developing our children’s cognitive skills at an early age helps them to succeed at school and learn at a faster pace. Teaching children subjects such a reading, math, problem solving, and creative arts before pre-k gives them a learning advantage in a system that is competitive and always evolving. Most daycare facilities focus on the basic needs of children such as word forming, and basic arts and crafts, but what happens when we push our kids to the limit and offer them a chance to be the best they can be? What happens when we take basic programs and enhance them with an element that all children enjoy, animation? How many people would love to be involved in a program and a movement that not only teaches kids but in a fun, interactive, way?  Welcome to Nick-a-mentary. It’s not just school and here’s why…

             Studies have shown that children ages 2 to 4 are drawn to lessons that feature a cartoon character, puppets or colors.  Children placed in an environment that’s lively, imaginative and fun filled thrive more so than children who are only exposed to numbers and letters. Cartoon networks, such as Nickjr, owned by Viacom are already using cartoons to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Viacom, owner of a number of television networks, has made education an important aspect of their corporation. Through local initiatives and programming such as “Get Schooled,” Viacom brings together all the resources its brand offers with national and community partners all in the name of US education reform. “Get Schooled” is a national program that inspires people to connect and increase high school and college graduation rates.  Nick Jr. is the name of an American cable television channel owned by the Nickelodeon Kids and Family subsidiary of Viacom. The channel was known on Noggin from its February 2, 1999 launch until September 28, 2009.  Nick Jr. is aimed at 2-6 year olds, and features a mix of originally-produced programming, and series previously and concurrently aired on Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block. It is the main competitor to Disney Junior in most countries and PBS Kids in the United States and Canada. Nick-a-mentary has paired with Viacom and Nickjr. to introduce a learning system that targets preschoolers and gives them an early start  in development.

               Nick-a-mentary is a fun curriculum that not only teaches children ages 2 to 4 the basic cognitive skills taught in pre-k and kindergarten, but also keeps them fully engage as they learn. Each child sets off on a colorful and magical journey through education using characters such as Dora the Explorer, The Fresh Beat Band, Blues Clues and Umi Zoomi. The curriculum includes math, grammar, reading, environmental science, foreign language, music, and social science. The students aren’t only learning at a fast pace but also having fun doing it. Teachers now have a fun and effective tool and parents are seeing huge results in their children’s learning progress. Best of all, preschoolers are enjoying learning. Nick-a-mentary is innovative, fun and most importantly effective.

                At Nick-a-mentary we focus on three core values, successful development, interaction, and fun. These three elements are important for your child’s development. Nick-a-mentary is inspired by a quote from Harry Edwards, sociologist, “We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open.” Our first core value, successful development, embodies this quote. Using programs such as Fresh Beats Band and Dora the Explorer, kids are not only enjoying the show but they are also learning. Fresh Beats Band teaches music appreciation and about different instruments. Dora the Explorer not only teaches problem solving but also teaches your child a different language. Dora translates English to Spanish and Spanish to English as you explore with her and her friends. All of these traits can be applied in the career world whether it’s a career in music or just communicating with a culture whose language is the dominating minority language in America today. How Nick-a-mentary incorporates these shows in our learning program is simple. After viewing Dora the Explorer the teacher show s the children flash cards that contain the key Spanish words heard on that episode and the English translation. The children use the Spanish words in sentences and also are encourage to use the word in Spanish instead of English throughout the day.

       The next core value, interaction, is displayed through shows such as Blue’s Clues and Backyardigans. Blue’s Clues embodies all aspects of interaction and fun. In this program kids follow Blue and Steve through Blue’s house solving clues in math and reading through problem solving. Kids must develop a solution to the proposed problem Blue and Steve face each episode. This is important in teaching kids how to actively think on their own and find solutions. The Backyardigans show was designed to encourage imaginative play and focuses on the role-playing games in each episode. This kind of play helps to build character, is a cause for interaction and allows children to explore different areas.

                Here are some reasons why Nick-a-mentary should be incorporated into headstart and preschool programs: Nick-a-mentary is a full-fledged program implemented five days a week for 6 hours. Educational and Informational  (EI) programming, a result of the Children’s Television Act of 1990, broadcast only three hours of educational programming per week which is usually aired on Saturday mornings only. Core programming is specifically designed to serve education and information needs of children under the age of 16 and must be thirty minutes long and regularly scheduled. Again Nick-a-mentary embodies this and more. Children engage in the program and then use the elements they learned in role playing, storytelling, and review test taking. Results don’t lie. Kids who watch Sesame Street in preschool spend more time reading for pleasure in high school, and they obtain higher grades in English, math, and science (cpb.org). Sixteen percent of American preschoolers who also watched Sesame Street frequently achieved high school grade point averages that are almost 16% higher than those who didn’t. That’s with only a few hours per week. Imagine the results when Nick-a-mentary is implemented five days a week!

