[HN Gopher] "Reading Rainbow" was created to combat summer readi...
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"Reading Rainbow" was created to combat summer reading slumps
Author : arbesman
Score : 328 points
Date : 2025-07-17 00:43 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| aspenmayer wrote:
| That was a well done show for kids. LeVar Burton can read a book
| better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. He made
| learning accessible, fun, and cool.
| twoodfin wrote:
| He also has that rare Fred Rogers-esque gift of talking in a
| way children understand without talking down to them.
|
| Not unheard of in today's tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids &
| streaming apps, but much harder to find.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| He's a compelling speaker and onscreen talent, I agree. He's
| using his superpowers for good, whatever they are. Being able
| to connect through a screen wasn't normalized back then.
| Educational content needed that personal touch. I think it
| makes all the difference.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Adults, too. I might not know what an inverse-tachyon pulse
| is, but thanks to his convincing demeanor I understand that
| it could cause a localized spatial distortion.
| chang1 wrote:
| As a child in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember watching
| Star Trek TNG as new episodes were coming out, and also
| watching Reading Rainbow (I loved both shows).
|
| The episode where Reading Rainbow visited the Star Trek TNG
| set was one of my favorites:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRz_qpgD-0
| Verdex wrote:
| I've got some sort of weak facial blindness, so I did not
| connect that Burton and La Forge were the same person.
|
| As a child learning that two of your favorite people were
| in fact the same person was pretty mind blowing for me.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I was bored to tears and I read more than the average kid. I
| liked the aesthetic though and I _wanted_ to like it because it
| seemed wholesome. I've always suspected RR is one of those
| shows that everyone knows they _should_ like so they all talk
| it up as if they did like it. Kinda like Rust.
| plemer wrote:
| Or maybe many did genuinely enjoy RR but you just weren't the
| target audience? If it was created to combat the summer
| reading slump, it likely wasn't targeting already avid
| readers.
|
| FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a
| ton and loved the _feel_ of the show, but the actual content
| was a little slow.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I agree that it's the feel of the show. I grew up with 3
| free to air channels, and one of them was a PBS station.
| The content was better than the competition or the VHS tape
| collection, or replaying one of the video games.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I genuinely liked it even though I could read fine. It was an
| excuse to use the tv when I might not have a good reason to
| use it instead of someone else otherwise and I enjoyed the
| content well enough even if I was a couple years older than
| the intended audience. The public broadcasting shows of that
| era were weirdly good imo, with Mr Rogers and Shirley Lewis
| doing puppets, but wholesome too.
|
| Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its
| own.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series)
|
| > The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends
| from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as
| a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named
| Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only
| by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and
| using them to form words and sentences.
|
| > Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in
| a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during
| the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read
| and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs.
| His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and
| opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.
|
| Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-
| enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This
| is crazy town, and I'm here for it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)
| postalcoder wrote:
| The entire PBS slate of shows was elite. Very little did I
| know at the time how initiative-driven it was (a great
| thing). To me where in the world was Carmen Sandiego was a
| fun trivia game. To the creators, they were trying to
| address the issue of americans not knowing where the
| country was on a map.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > To me where in the world was Carmen Sandiego was a fun
| trivia game. To the creators, they were trying to address
| the issue of americans not knowing where the country was
| on a map.
|
| Was there a show? To me _Where in the World is Carmen
| Sandiego_ was a reoccurring segment on a show called
| Square One. I liked it, but it didn 't feel like it was
| the source of Carmen Sandiego mythology; it felt more
| like a minor epiphenomenon.
|
| There was also a computer game, which I didn't play much
| of because it was a lot of work. It felt a lot more fully
| developed than the TV segments, though.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Yes, there was half-hour game show for kids that aired on
| PBS in the early 90s. For anyone who's ever seen it,
| chances are the theme song is permanently burned into
| their brain: Do it, Rockapella! [1]
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Ca
| rmen_S...
|
| 1:
| https://youtu.be/9ubKvQe2hQU?si=jHjOKvKuWukQkBUJ&t=1510
| TurkTurkleton wrote:
| The game came first, and the TV shows were spun off from
| it, which is probably why the game feels more fully
| developed. It grew into a whole media franchise -- there
| were _Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?_ and _Where
| in Time is Carmen Sandiego?_ game shows on PBS, as well
| as a _Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?_ Saturday
| morning cartoon, and more recently, an animated series on
| Netflix. I don 't remember there being Carmen Sandiego
| segments on _Square One_ but I also don 't remember
| _Square One_ all that well in the first place.
| tallanvor wrote:
| "To the creators, they were trying to address the issue
| of americans not knowing where the country was on a map."
|
| This is a very glib take. The origin of the series was a
| 1985 educational computer game from Broderbund. The
| target age group wasn't expected to know all this
| information, which is why the game shipped with an
| almanac.
| infecto wrote:
| Not sure if it was on purpose but your take is the glib
| one.
|
| "The show was created partially in response to the
| results of a National Geographic survey indicating little
| knowledge of geography among some of the American
| populace, with one in four being unable to locate the
| Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Car
| men...
|
| Now of course the tv show is an offspring from the video
| game but it's well documented that the specific format
| was to combat geography. So it's a fine statement to
| state that is the purpose of the show creators as that
| was the mission from PBS at the time.
| bagels wrote:
| I always immediately turned it off when I was a kid. I
| appreciate its purpose now, but loathed it when I was in the
| target audience.
| fracus wrote:
| I honestly just loved the theme song and the good vibes, but
| yeah, I didn't really watch it watch it.
| gowld wrote:
| It's a TV show for kids who do NOT read.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| > LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not
| ashamed to admit it.
|
| This is a weird comment. He's a professional actor. I hope he
| does
| aspenmayer wrote:
| He makes the hard thing look easy. This wasn't a backhanded
| compliment but a genuine one. He isn't acting per se, but he
| does voice act the stories. It was audiobooks and ASMR sorta
| before those things were cool. He does a fantastic job with
| the words on the page and also goes on-site to film IRL
| things from the books. It's a simple premise and it works. It
| doesn't have to be surprising to be enjoyable and engaging.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn't evolve
| in an environment where stories were told by people who'd
| won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling
| ability. Stories were told by family.
|
| If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this
| area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn't
| evolve in an environment where stories were told by
| people who'd won a massive intertribe tournament of story
| telling ability. Stories were told by family.
|
| > If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this
| area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
|
| Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus
| compared to most tv programs, let alone "educational" tv
| programming.
|
| I wasn't seeking a hyperstimulus. You don't even know me.
| I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my
| first schooling outside the home.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| > compared to most tv programs
|
| Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is
| often hard to see where the line is between what is
| evolutionarily congruent and what is greater.
|
| I don't see how knowing you is relevant. This is my
| position on what most people do. Either you have a
| different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet
| arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am
| familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I
| gotten wrong?
| eclecticfrank wrote:
| > Man didn't evolve in an environment where stories were
| told by people who'd won a massive intertribe tournament
| of story telling ability. Stories were told by family.
|
| The stories we grew up to were indeed those which won "a
| massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability".
| Only interesting stories got retold. Stories travelled
| further when made into songs. They became artworks when
| tranformed into plays. They became myths and legends in
| the luggage of those travelling the planet. And the art
| of telling stories also became a way of making a living
| much before our contemporary society produced the first
| pop star.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I would expect being a professional storyteller to translate
| a lot better to reading aloud than being a professional
| actor, really.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Whatever works, I guess. It made a difference, although it was
| corny somewhere between `Punky Brewster` and `Captain Planet`.
| Vintage `Sesame Street` is legit cool.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Reminds of another 1980s reading incentive thing, tho during the
| schoolyear not summer: Pizza Hut's _Book It!_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It!
