Warnings and wisdom from Farmington Hills, MI

Yesterday evening I gave a talk at the Farmington Community Library in Farmington Hills, Michigan. I had my book in front of me, my powerpoint behind me, and my brain buzzing with reminders aboout the clearest ways to explain the latest psychological experiments on how and when children learn from screen media. You might think I felt like the expert in the room.

Au contraire. There's so much more to learn.

My audience included observant librarians, parents, preschool educators and home-care providers who offered some troubling anecdotes about electronic media. I know, I know, these are just anecdotes. There's no science behind this. And anecdotes of positive moments with e-media can gush forth too. (See my posts from June, for example.) But we are missing something if we don't listen to these stories:

• A preschool teacher who watches parents pull up in their minivans to drop off their children each morning. The vans, she said, have DVD players running in the back, with children watching their shows to keep them occupied for the 10-minute trip to school. It used to be, this teacher lamented, that parents would use that car trip to talk to their kids about what they viewed out the window.
  
• A home-care provider had to argue against TV use with a mother who insisted that her child watch Caillou all morning.
  
• A parent described how, to avoid provoking tantrums in her 2-and-half year old who wanted to watch DVDs during car rides, she resorted to telling her child that the DVD player wasn't working and "needed to be charged."
  
• A librarian said she once helped a father who wondered if there were any videos available that teach children how to use a fork. Couldn't you teach him when you are eating dinner together? she asked. He could, he said, but usually they watched TV as they ate.
  

When I speak about my book, I stress that TV and videos are not some evil to be avoided. I argue that it is the content of what is on screen, the context of the viewing, and the needs of the individual child that make the biggest difference. What I'm really driving at is purposeful viewing -- being highly conscious of when and how we use media, leveraging its power. When I hear stories like those of last night, I seriously wonder if that message can catch on.

Too much of "the cognitive child"

I just started reading A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool, a slim, dense but compelling book just out from Oxford University Press, and I'm struck by the foreword by Edward Zigler, professor emeritus at Yale University. His observations -- based on a long, influential life of scientific research in early childhood -- drive home the argument that we overly focus on academic achievements in children at very young ages.

He draws this dichotomy: The Whole Child versus the Cognitive Child. Today, he writes, parents and educators are trying to create cognitive children -- kids who can recognize letters, read earlier, see patterns and master pre-math skills. To Zigler, the barrage of electronic media products for young children -- DVDs, software -- and the emphasis on "educational" toys, has contributed to this cognitive myopia.

What get's left out, he writes, is the "whole child" approach that allows for play, physical activity and social engagement.

"It is time for a reconcilation between the two conceptualizations of the child," he writes. Sounds like a smart prescription. Where is this reconciliation already happening? Is the pendulum already swinging back again to incorporate more play in preschool? What programs -- and here I mean both teacher-led preschool programs and software/interactive programs -- do both well?