                Nick-a-mentary is an important educational addition to a preschoolers development and it allows your child to indulge in a program that’s fun, interactive and that will jump start their educational success.

                        References:

(cpg.org)

(Viacom.com)

Book Review of “Heaven is for Real”

A Little Boys Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

  By Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent

207 pages. Thomas Nelson, Inc. $8.78

  Thousands of people claim to have outer body experiences. They give accounts of leaving their bodies during death, surgeries, or other traumatic experiences and being encased in a bright light, or being able to view their lifeless bodies and the faces of their loved ones. The subject of outer body experience is faced  with ridicule, judgment and disbelief, but what it is to be believed when a three year old child experiences something he should not or would not be able to describe if not for experience?

 When picking up the book the reader would probably suck their teeth and murmur, “yeah, right” at yet another claim of a supernatural experience, yet after reading just the prologue you find yourself to be a little bit more open minded, especially since the accounts are from a child who does not seem to be urged on in his story. This is a willing child who in regular conversation with his parents, as if he’s talking about what happened at the playground yesterday, gives details of his visit to what he believes to be Heaven while in the hospital. “That’s where the angels sang to me,” Colton told his parents as they drove past the Great Plains Regional Medical Center, where he spent 15 days fighting for his life after his appendix ruptured. A ruptured appendix that was poisoning his body for five days.

 In “Heaven is Real” the accounts given by Colton are what coerce the reader to continue through the pages.The fact that, again, this is a child who no matter how great of an imagination he may have, could not give reports of things happening in the hospital while he lay unconscious in the operating room. After his parents, Sonja and Todd asked Colton where he saw Jesus his reply is what keeps the viewer glued to the pages, “Yeah, at the hospital. When I was with Jesus, you were praying  and Mommy was talking on the phone.” This account is jarring because it is a scene that actually played out while Colton was being operated on and was in hysterics.  Also the accounts of people he saw while in Heaven whom he had never seen or even heard of before. Colton told his parents about seeing his great grandfather, Pop, who he had never met in before. He also gave an account of seeing his baby sister, who died in his mother's womb before being born. Colton's parents never mentioned to him the death of his baby sister of their baby. Colton said that his sister looks just like Cassie, his older sister, but is smaller and has dark hair.

 Colton’s changed behavior after the surgery creates a question mark in even the toughest of critics in the subject of outer body experiences. His constant reference to Jesus and how Jesus soothed him during his ordeal, his persistence in finding funds the parents did not have to pay the hospital bills, because “Jesus used Dr. O’Holleran to help fix me. You need to pay him,” and also his reference to scriptures that he hadyet to be taught. All these things do begin to rattle your mind. How could a little boy, not yet four begin tocomprehend these things, speak of these things and also speak of them with a certain understanding that no other child his age would be able to have. Even the description of the clothes he saw Jesus in astonished his parents because they had never discussed this subject with him but he described the garment and colors Jesus was said to wear in scripture, the whiter than white robe and purple sash. The eeriest part of Colton’s description was when he described Jesus’ nail marks, “he had colors on him…Red, Daddy. Jesus has red markers on him.” Then he proceeded to point to his palms and tops of his feet to show where the “markers” were.

 The ideas and accounts discussed in this book are subject to a variety of pros and cons. Supporting critique is that the accounts are from a almost 4 year old child who is said to have no knowledge of the things he saw prior to experiencing them. Some of the things he described he was not yet taught or were not yet discussed with him according to his parents. So how would he know these things or give accurate descriptions according to scripture if not for his experience. Critique against this book is that the accounts come from an almost 4 year old child who could have at some time and place overheard discussions about Jesus and Heaven and retained the information. His father is indeed a pastor so he is being raised in a church. Also the question is why it took so long for this subject to be shared with the public. Many critics believe the parents fed him information and urged him on in his testimony. After reading the book and looking at the pictures the question is, why not believe? Many Christians or Spiritual leaders will say that God all the time is giving evidence of his existence. The mind of a child is, usually, the purest and the most innocent so what better person to reveal the reality of God through if not through a child.

When I first visited Nam June Paik’s exhibit I really had no idea who he was but I was prepared to spend maybe an hour looking at some boring pieces of art work that didn’t make any sense to me. I witnessed the opposite. Upon entering the exhibit I’m faced with bright lights and loud music and an almost VIPish club atmosphere.  Maybe I won’t be bored after all. 