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Read books, get free pizza you want, not the pizza they serve
| at school. Whoever invented this is a genius. I still regret
| losing the holographic Book It! pin I had, but I can probably
| find another one if I look.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It was sort of Ronald Reagan that invented it.
| dustincoates wrote:
| We did Book It! for a couple of years, but Accelerated Reader
| for most of the others. One of my favorite childhood memories
| as a kid was having to go to the local junior high, because the
| elementary school didn't have the test for the books I was
| reading.
|
| It also made me want to read Anna Karenina, because that was
| listed as the book with the highest points awarded. It only
| took me 30 years to get around to finishing it.
| etchalon wrote:
| It sure was neat when people aspired to help kids learn instead
| of being completely focused on them not learning the wrong thing.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| I think if you back and watch these 90s PBS shows you'll find
| they are also very overt in promoting their ideas.
| mproud wrote:
| _Butterfly in the Sky,_ documentary on Netflix:
|
| https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81750412?s=i&trkid=25859316...
| throwing_away wrote:
| It really felt like propaganda as a kid.
|
| Made me think reading was probably a scam.
| esseph wrote:
| Sure was buddy
|
| Big Book out to get u
|
| (How the fuck did you know what "propaganda" was before you
| could even read btw?)
| throwing_away wrote:
| That was just the vibe.
|
| It was mandatory watching by the state education program. It
| had product placement and a clear message.
|
| I mean, I feel like it would take more education to _not_ see
| it as propaganda.
|
| I didn't like The Magic Schoolbus either though. Same reason.
|
| Oh, and Scholastic everything.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i felt like a lot of my teachers kept it handy in the
| "fucking hungover" pocket too
| tclancy wrote:
| Well, good work avoiding that scam. I guess. Does this make
| you Goofus or Gallanyt?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I've only seen Magic School Bus as an adult, but I don't
| recall any product placement? They seem fun and educational
| - like Storybots.
|
| Only problem I have with those shows for kids is the lack
| of real people.
| omeid2 wrote:
| I am always fascinated by this degree of assurance and
| absolute lack of scepticism.
|
| In what way, do you think, a show can have no room for
| critical viewing? Does being related to "reading or books"
| sufficient for such unquestionable and noncritical
| acceptance? Or was something else about it that makes it so
| cocksure good?
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| Watching Mr. Rogers as an adult, I was surprised by how
| opinionated the show could be. There was an episode where
| one of the puppets was trying to teach a child puppet to
| read before they entered school, and it was presented as a
| extremely harsh and mean way to treat a child. A human
| actor comes in and starts scolding the puppet that it's not
| necessary to teach the kids to read before school and that
| she needs to stop. Later, Mr. Rogers talks with an actual
| kindergarten teacher, and they discuss how it's completely
| unnecessary to teach kids to read before they enter
| kindergarten.
|
| It felt like it was indoctrinating kids into believing that
| the right way to raise them was the way that Fred Rogers
| preferred.
|
| There's this strange point of view that once it's decided
| that something is good and it's being made by good people,
| it's absurd to look at it critically and anyone who does
| should be mocked.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| That is a Waldorf perspective, though presumably not
| exclusive to them. I was sent to a Waldorf kindergarten,
| and my mother despised it because they repeatedly
| insulted her for having taught me to read. They felt this
| was unhealthy.
|
| Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like most
| teachers - don't like it when their students already know
| the material they're supposed to be teaching.
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| > Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like
| most teachers - don't like it when their students already
| know the material they're supposed to be teaching.
|
| Yes, "don't do it that way, you're not suppose to know
| that yet" is depressingly common. Also unfair, since it
| usually only applies to certain kids - we don't tell
| artistic kids that they shouldn't paint so well, because
| kids aren't supposed to be at that level yet, nor do we
| tell athletic kids this. But it's extremely common in
| subjects like math.
|
| One of the things that's frustrating is the one size fits
| all mentality when it comes to education. Even if some
| kids don't get a lot out of home education, some really
| enjoy it, and it can be a great bonding experience for
| many parents and children. It feels irresponsible to
| dismiss it all together.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > we don't tell artistic kids that they shouldn't paint
| so well, because kids aren't supposed to be at that level
| yet, nor do we tell athletic kids this. But it's
| extremely common in subjects like math.
|
| It's even more common as applied to holding a job, which
| is out-and-out illegal for children in most cases.
| esseph wrote:
| You're talking about, I believe, Episode 1463 - Mr Rogers
| goes to school.
|
| I found it in the internet archive here:
| https://archive.org/details/ipoy143season10
|
| Edit: The correct episode in question is Ep 1462.
| esseph wrote:
| Okay, I don't think that was it.
|
| I think the one you are talking about is Episode 1462.
|
| In Episode 1462 Lady Elaine is badgering people for not
| knowing all their letters and numbers etc _before_
| showing up for school.
|
| The point is not about knowing them before you show up,
| the point is about addressing learning anxiety!
|
| The point of that section is to tell _children_ that if
| they don 't know these things before they first show up
| at school, that it's not the end of the world!
|
| Different kids are going to come from different
| backgrounds, this segment addresses that so when kids
| show up to school and don't know these things, that they
| don't feel stressed and upset that other kids may know
| something they don't. That is something they can turn a
| kid off from school and wanting to learn _forever_.
|
| Were in a place where you learned things like that before
| you ever went to school? If so, that can cause
| resentment!
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| The episode only portrays education before school in a
| negative light, though. It's message isn't "it's fine to
| teach kids before they enter school and after they enter
| school, but you shouldn't badger them." Characters
| continually say that it's wrong to try to teach kids
| these things before they enter school, or that if a kid
| doesn't want to learn them before they enter school
| parents are wrong to try.
|
| In 1462, look at around 12:30, Elaine is trying to teach
| Tuesday, who doesn't want to learn, he wants to leave. So
| Mr. McFeely objects by saying that Tuesday doesn't need
| to learn them before he goes to school.
|
| Then look at 17:15. Elaine says that Tuesday needs to
| study, and Aberlin immediately objects saying that he
| hasn't started school yet. When Elaine says that school
| is about learning numbers and letters, Aberlin says that
| that's not true "according to the real teacher." Followed
| by Mr. Rogers saying that Elaine thinks that everything
| about school needs to be hard and boring, and that's just
| not the way it is. But "parents trying to teach you about
| numbers and letters just want things to be hard and
| boring" isn't a good message, to say the least.
|
| You're right that Elaine is portrayed as being mean, but
| that's part of the problem. It feels very much like a
| negative caricature. No one is saying "here's a good way
| to teach kids before school," they're all saying "don't
| be so mean, they don't need to learn these things."
|
| I don't feel so easy about a show teaching very young
| children that their preferred approach to child rearing
| is morally correct and other approaches are morally
| wrong.
|
| (Thanks for a link to the episodes, by the way. 1462 and
| 1463.)
| esseph wrote:
| I think you're taking away a different message from what
| I did, I watch 1462 and 1463 looking for this section.
|
| The message I got was not "don't learn this stuff before
| school", the message I took away was that, for a lot of
| kids watching that show on PBS, especially around the air
| date of 1979, you were looking at "latchkey kids" plus
| the incredible struggles of poverty and access to
| information.
|
| It wasn't "don't learn this", it was "you are not less of
| a human being because you were born into a family that
| didn't or couldn't take the time to help teach you these
| things before you started school". That was the takeaway,
| for me, and for a lot of the kids I grew up around that
| weren't privileged.
