Today the boys wrote a description of an elephant. The assigment in their English textbook asked them to write a detailed description, as if they were describing an elephant to someone who had never seen one themselves. They were asked to consider sights, sounds, the way the animals move and even smell!
Well, they have seen live elephants once at a zoo, when they were two and a half. I remember the occasion well. At the time of seeing the elephants it was near the end of the day and R was more concerned about getting H to carry him than with looking at elephants. If R, aged 2.5 was fussing to be carried, you can be sure that J was too.
Since then we have visited a different zoo, but they don't have elephants there. So how could the boys describe an elephant in detail? A photo wouldn't be enough, as you can't get a sense of movement or sound from that. So for their piece of descriptive writing they must have relied on what they have seen on TV. J in particular wrote a very descriptive piece, maashAllah.
Without seeing elephants on TV I don't see how he could have written it.
So, when it comes to TV I think it can have its uses, in opening our eyes to sights and sounds of the creation we couldn't otherwise experience. It is all about using it sensibly I think. Of course we can just as well watch this stuff on the internet as well these days, so when i say TV I'm including that too!
3 comments:
they do learn a lot from all the visual media, just it's so hard to filter out the rubbish, but we can but try!
I agree that it can be beneficial but it seems to be a slippery slope. I'm always tempted to use the TV (and internet videos) but I can never quite justify it's use when there are so many other alternatives that are less detrimental or potentially addictive. I'm not saying anyone else is wrong who uses it, but once the door is open, it seems like my children have a hard time understanding the limits that I enforce of what is and isn't beneficial viewing.
I have found that it gets easier as the children get older. When they are young they think anything is "beneficial",and need to have TV controlled, but as they get older they seem to lose interest in it and no longer have the desire to watch much at all, alhamdulillah.
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