  The first work I viewed was the Megatron/ Matrix exhibit. This exhibit was definitely my favorite. It holds 215 monitors that show a mixture of images. Even though the monitors display different images that are totally opposite in theme, they all seem to come together as one whole concept. From what the description said the middle section of monitors convey what the media puts out and the smaller sections give emphasis on the media’s impact on its audience. Different symbols are used to connect everything such as the symbol of the cross, a bird flying across the screen, and people with their heads spinning and eyes closed. It’s as if Paik is trying to say we see all these things on tv or in the media but we either turn a blind eye to how it effects our lives or we become so confused that it ends up placing us into a state of panic and chaos.

  Next I wondered over to the Newspaper Drawings. This is where Paik suffered a stroke but was still watching tv and reading his newspaper. Looking at the drawings he looks like he was still trying to connect himself with what he used to do, his artwork, and this was the only way he was able to do so.  He actually creates t.v. monitors around the photos as if he was viewing the paper as a show. He also used symbols to give a drawn out description of what the article was talking about and how he saw it. There was an article about radio and he drew a figure with headphones on looking content. There was another about media and he drew a figure with their mouth open looking as if they were yelling. The pictures depicted what he thought about what was being reported.

  The last piece I wondered over to was the Prepared Piano. I was kind of confused about this piece. I watched Paik pretty much murder a piano and I honestly looked at it and didn’t see art. I saw junk. But when placed with the other pieces in the exhibit it became a work of art. Maybe it’s a depiction of how he believes people can be beat up and ugly, not literally or literally, but when placed among other things that are appealing it takes on the beauty surrounding it. Even the sounds he made were unpleasing to the ears individually but when put together and after adding other elements you find yourself saying, “hmm that’s not so bad.” I think he was saying sometimes not so ordinary can be the most prized treasure.

The Family of Robots to me, and this is strictly my opinion, symbolizes the effect television and the media has on the traditional family. Our everyday lives are governed by the media and what's on television. I don't know very many households who can go a day without being glued to a television monitor or who can have a conversation that doesn't concern what's going on in the media. Media effects our daily lives from breakfast, to hobbies, to dinnertime.

Anansi Stories are part of an ancient mythology that is rooted in West African folklore and are usually an interaction between divine and semi-divine beings, royalty, humans, animals, and plants.

These stories usually had a moral theme and served to teach right and wrong, good and bad. Anansi the Spiderman existed from the time when deities, humans and animals were able to converse with each other. He is also known as Ananse, Kwaku Ananse, and Anancy; and in the Southern United States he has evolved into Aunt Nancy. He is a spider, but often acts and appears as a man. The Anansi tales are believed to have originated in the Ashanti people in Ghana and came to the US and the Carribean through the African slave trade.

  Anansi and the Dispersal of Wisdom

This Anansi story was set long ago when animals could talk to humans, or as the story goes. This Anansi tale actually originated in Nigeria and features Anansi the spider, Nyame, the sky god, and Ntikuma, Anansi’s son. In the “Dispersal of Wisdom” Anansi is given all the world’s wisdom in a pot by Nyame and told to share it with the world.. Anansi decides to hide it from the world up in a tall tree but has a hard time getting it up the tree. His son watches his struggle and suggests to Anansi an easier way to get it up the tree. The pot falls and all the wisdom with it and spreads across the world. Anansi decides there’s no use having all the wisdom in the world when he didn’t have enough common sense, as his son did, to strap the pot to his back and carry it easily up the tree.

  One of the social themes that are engulfed in the story are greed. Anansi was already smart but he wanted to keep the word’s wisdom to himself so that he could be superior to everyone else in the world. There have been an abundance of people throughout time who have also tried to do this. For example, the Roman Catholic Church before the Protestant era. The church band anyone who wasn’t a priest from interpreting the bible, therefore keeping many people in the dark about Christianity and using the bible to condemn or persuade people for their own advanta

ge. Another social theme was having knowledge but no common sense. We’ve had Presidents in the US who have embodied this. Take George W Bush. I’m sure he holds all the knowledge that is needed to run a country but he didn’t have the sense to apply it in ways that would benefit all citizens of the US as well as bandage bruised relations with other nations. As Anansi was in the story, a very smart spider, sometimes having too much knowledge causes you to overlook or overthink a simple situation.

  Anansi and the Dispersal of Wisdom Rewritten to Anansi the Mind Eraser:

  Anansi, a CIA agent, was given a special task by the higher ups. "The world is ending," they said. "Take these USBs and give them to the people so that they will know what the plan is to leave this planet on Dooms Day. " Anansi thought to himself, "shoot, why should I let them know how to get to the other planet. The fewer people there, the better. I won't have to compete for a job or compete for land to habitat. I'll just take my wife and my kids and we'll exist on the new planet. They messed this one up anyway." 