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| But it's not showing that. You could have two kids start
| school at the same time and say that it's OK that they
| didn't have different backgrounds. But that's not what
| they showed - they're showing people who are telling
| Elaine it's wrong to teach the kids when the kids want to
| go off and play.
|
| > "you are not less of a human being because you were
| born into a family that didn't or couldn't take the time
| to help teach you these things before you started school"
|
| But Elaine does want to teach the kids in this episode. I
| don't see how this episode would do anything other than
| encourage fewer parents to try to teach their kids before
| they go off to school.
| esseph wrote:
| "I don't see how this episode would do anything other
| than encourage fewer parents to try to teach their kids
| before they go off to school."
|
| You're so far outside the typical audience for this show!
|
| Think more along the lines of poverty with no parents at
| home, maybe they're both working, or maybe one is
| incarcerated!
|
| This show sure wasn't put together for young kids of
| privilege and financial and community support and means -
| the exactly opposite.
| esseph wrote:
| > absolute lack of scepticism.
|
| Mostly being around 4-6 years old and generally having
| trust in the people around you.
| vintermann wrote:
| Ask a parent! Kids can be very wary of attempts to "shape"
| them. Of course they're not going to know the word
| propaganda, but the instinct to detect manipulation (and
| react negatively to it) goes deep.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Indeed. Also, small kids are excellent bullshit detectors.
| They can tell when they're being given non-sequiturs, or
| explanations are inconsistent, and they (rightfully) see
| this as problem and are confused when such things come from
| sources they trust (e.g. parents).
| ajuc wrote:
| I wonder how many public libraries are there in US.
|
| In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few
| villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library.
| It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet
| yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to
| hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random
| books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was
| just a short walk.
|
| I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't
| need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among
| the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most
| books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper
| covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on
| that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know
| what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time.
| Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even
| trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a
| very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but
| that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything
| eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The US public library system is very big. There are over 17,000
| libraries and that doesn't include the almost 100,000 libraries
| that are in schools.
|
| My city (Seattle, a pretty large US city) has 27 public
| libraries. I only live a few blocks from the closest one but
| could fairly easily walk to at least 2 more.
| ajuc wrote:
| > 17,000 libraries
|
| It doesn't seem like "A lot" for a country the size of US
| TBH.
|
| Poland has 7541 public libraries. Which is 1 per 41 km^2, but
| of course big cities have many libraries, so the actual
| distance is larger in the countryside. But it's a number.
|
| 17000 libraries in US is like one per 580 km^2.
|
| And yes every school has one too, there's 35 000 schools. But
| many of these are very small libraries that mostly carry
| mandatory lectures for school + some classic books. In my
| village the school library sucked.
|
| I lived in a village of 500 people and had a library within 5
| minute walk.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I guess one needs to consider the US is geographically much
| larger and most land doesn't actually contain people.
| Considering the density is wiser, but even still. Libraries
| per occupied area still isn't a good metric. There is no
| good metric.
|
| What's more important is the qualitative offerings and
| impact:
|
| 1. Spectrum of a. most common services and collections
| offered everywhere to b. the most comprehensive of those
| offered by a specific library.
|
| 2. What people can do at them: read, research subjects,
| borrow things, accomplish tasks, host meetings, etc.
|
| This is very hard to measure and not something a business
| person running the government "like a business" would
| understand.
| ajuc wrote:
| IMO the most important metric is "what percentage of kids
| can walk to a library without asking anybody".
|
| But nowadays people have internet, so I guess it's not
| THAT important anymore. The ideal library is just a
| website that lets you download pirated ebooks for free.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| You've just reinvented Z-library. ;)
|
| The utility of the brick-and-mortar is that some/(many by
| state) libraries include services and physical items that
| can be checked out _besides media._ Plus, besides free
| Wi-Fi and meeting rooms, it 's a non-consumption location
| to exist in a physical public space. There aren't many
| more free spaces in America. And, there are millions of
| people who can't afford internet, a tablet, a computer,
| or have a place for books. Millions of books and
| historical local newspapers don't exist in electronic
| form!
|
| But no, really, (most of) America is truly unwalkable for
| almost any activity.
| roywiggins wrote:
| To build a library close enough to most American kids
| that they could walk to it would likely be infeasible,
| because so many people live places that are simply not
| walkable at all.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Another commenter said 73% of americans live 1 mile of a
| library. Thats walkable. You don't need brewpubcafes and
| tree lined streets to walk.
| ajuc wrote:
| You do need pavements tho, especially if the road has
| many lanes and people going 90 km/h.
| ipython wrote:
| Have you seen pics of Houston? It can be infeasible to
| walk a mile if it's split by a multi lane highway etc.
| Tallain wrote:
| Going by land area isn't a great metric, since the US has a
| great deal of unpopulated or sparsely populated space. Per
| capita might be better, but not by much. But if you go "per
| city," the US has around 19,000 incorporated areas. So 17k
| libraries to 19k incorporated areas (cities, towns,
| villages, designated census areas, etc.), might be better
| metric.
| dustincoates wrote:
| You can have small towns with libraries in the US, too.
| Flatonia, TX has a population of 1,300 and has a public
| library.
|
| There are probably even smaller towns, but I know Flatonia
| has one because I've been there.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| There's a town near me that has a population of 1100 and
| a nice small library. And there's state-wide interlibrary
| loan, so small-town libraries can get you anything the
| bigger ones have.
| 98codes wrote:
| In the United States (in 2020[1]), 100% of the population
| lived within 5 miles (8 km) of a local public library, with
| 99.1% of people living within 1 mile (1.6 km). That seems
| good enough to me.
|
| [1] https://www.gc.cuny.edu/center-urban-research/research-
| proje...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| 73% live within a mile from your source not 99.1%.
| gowld wrote:
| Could your whole village walk to a library in 5 minutes?
|
| Regardless of population density,
| villages/towns/settlements/cities tend to span a mile or
| more, not one acre with 1-1000 people surrounded by non-
| residential space.
|
| How many books were in that library that served 500 people?
| ajuc wrote:
| There's 3 smaller daughter-libraries in nearby villages.
| I'd say 20 minutes walk to the nearest library for
| everybody in the whole gmina is realistic. Less if you
| include school libraries (but they suck).
|
| I had no idea how many books, checked right now and
| apparently it's 32 000. It's not really serving 500
| people, it's got 1100 regular readers. Which means people
| are going there from other villages.
|
| It also has all the multimedia stuff, audiobooks,
| internet access, printers, etc.
| cyberax wrote:
| > I wonder how many public libraries are there in US.
|
| A _lot_ of them (nearly 125000 about 250 people per library on
| average). And you can do inter-library loans, and you can check
| out DVDs and BluRays.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Is gmena a typo or does Polish seriously have "gm" as a
| digraph? I have seen a reasonable amount of written Polish but
| I've never noticed "gm" before. That strikes me as really
| reaching, get a different alphabet, already.
| ajuc wrote:
| "Gmina" is correct. It's the lowest administrative unit in
| Poland.
|
| There's a few other words with "gm", like "gmerac" (to fiddle
| with sth), "gmin" (plebs, common people - same root word as
| gmina I'd imagine), "gmach" (a huge building, usually of some
| public institution).
|
| It's not a digraph tho, it's just pronounced as "g" and then
| "m"?
|
| I'm like 99% sure it's a German loanword. Most of
| city/administration/building language in Polish comes from
| German - dach (roof), szyba (glass pane), rynek (main market
| square), ratusz (city hall), burmistrz (city mayor), rynsztok
| (gutter), etc.
|
| All through middle ages Poland imported lots of germanic
| settlers and had them build whole new towns from scratch in
| Poland in exchange for tax breaks. There's a town called
| "Niemcy" (Germans/Mutes) like 10 km from where I live :), and
| there's a village called "Dys" nearby.
|
| What's the problem with using latin script for gm by the way?
| MandieD wrote:
| As someone who speaks German but not Polish, "Gemeinde" was
| the first thing that came to mind seeing that "gmina" is a
| collection of rural villages, because that's what the
| smallest incorporated settlements here are called (at least
| in Bavaria). Gemeinde -> Markt -> Stadt
| MandieD wrote:
| Even Germany has Gmund: Schwabisch Gmund, Georgensgmund...
| internet_points wrote:
| > get a different alphabet, already
|
| English has entered the chat
| saghm wrote:
| English has fairly common words with "gm", just not at the
| beginning of words. Figma and enigma immediately spring to
| mind. I'd even argue that people say "Big Mac" roughly the
| same speed as the above words. Plus, there's even that meme
| word from a few years ago (like a crude, less punny version
| of the "updog" joke, if that helps narrow down what I mean)
| rdlw wrote:
| It's not a digraph, it's pronounced /gm/
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Growing up Wishbone connected with me a lot more.
|
| Looking back on the list of Reading Rainbow books:
| https://knowtea.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/rea...
|
| I can't say I've read many of them.
|
| With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily
| emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the
| accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the
| 90s.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Wishbone was a good show, but I think it occupies a different
| niche. Wishbone was about adapting the classics, and each
| episode was more of a production vs Reading Rainbow, which was
| formatted more to introduce kids to contemporary age-
| appropriate reading by focusing on picture books and excursions
| to thematically connected places.
|
| The only downside is that Wishbone holds up better to a modern
| rewatch in comparison, as opposed to how RR is very much of its
| time. But that's ok, too; someone needs to inspire kids to be
| adventurous with their reading so that they can go out and find
| the next classics.
| TimPC wrote:
| Wishbone skewed slightly older. Reading the classics vs reading
| fairly basic books was definitely for a bit older audience.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I'm torn. I see lots of value in reading (for both kids and
| adults!), but at some point, there also needs to be emphasis on
| _doing_.
| conception wrote:
| porque no los dos?
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| How do you propose that should look?
|
| The whole show is to motivate people to want to pick up a book,
| which to me sounds like an emphasis on doing.
|
| If you'd replace this with posters or shows that just say "READ
| A BOOK", it would not be as effective.
| aspect0545 wrote:
| How is reading different from doing. This is about encouraging
| children to read, it's a very active process. Maybe I'm missing
| something?
| xandrius wrote:
| Just to argue reading vs doing: I know lots of heavy readers
| who can't absolutely do something new. They only read and
| read.
|
| On the other hand, doing is a totally different skillset.
|
| I'm not against reading just that it's very unlike doing
| something in general.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| What does doing even mean here? Cutting the grass? Building
| a tree house?
| resource_waste wrote:
| No need to be black and white.
|
| Reading can be active, if I'm taking notes on nonfiction its
| a somewhat active process.
|
| Reading can be passive, if I'm cruising on a fiction book.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It is doing, but it's doing one thing: reading. Encouraging
| kids to read makes sense for building literacy and
| encouraging imagination, but there's a point where enough is
| enough, reading the 6th installment of Harry Potter is for
| entertainment, and they're better off riding a bike, building
| something, and making friends.
|
| It's the same for adults. We blindly praise reading, but much
| of it belongs on the shelf at an airport bookstore, it's not
| particularly challenging or informing, and it might as well
| be video games or TV.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Doing what? Just whatever? As long as they aren't doing any
| reading?
|
| They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I
| see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids
| need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Reading is doing when it involves active engagement - kids who
| read deeply are processing, imagining, questioning, and
| building mental models they later apply to real-world problems.
| LongjumpingCat wrote:
| This brought back some memories. It's kind of amazing how shows
| like this made reading feel fun instead of something you had to
| do. Just stories, imagination and a bit of magic, sometimes
| that's all it takes to get a kid hooked on books.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My mom read books during the day when my dad was at work. She'd
| tell my dad how hard she worked all day :-)
|
| I'd look over her shoulder and wonder how she made any sense
| out of the page full of text, as there were no pictures. I was
| fascinated by that, and was well motivated to learn to read.
|
| I was not allowed to watch TV beyond Daktari and Saturday
| morning cartoons. I hated that restriction, but in hindsight my
| parents made the right call. My dad would watch the news, but
| it was just gibberish to me.
|
| Later, I was not allowed to watch Green Acres. My parents said
| it was "rubbish". I did not see an episode of it till I went to
| college, and eagerly watched to see what I had been missing. I
| lasted 10 minutes - it was indeed rubbish.
| ljf wrote:
| I have a strong feeling this account is a bot.
| internet_points wrote:
| Norway has gamified summer reading https://sommerles.no/svar It's
| quite popular in the first half of elementary school. You get
| points for registering read books (even if your parent read it
| for your, or audio books) and every week all the libraries put up
| a poster with this week's "code word" which you get points for
| typing into your profile, and whenever you level up ten levels
| you get a little prize you can pick up from the library (like a
| tiny toy, they had shark teeth one year)
| apwell23 wrote:
| > get points for registering read books
|
| > little prize you can pick up from the library
|
| I am not convinced that this is really motivating to kids.
| Don't they have tons' of toys at home an in the library to play
| with already. Why would they care about tiny shark teeth.
|
| Also i find the whole concept of 'read to get prize' cynical,
| cheap and manipulative. Don't want to manipulate my own child
| with these cheap tricks.
| darthcircuit wrote:
| Don't underestimate the power of junk prizes. It's how
| McDonald's has gotten away with selling overpriced kids meals
| for decades.
|
| My kids love the novelty of garbage prize toys and while I
| think they are stupid, my kids get weirdly motivated by the
| promise of a trip to the dollar store.
| whycome wrote:
| manipulation or motivation? I suppose it's blurry.
|
| But, I think the point is that once you get the kids into the
| habit (or help them build the skill) they'll maintain it
| later on. Even encouraging reading together has societal
| value.
|
| So, maybe tiny shark teeth are good motivation - i have no
| idea. I'm not great at gauging what motivates kids. I still
| don't understand minecraft.
| clintonb wrote:
| Do you have children? You tell them something is animal-
| related and they tend to get really excited. Even more so for
| dinosaurs. My five year old has no concept of money, but he
| does have a concept of "new thing I can play with".
|
| When I was a kid we had Book It. I got a free personal pan
| pizza from Pizza Hut for every 10(?) books I read. I read a
| lot of books! I also learned a lot along the way, and
| continued the habit of reading for fun through college.
| internet_points wrote:
| I had similar qualms, but after seeing the actual effects
| I've changed my mind, at least as regards Sommerles (I'm less
| positive to other forms of gamification, especially if
| they're considered an _alternative_ to non-gamified learning
| instead of a minor supplement in a well-rounded system). We
| already have prizes and competitions and these external
| structures for sports and such. People send little kids into
| soccer tournaments, we just make sure the rules aren 't too
| strictly enforced and the major part of the reward is for
| just playing.