Anansi then decided to hide the USB information on his computer. He decided to upload all 7 billion USBs. For three days he uploaded information using up all his computer's storage. Then he had to buy new computers and also used his work computer so he could use their memory.  The world was ending in 3 more days and he still had over a billion USBs to upload. His son, Little Kayron, watched his father uploading the USBs and spend his family's money on new computers. Finally, Little Kayron said to Anansi, "Umm, Dad? Wouldn't it be easier to upload just one USB so we may have the instructions and then destroy the rest. I'm just saying." As soon as Little Kayron said this, Anansi's partner walked into their home "Anansi! The higher ups said they gave you the life saving USB's to give to the people and no one received them. What happened?"

Anansi began to stutter, "Uh...I...don't know. I thought I shipped them out."

Anansi's partner started laughing. "Naw man, but luckily your computer at work had the info on it so we're ok. We shipped them out to everybody this morning." With that he left.

Anansi looked at his son and said, "I guess I do need other people around to pick up my slack, especially since I didn't have enough sense to do something as simple as uploading one USB and destroying the rest. My 11 year old son as more common sense than I do."

His son laughed and said, "It's ok, dad. Sometimes being too smart makes us stupid especially when we're being greedy."

The End.

I'm watching the commercials during the super bowl this year and begin laughing hysterically after viewing the third one. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but all of the commercials had absolutely nothing to do with the product it was advertising. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing because they, no doubt, kept the viewers tied into the screen but when did drinking a Budweiser have anything to do with a man and a horse. Even the Kia Sorento commercial was leaning on an ok, where are you going with this story, leg.

Apparently, commercials no longer need to give product information or price details. No one seems to care about performance details when it comes to their products. What the viewer seems to demand is a great story line, which both of these commercials definitely give. How heartwarming was the man and horse story? A horse, raised on farm from a babe by a horse farmer who grows a certain attachment to the horse. They become "besties," participating in hay fights and horse power races (truck versus horse). They are no longer man and beast but friends. Then, alas, the trainer must give the young stud to the Clydesdale so he may begin his journey as a mascot for Budweiser, a beer company. The ploy here was not playing off of America's thirst for beer but playing of our love of sentimental man and beast stories. Americans love a great man's best friend plot. Then Budweiser decides, while we have the viewers reaching for a tissue, let's go ahead and throw in the Budweiser logo and pull them in even harder by asking viewers to name the horse. They have now involved the viewer who can't wait to find out if their four to six letter name is being etched on the property papers of the horse.

The Sorento commercial took a different approach, also. Their creators played on the need for viewers to have closure. The dad gives a long drawn out story which seems to have no substance and ends it with tapping on a computerized element in the car, showing off the car's most prized feature. If the creator's  showed that feature in the beginning without the story line it probably would've been forgotten or not even payed attention too. By dragging the viewer's mentally through that baby story and ending it with a feature, the viewer probably is relieved to find out 1. What the heck the dad is talking about and 2. Oh, Kia has a computerized function now.

While it's definitely funny viewing the turn commercials have taken, I wonder if advertisement will go back to it's old school origins of simply telling us what the product is and what is does.

http://youtu.be/wPG7PcI67dE

Synergy and stereotypes have not only aided in the success of large corporations, but also in the advancement of actors and writers. For example Tyler Perry, who began his career as a musical playwright. After failed attempts in the industry he created the character, "Medea," a stereotypical black woman, who cooks up mean dinners, beats the kids, beats the grownups, and with her sarcastic attitude and tough demeanor fixes all the families problems. Although there is a character like Medea in a lot of black family households it adds to the stereotype that all black women are ruthless and snap witted. But it's a stereotype that America is entertained by and in turn bought Perry popularity. To add to the success of his character, Perry also wrote, directed, produced and starred in his plays. This type of synergy allowed him to gross, personally, a large amount of money because he had few payouts to cast and crew.

The Coen Brothers are another example of how synergy and stereotypes lead to success. The brothers write, produce and direct their own movies which means greater payoffs for them and a faster climb up the income chain. Using stereotypes also added to their success especially in the late 90's and 2000. In movies such as "Raising Arizona" and  "O Brother, Where Art Thou," redneck southerners were the bases of the film. 

As often as people say they hate stereotypes, it's what brings crowds to the theaters. For some reason we can't get enough of seeing ourselves or others in a negative light. Smart writers, actors, or directors use the power of stereotypes to propel their projects to fame and also swallow up all aspects of the production roles to fatten their pockets.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1389182/Coen-brothers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_Arizona

http://www.tylerperry.com/