|
| I have a kid who loves listening to stories but isn't at all
| motivated to read alone - and probably would not have read a
| single book alone this summer if it wasn't for Sommerles.
| Maybe it's not motivating for all kids, but I'm sure happy
| it's helping my kid get some much-needed reading practice. I
| also think you underestimate children. My other kid, already
| a self-motivated reader, re-read short books really fast to
| get all possible prizes within the first week (librarian
| eyebrows were raised). Who was doing the manipulation here?
| :-)
| apwell23 wrote:
| > much-needed reading practice
|
| why is it 'much needed' ? let them chill man..:)
| parpfish wrote:
| when i was a kid, reading was gamified by pizza hut through the
| 'book it' program.
| kleiba wrote:
| The Christian library one town over from where we live does a
| "reading summer" event every year for the school holidays: kids
| who borrow books, read them, and write a small book report (2-3
| sentences) for them enter a lottery and can win a small prize at
| the end of the holidays. And I believe every participants gets a
| certificate also.
|
| You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they
| actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
| soco wrote:
| Primary school kids in Switzerland used to (and maybe they
| still do) run class-wide "competitions" on the points earned on
| a similar reading challenge - Antolin if I remember correctly
| and my kid was quite in for it.
| kleiba wrote:
| Cool. Although my gut reaction would be that this mostly
| incentives the kids who already enjoy reading to read more,
| while the ones who are not great at reading know that they
| don't have a chance, so perhaps are discouraged from reading
| even more?!
| gsck wrote:
| We had something like this in our school called Accelerated
| Reader. Read books answer a quiz on it get points, best
| class/student got rewarded.
|
| Was really easy to game though. Our school library had a
| selection of books for what I can only assume were for
| special needs kids, really really simple books very few words
| with even fewer pages. These books rewarded an appropriate
| amount of points however so you got less, but you could
| easily bang out 20 of those books in one class and get a lot
| more points than you'd be rewarded for reading a real book.
|
| A few of us would just go over grab a bunch of those books
| and read through them in like 2 minutes and complete the
| quiz.
|
| They ended up not letting those books get used for AR
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| We had Accelerated Reader in my public school in Texas in
| the early 2000s.
|
| It was a pretty cool system.
|
| The lottery system described upstream is terrible.
|
| But with Accelerated Reader you would accumulate points
| that you could spend on things like the Scholastic Book
| Fair (buy books), slices of pizza for lunch, and various
| toy gadgets. Sometimes a teacher would sell some gimmick
| like a get out of homework ticket.
|
| Of course, you'd have to read a good number of books to
| receive any of these prizes. But you were always working
| towards something unlike a lottery system which isn't
| motivating at all.
| 44520297 wrote:
| My friend group got busted for gaming AR and we were banned
| from it. The interface allowed us to sort the books by
| points, so we took the top 10 books, split them up among
| us, summarized them, took the tests, and gave each other
| the answers. The jig was up when they printed a leaderboard
| and we were all way ahead with an absurd number of points.
| They took them all away and we weren't allowed to
| participate anymore.
| z2 wrote:
| As yes, my school in the US did that (sporadically) and
| awarded medals based on tiers. I remember thinking the silver
| one looked the nicer, and so was careful not to read too much
| over the summer.
| gowld wrote:
| Contests run by smarter people have a prize pool, with
| prize selection priority assigned by performance rank.
|
| https://usamts.org/about/prizes/
| xtiansimon wrote:
| As a yuth in the East Bay my Alameda Co. library had a summer
| reading program with a treasure map. For each book you read,
| you got a stamp on the map. Then at the end there was a
| forgettable prize, though, after 45 years I've not forgotten
| the journey.
| cadr wrote:
| I miss our east bay library. Not saying other places aren't
| good, but that's where we were when our kids were little and
| the staff was just so amazing.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Our local library had a summer reading program. You needed to
| talk about the book to a librarian, so we were waiting in line.
| The kid giving the book report was under 3 so it wasn't much of
| a book report, she asked the usual questions including "what
| was your favorite part of the book?"
|
| The book the kid had read was Dinosailors which is about some
| dinosaurs who go on a sailing trip. The memorable part of the
| book is the page with no words that's just the dinosaurs
| throwing up because they all got seasick.
|
| So, the non-verbal child happily reenacted their favorite part
| of the book.
| passivegains wrote:
| There's something beautiful about the kid using performance
| as language. They've hit upon the greater truth that reading
| and speech are important because text and the spoken word are
| powerful mediums, but what truly matters is what they allow
| us to express to each other.
|
| Though I have worked with children enough to sympathize with
| the not-beautiful part of this story too. (also that book
| sounds rad as hell.)
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Heave Ho! They cry. It won't stay down!
|
| The next page illustration is epic.
|
| https://youtu.be/M8p4FSYUqi4?feature=shared
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| > You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone,
|
| Why would this not appeal to anyone? Summer reading games are
| super popular and kids love getting small prizes
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Idk read a book and do homework to get a chance to win a
| small thing during your summer break? That would've been a
| hard sell to me as a kid. I'm glad to hear that my skepticism
| about such a program is wrong though!
| dessimus wrote:
| My local library still does Summer reading programs for both
| adults and kids. My teacher spouse does the adult one since
| she has a lot of free time in the Summer. She gets at least
| one gift basket each Summer that includes a $25 gift card to
| a local restaurant, as I'm pretty sure its just her and maybe
| 2 other adults doing it.
| bigmadshoe wrote:
| Growing up in Scotland my friends and I all partook in a
| similar program
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! program in the 80's where I would get a
| free personal pan pizza for each book read was a huge
| motivator.
| whycome wrote:
| the obesity-literacy pendulum
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| The Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza has about 600 calories in
| it. Maybe slightly indulgent, but that is a very reasonable
| reward and trade off for getting kids to read more.
| medfield wrote:
| People troll too much with their low effort comments. The
| thing was tiny, but it was a cool reward as a kid. I may
| be mistaekn but there was a limit too, it was either one
| per week or once a month.
| 4d4m wrote:
| +1 this was a really neat carrot. In retrospect I am
| thankful for these carrots as they boost curiosity and
| self-learning, without much harm. People are going to eat
| out anyhow, what's the harm in marketing that also
| supports good behavior?
| jasonjayr wrote:
| And it was a brilliant marketing gimmick too. The kid
| would need their family to bring them, and siblings &
| parents would probably pick up some drinks (fountain
| drinks are what, 90% margin?) or their own food that they
| might not have otherwise ordered out that night.
| whycome wrote:
| I wasn't trolling. It was just an attempt to highlight
| something. this is a conversation about habit building.
| Do you think that pizza hut was doing this because of
| their love of reading? Is eating pizza regularly the good
| habit to build? Is using food as a reward a good habit?
| It's not good to associate eating foods with that elation
| that a child gets when they "win the prize" -- that's how
| people have issues later when their brain associates the
| two states.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Do you think that pizza hut was doing this because of
| their love of reading?
|
| Probably not; they really just wanted to make sure they
| didn't get out pizzaed.
|
| > Is eating pizza regularly the good habit to build?
|
| Pizza is a fairly balanced food, depending on toppings.
| Generally some protein, some vegetables. Macronutrient
| wise, it's a bit carb heavy, but not overwhelmingly so.
| Usually not a lot of added sugar, unless you're having a
| BBQ pizza, and not that much natural sugar either; some
| places might put more sugar into the pizza sauce though.
|
| > Is using food as a reward a good habit?
|
| No, probably not. But free food is a pretty effective
| motivator, so people use it.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> Pizza is a fairly balanced food, depending on
| toppings. Generally some protein, some vegetables.
| Macronutrient wise, it 's a bit carb heavy, but not
| overwhelmingly so. Usually not a lot of added sugar,
| unless you're having a BBQ pizza, and not that much
| natural sugar either; some places might put more sugar
| into the pizza sauce though._
|
| Just because there's comparatively little sugar in pizza,
| does not make it a fairly balanced food. It's high in fat
| and consequently high in calories. Case in point: that
| personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut is the size of a man's
| palm and has around 600 calories. 600! For a young child,
| that tiny thing alone is a third of the total recommended
| [1] daily calory intake. My son is 10, and he could
| probably eat 4 or 5 of these suckers easily.
|
| [1] https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-
| eating/eat-s...
| toast0 wrote:
| Taking data from Pizza Hut [1], per Pepperoni - Personal
| Pan Pizza(r) Slice, there are 7 grams fat, 17 grams
| carbohydrates, 6 grams protein. Per slice is kind of
| silly, but we can analyze balance regardless. I picked
| Pepperoni based on perceived popularity, not to cherry
| pick.
|
| At standard ratios [2], that's 63 kcal from fat, 68 from
| carbs, 24 from protein. Or
|
| 41% fat, 44% carb, 15% protein. Your resource suggests
| 25-35% calories from fat, so it's not _that_ far off the
| goal. I 'm not saying it's well balanced, just that it's
| fairly balanced.
|
| > For a young child, that tiny thing alone is a third of
| the total recommended daily calory intake.
|
| A third of the total recommended intake sounds
| appropriate for a meal?
|
| > My son is 10, and he could probably eat 4 or 5 of these
| suckers easily.
|
| Ok, but he's got to read 4 or 5 books for that, and maybe
| over several weeks? I'm not really sure how to address
| this. If you are going to eat 4 complete personal pizzas
| if available, then you probably should avoid them.
|
| [1] https://www.nutritionix.com/pizza-hut/menu/premium
|
| [2] https://www.nal.usda.gov/programs/fnic
| mock-possum wrote:
| I'm sure I'm not the only one who fondly remembers their local
| public library's "summer reading program" - read books, win
| prizes!
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Sure am glad that we didn't just cut $9 billion in funding
| towards PBS and other public broadcasting institutions that aired
| Reading Rainbow.
| whycome wrote:
| $9B?! Path to everything being private. Don't they want to also
| break up NOAA and National Weather to make them basically just
| data services? Private companies would then be the ones to
| publish it. Want to know the weather? Subscribe.
| camblomquist wrote:
| They aren't breaking up NOAA just for the sake of
| privatization, reliable weather reporting also makes it
| harder to ignore Climate Change. From Project 2025 "[NOAA
| offices] form a colossal operation that has become one of the
| main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as
| such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity."
| falcor84 wrote:
| > climate change alarm industry
|
| I would actually like to buy a climate change alarm clock
| evilkorn wrote:
| 10 minutes till midnight. Put it right next to your
| nuclear clock
| whycome wrote:
| We just keep hitting snooze. That's how we got into this
| mess.
|
| (It's a future generation's problem, right?...)
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > We just keep hitting snooze.
|
| Hah I wish - hitting snooze would at least push it back.
|
| We're just putting our heads under the pillow to try and
| ignore the blaring alarm.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| Gonna make one of those novelty clocks themed around the
| financial boom-bust cycle, where, to silence it, you have
| to get out of bed and literally kick a can.
| malfist wrote:
| > is harmful to future U.S. prosperity
|
| So is sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the
| coming disaster. Next quarter thinking should not be the
| government policy.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Don't look up!
| xorcist wrote:
| > main drivers of the climate change alarm industry
|
| This is clearly dog whistle langauge and not intended to be
| taken literally, but it is starting to be a common trope
| and it makes me very curious as to how this industry
| operates? What's their main source of income, who benefits
| from it, and how? And what is the supposed goal of it?
|
| Raising the alarm about a conceieved threat could be a way
| to raise money for more research, which might indirectly
| benefit those scientists. But we haven't really seen a
| corresponding massive increase in scientists employed, and
| even if we did, they would have to find some way to leak
| money through publicly funded research to their own private
| enterprises because so far no one has suggested that we pay
| scientific researchers too much. The way to combat that
| would be to demand more transparency from universities, but
| they're already pretty good about that.
|
| It also doesn't match very well what those scientists are
| actually _saying_. Which is mostly that the basic science
| is indisputable since the past century and more research is
| not required but _action_. Had the climate scientists been
| siphoning public money through alarmists schemes, wouldn 't
| they rather say that things are very dire but " _don 't
| touch_! We need much more expensive research before we can
| give any concrete advice"?
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| I don't think the allegation is that the scientists
| themselves are who benefits.
|
| Rather, I think the allegation is that it's those
| involved in renewable energy development schemes that
| result from the raised alarm, from product vendors to
| site developers to construction contractors to energy
| trading firms to... See also: politicians pushing Green
| New Deal type policies. The scientists are enablers, not
| the primary beneficiaries, at least as I understand the
| allegations.
| xorcist wrote:
| That's a real issue with several real life examples, but
| not really related to the issue of climate change or
| climate alarmism, is it?
|
| There's been plenty of extended circles around political
| interests that has lined their pockets in matters of
| alcohol and drug prevention, abuse prevention and health
| care, but very few people seem to be taking the local
| step to actually, alcohol are good for you and anyone
| that says otherwise should be labelled alcohol alarmists.
| It's pretty unique to climate research.
|
| I seem to remember that there were was a enormous
| backlash against CFC bans, and lots of talk about how it
| would lead to the spread of preventable illness and
| economic disaster, but it never reached nearly the same
| levels of anti scientific discourse as we see today.
| nimbius wrote:
| These services are irreplaceable. once they are gone, they
| are _gone._
|
| as for NOAA, China could decide to undermine the profiteering
| of weather in the US (as it did with AI using DeepSeek) by
| simply expanding the Fengyun satellite constellation to cover
| the globe (as it did with beidou) thereby providing weather
| forecasts for North America as well via the web, social
| media, and mobile app free of charge as a form of Kissinger
| style "soft power."
| roywiggins wrote:
| satellites are one thing, but they can hardly replace
| American radiosondes (well, without getting them shot out
| of the sky anyway)
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Didn't you hear? Sesame Street is old hat. The new way to
| have kids learn stuff is with Little Beasts, a Mr. Beast
| YouTube series brought to you by Prime Energy and Feastibles.
|
| Like I'm joking but that's the idea.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| At least we have the Australian's to give us Bluey and the
| UK for Peppa pig.
| noir_lord wrote:
| For now, We (the UK) seem as usual to be on your path
| just a decade or so behind.
|
| Reform is our version of MAGA and just as odious.
| pitpatagain wrote:
| Just for full accuracy: $9b is the total in the claw back bill.
| About $1.1b of that is CPB (PBS+NPR).
| lenerdenator wrote:
| So what you're saying is, Trump or Elon could, in theory,
| write a check and fund it for the next fiscal year?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| If you want to go back to the medieval patronage model,
| that's certainly a possibility. There were good reasons for
| moving away from that model, though.
| manwe150 wrote:
| Surely you don't think it could be that bad if we were to
| sell all of our news media to a few rich companies in
| what some have called an oligopoly
| nilamo wrote:
| Someone could also fund it forever, with a donation large
| enough such that the endowment's dividends exceed yearly
| costs.
|
| But no one has.
| disposition2 wrote:
| Based on the text of the legislation passed by the Senate,
| it looks like the ~$1 billion was for 2026 & 2027 fiscal
| years.
|
| > (20) (A) Amounts made available for "Corporation for
| Public Broadcasting" for fiscal year 2026 by Public Law
| 118-47 are rescinded.
|
| > (B) Amounts made available for "Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting" for fiscal year 2027 by Public Law 119-4 are
| rescinded.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-
| bill/4/te...
| echelon wrote:
| That's just the PBS stuff everyone knows about.
|
| Back in the 90's and 00's, PBS had a show called "Irasshai" [1]
| aimed at high school students. It was a complete two year
| Japanese language education class filmed in conjunction with
| Georgia Tech.
|
| They produced 140 30-minute lessons and produced two 500 page
| text books and teacher lesson plans. Study materials, homework,
| tests - everything.
|
| It typically aired at 4 AM, so they asked you to set your VCR
| to record. If you couldn't do that, they could mail you the
| entire VHS boxed set of episodes.
|
| But that's not the cool and powerful part. They actually let
| you register for classes and conference call in with an actual
| teacher. Twice to three times a week with class sizes of 4-6
| students. Everyone took turns reading, answering questions,
| practicing dialogue. All year long.
|
| There were tests and grades, and regular 1-1 proctored verbal
| exams. It was incredible.
|
| The entire program was offered for free.
|
| It was one of the coolest ways to learn Japanese and it was
| incredibly effective. This was such an amazing program for high
| schools that typically only offered Spanish lessons.
|
| And now that's gone.
|
| [1] https://www.gpb.org/irasshai
| WalterBright wrote:
| Thank you for the link. The videos are there on the web site,
| not gone.
| mulmen wrote:
| The videos may be there but the program is gone.
| syndeo wrote:
| Wow. I would've absolutely done that had I known about it. (I
| was in high school in the very late 2000s/early 2010s, so
| perhaps I was already too late, but yeah, wow.)
|
| Thanks for that link though, a commenter says the vids are
| still there. (I'm too busy learning Chinese at this point
| though, I'm afraid!)
| drdec wrote:
| What is the case for funding this via a public television
| station instead of via schools? We already have
| infrastructure and a wider reach for education in schools?
| Wouldn't the money have been better served creating a
| Japanese language program in Georgia high schools?
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| This benefited interested people nationwide, not only in
| Georgia but certainly including Georgia, and without
| disrupting local school's already tight budgets in ways
| that their local decision makers would find hard to afford.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| The obvious thing to cut is the goddamn military. I'm not even
| talking about cutting things off to make the military weaker in
| a world that largely doesn't need a powerful military. I'm
| talking about actual insane over spending.
|
| But even Elon couldn't do that. I don't know if any president
| can. Something is deeply wrong here.
| shigawire wrote:
| >Even Elon
|
| I think that is the wrong framing. I'd be more surprised if
| someone with no real government experience has much success
| with that venture.
|
| I'd rather have someone with years and years of experience
| with DoD budgets and the expertise to prioritize the right
| cuts.
| watwut wrote:
| Of course a guy with zero knowledge of how things work, but a
| lot of confidence and ideaologically fueeled ressentment
| could not cut spending.
|
| Then again, goal was to destroy and harm and that was
| achieved.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm all for cutting the military spending to less than
| half... that said, it's still much smaller than entitlement
| spending at this point... there needs to be a lot of effort
| to reduce fraud and increase competition in medical/pharma
| space. Why there aren't licensing and dual sourcing
| requirements for medications is beyond me. Let alone allowing
| commercials that nowhere else in the world allows.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Pharma companies already aren't very profitable and it's
| getting worse and worse every year (called "Eroom's Law"
| for the reverse of Moore's).
|
| The US's uniquely fucked healthcare situation is thanks to
| 1) administrative overhead of tons of competitive and
| extremely complex distinct health plans, and 2) the labor
| cost of doctors, much of which gets captured by the
| _extremely_ consolidated health systems that employ them.
|
| The US needs to dump money into training a _lot_ more
| doctors. Not by subsidizing student loans, but by directly
| creating public medical schools that train doctors on the
| cheap and let them escape with no student debt.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I'd settle for not capping residency slots and in return
| allowing doctors to own hospitals.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Residency slots are not capped. Common misconception.
|
| Private parties are welcome to create and fund residency
| slots if they want. They typically don't because it's a
| totally nonsense investment -- perfect example of a
| problem that private investment markets would fail to
| solve.
|
| The "cap" refers to the fact that CMS doesn't _fund_ an
| infinite number of residency slots.
|
| So you and I are saying similar things, which is that the
| government needs to fund more MD training.
| johnsmith1840 wrote:
| Watching the events over the past several years and thinking
| we need to reduce military spending is a wild take.
|
| Even the EU and Japan have massive increased amount of
| additional spend into military.
|
| The free world is under WW2 levels of threat. Hundreds of
| millions of people are going to perish unless deterence
| works.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Wanting to reduce spending does not automatically mean
| reduced force capability, nor reduced deterrence.
|
| The challenge is that the next war wont look like the last
| one or the one before that. So you might decide that
| instead of sinking a gazillion dollars on a 25-year project
| to build some fighter jets or littoral ships, you spend
| half a gazillion dollars on cyber and drones.
|
| Problem is that states and their leaders (politicians,
| business, resident voices) find it emotionally and
| politically hard to pivot from building X in state A to
| building Y in state B.
|
| Right now, everyone is studying the lessons of the Ukraine
| war. That certainly should be looked at and learned from
| (build drones at mass scale, say) but it would also be
| possible to draw entirely incorrect conclusions for the
| next war. As a land war in Europe, Ukraine shows us the
| importance of essentially 1900s-style tools: shells and
| ordnance by the million. Tanks. Etc. If (god forbid)
| someone got into a hot war with China, the needs would be
| entirely different.
| johnsmith1840 wrote:
| I don't disagree but clearly not what the op was trying
| to say.
|
| To your points.
|
| Isreal just leveled iran without a single plane shot
| down, tech still dominates. The F35 is a terrifying
| weapon and Irans drone and missle attacks were
| ineffective. Ukraine shows us what two poor and land
| locked countries fight like.
| noir_lord wrote:
| It's always tempting to look at the Russian assault on
| Ukraine and "learn lessons" but you also have to remember
| that NATO countries aren't Ukraine and Russia isn't
| China.
|
| The use of drones by both sides is in part because
| neither side could get air superiority, Ukraine because
| it barely had an air force and Russia because..well
| decades of corruption.
|
| If the US had invaded Ukraine, Ukraine would have lost in
| under a month, the insurgency would be horrific and make
| Iraq look mild but militarily Russia was a complete
| basket case.
|
| The lesson we should take is that ammunition stockpiles
| evaporate faster than you expect always in a full scale
| war, this has been true all the way back to the invention
| of the bow though.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > But even Elon couldn't do that.
|
| Why should he? Who pays for Starlink? Who pays for rocket
| launches with satellite cargo? Who pays for advanced vehicle
| research?
|
| Musk is benefiting of that by a lot. Where he cuts is
| oversight over his business and areas where one can provide
| commercial products.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I will miss PBS SpaceTime on YouTube :(
| duxup wrote:
| PBS is a national treasure.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| My favorite Doors song! [0]
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/--RYPHqbD50?si=YvldZg_xt--H3LSn
| kochb wrote:
| LeVar Burton hosted a podcast marketed for adults where he read
| short stories. Though it ended last year, there are almost 200
| episodes in the archive.
|
| He's still been at work encouraging lifelong reading all these
| years later.
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/levar-burton-reads/id1...
| david2ndaccount wrote:
| Summer reading programs are a band-aid on the problem that
| children shouldn't have such a long summer break now that air
| conditioning is common. Spread the breaks out throughout the year
| if you want to maintain the same number of days off. All evidence
| shows the summer break is bad for children's academic achievement
| (especially poor children), but it is viewed as a perk for the
| teachers so the teacher's unions fight against questioning it.
| joshbetz wrote:
| It is the only vacation most teachers get, so of course they
| fight against shortening it
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| The argument wasn't for shortening it, but for distributing
| it through the year. I have never in my adult life taken 10
| consecutive weeks off, and 5 two-week breaks would still be
| very generous.
| lurkshark wrote:
| Let's say summer break is basically 3 months. I as a parent
| need to figure out childcare for that 3 month period at the
| beginning of summer. This is a much more time consuming
| endeavor than most would expect (or at least more than I
| expected). If you distribute those months throughout the year I
| need to repeat this process 3 different times, adding a bunch
| of overhead that could be spent on activities more beneficial
| to my family and kids.
|
| Edit: Adding that I realize the summer slowdown absolutely
| exists and has a disproportionate effect on those that don't
| need another wrench thrown in their life. But just wanted to
| add a perspective that isn't "teacher union boogeyman".
| advisedwang wrote:
| Maybe summer break also has some value for the joy it brings to
| children? Their lives shouldn't just be preparation for
| adulthood, it's worth making childhood enjoyable too.
| BrandonM wrote:
| That assumes academic achievement should be the primary aim of
| childhood. What I learned in school was incredibly important--
| don't get me wrong--but what I learned over the summer was
| arguably more important.
|
| As a child of divorce, I cherished 6 straight weeks at my mom's
| house (we only visited every other weekend during school). As a
| working class kid, I earned probably half my annual spending
| money over the summer.
|
| My wife and I now have kids, and we've always loved to travel
| (and needed to just to visit family). Summer is the only time
| available for extended family trips (2+ weeks).
| kodt wrote:
| Not every school has air-conditioning however.
|
| And there are schools that do year-round schedules, but the
| total time off is about the same. They will typically get a
| longer winter break, longer spring break, an additional fall
| break, and then a much shortened summer break, but those add up
| to about the same time off overall. I know many teachers who
| prefer that system, some because it means they get paychecks
| more consistently throughout the year, and also it gives you
| more spread out breaks and flexibility in taking trips instead
| of being locked in to summer/Christmas/one week in the spring.
|
| The strongest push back to this schedule is in fact parents.
| The primary issue is once their kids are in different schools
| (high school / middle school / elementary) with different
| schedules this causes issues as kids are not longer on break at
| the same times. In addition summer camp programs are tied to
| the traditional schedule leaving kids in the year round
| schedule with fewer or no options.
|
| In order to change it, you also need neighboring
| districts/communities/private schools/programming to all shift
| as well, otherwise it becomes too much of as hassle for parents
| & teachers.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| In other words, any time spent outside of school is time
| wasted?
|
| We've cut the music and art in schools too. I guess the end
| state is one long endless math class. I'm sure those kids will
| be well adjusted.
| toast0 wrote:
| Air conditioning is common, but at least in some regions, it
| would be a tremendous expense for the the school to condition
| their buildings for occupation during the summer. And many
| buildings were designed around the summer break, so they may
| not have capacity to condition the buildings for occupation
| during the summer; this is not without its problems as some
| buildings end up being unfit for occupation during the school
| year, especially as the climate gets less consistent. There's
| probably some opportunity for savings in places where
| increasing hours during the summer could result in decreasing
| hours in the winter, though.
|
| I think there's _some_ cultural value in having a shared
| experience of summer vacation. But I agree, breaking up the
| breaks throughout the year, where possible, would make a lot of
| sense. There 's a benefit of less crowding when school
| districts have different weeks off; although it's harder for
| extended families to meet up when their school schedules are
| drastically different.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I would always get a summer writing slump. Write nothing at all
| from june to august then I couldn't read my own handwriting. My
| poor teachers.
| xunil2ycom wrote:
| is this news?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Does it have to be?
| karaterobot wrote:
| This article lavishes well-deserved praise on the intentions
| behind _Reading Rainbow_. I know I loved the show as a kid.
|
| But it seems like childhood reading scores were pretty much flat
| between 1983 and 2006, when the show was on the air: they only
| varied by 10-15 points on a 500 point scale[1], and there was no
| clear upward trend, it just sort of fluctuated. Reading for
| pleasure has never been lower among kids, either[2]. It doesn't
| seem to me that the mission of the show was achieved, if the
| mission was to make children read more books, and understand them
| more.
|
| Ultimately I think it ended up just being a pleasurable way to
| have kids get distracted by a friendly, positive TV show. My
| guess is that if you want to improve reading scores and habits,
| parents have to do more than just turn the dial to PBS.
|
| [1] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9
|
| [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/12/among-
| man...
| pinko wrote:
| You may be right, but we have no idea what the scores would
| have been had Reading Rainbow _not_ been on (i.e., maybe it
| held off a decline), so this isn 't really meaningful one way
| or the other.
| karaterobot wrote:
| They didn't start tracking in 1983, the numbers I linked
| start in 1971. The trend line is pretty much the same from
| 1971 to 1983 as it is from 1983 to 2006. In any case, a
| skeptical person would not look at that graph and say that
| there was a successful effort to improve childhood literacy
| represented on it.
|
| It's true that we don't know the counterfactual: it's
| possible literacy would have plummeted precipitously starting
| in 1984 if _Reading Rainbow_ hadn 't been a bulwark. But I
| don't find that the most likely explanation, personally.
| orforforof wrote:
| It would be more relevant to look at reading scores for
| children who specifically tuned into Reading Rainbow. I suspect
| the number of viewers was a small fraction of all children in
| the US, in which case the show's ability to affect the
| nationwide reading scores would be low. In other words, I don't
| believe the data you cited supports a conclusion that the show
| was ineffective at educating individual viewers.
| karaterobot wrote:
| We'd also have to figure out whether children who already
| loved reading watched _Reading Rainbow_ , or if children who
| hated reading started liking it after watching. Since nobody
| has that data, I'll go with the aggregate.
|
| > In other words, I don't believe the data you cited supports
| a conclusion that the show was ineffective at educating
| individual viewers.
|
| I don't think it conclusively proves anything, but I do think
| it supports a skeptical position. The article doesn't cite
| anything supporting the notion that _Reading Rainbow_
| improved childhood literacy, so I 'm wondering if you take
| the position that it did--and if so, on what basis?
| Loudergood wrote:
| Any scheme that counts on parents to do something unfortunately
| leaves many kids in the dust at no fault of their own.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| RR was swimming against a current; 83-06 (and even going back
| to the early 70s) would have been the first generation+ raised
| by the first generations raised by TV, or with a TV in the
| house. It was also the first generation with access to the
| internet during childhood and young adulthood. People waiting
| for the movie to come out instead of reading the novel, etc.
| Everything about the technological zeitgeist was selling
| Americans on the idea that books didn't matter. The question
| isn't whether RR raised reading scores, but whether it kept
| them above water. Your graphs can't tell us anything about
| which is the case, but considering the context shows us which
| question is actually interesting and which isn't.
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