By John Anderson*
Thursday morning on Morning Edition, there was an interesting report on the behavior of children. The story centered on a study done in the 1950s that monitored how long children could sit still. They tested a 3, 5, and 7-year-old. The 3-year-old lasted about 15 seconds. The 5-year-old lasted a little over a few minutes and the 7-year-old could sit still and quietly for about as long as you asked him. Some researchers re-performed this study recently (last couple years) and found that a 3-year-old is still the same. But, today, the 5-year-old could only sit still for a few seconds, and the 7-year-old could sit still for less than a few minutes.
What framed the results of the study discussed on Morning Edition? The Mickey Mouse Club… that and the advertising that was targeting children with toys and games. The cause researchers hypothesized is that the amount of structured activity that has surfaced in the past 60 years is causing children to be incapable of monitoring themselves, disciplining themselves, in terms of how they structure their time, how they have quiet time and “self talk” (which is what they called thinking through an activity and establishing rules), and how to think creatively.
Give kids toys based on movies they’ve seen, and watch them structure their time recreating the movie with the action figure: or recreating the comic book or television show. See: Transformers, GI Joe, Pokemon, Star Wars.
They further speculated that this also trickled into how parents structured child activities: soccer practice, karate, swimming lessons, language lessons, music lessons, and on and on and on. While parents perpetuating the fear that their child isn’t cultured enough, that the child needs to get ahead, and that the child needs to stop wasting time sitting around doing nothing, what researchers are finding is that, when the child is sitting around “doing nothing,” the brain is actively engaged in something. It is structuring rules. It is making plans. It is learning how to sit still and contemplate. It is learning how to create something from nothing.
It’s no wonder that some researchers discuss latent adolescence, and want to extend the boundary of adolescence into the late twenties and early thirties… y’know… where adult-hood should be.
This translates into the classroom. I’ve only been teaching for three years, but seldom do I see students that are really engaged within the subject of the course. Maybe it’s me, but this was something I also observed when I was a student. Sometimes I was that student! And, sometimes I became that student because I didn’t want to be the lame kid who contributed all the time… the know-it-all with a hand in the air that the teacher looks at and sighs because the teacher longs to have a conversation with the w-h-o-l-e class, not just Dewey in the front row.
Outside of class, with the exception of study, rarely did I talk about my hopeful vocation with my friends when I was an undergraduate. Sometimes we’d discuss the size of font libraries. But on rare occasion did we talk about issues in design or painting. That was until I studied abroad – then it was all we talked about. The same held true for graduate school. The subject was all we discussed. It’s not because we were super stars of the vocation. It’s probably more to do with our brains properly clicking. We were finally figuring out we didn’t have to repeat: that we could get excited about the subject: that we could talk about it at parties: that we could get in furious arguments and call one another idiots for disagreeing or having blind vision: that we could get geeky with the subject matter: with the medium: with the language: that we could break the rules: that we could invent new rules: that we could break those new rules: that we could seek out our professors with questions: with dialogue: that we could create colleagues. The words Colleague and College have a relationship.
And, of course, some of this is revisionist–it’s hindsight–it’s come to light in the last few years. But, that doesn’t make it any less true. Is the reason that we sometimes look at college classes as a fraud, as another hoop, because we had too much structured play as kids: because the adults have already set the rules and paved the path and have fed it to us on spoons that we haven’t engaged ourselves to think – just do!?? Mmmm… it’s worth consideration.
It might also explain why some movies seem to suck. And I don’t mean simply boring or lame. An interview Wednesday on DC101 Elliot in the Morning, between Elliot and movie critic Leonard Maltin went roughly as follows. (Note: I only listened because Morning Edition loops every two hours, and I had already listened to the loop.)
ELLIOT: “Are you excited about any upcoming movies?”
Maltin: “No.”
ELLIOT: “C’mon!”
Maltin: “I can’t think of any in the new year that will be good.”
ELLIOT: “That’s because the studios target the good movies until the end of the year. Right?”
Maltin: “Well, there is that…”
ELLIOT: “What about Semi-Pro?
Maltin: (Sigh)
ELLIOT: “You don’t like Will Ferrell?
Maltin: “I’ll put it to you this way. I wish I enjoyed Will Farrell movies as much as Will Farrell enjoyed Will Farrell movies.”
The sophomoric and crude films that Will Farrell, The Farley Brothers, Judd Apatow, and a whole host of others create (a couple of which are good) are sometimes guilty pleasures. The same holds true for the sequel nonsense. Seldom are they good. But they are familiar, like relatives on the holidays: you don’t want to see them, but somehow you must. Then there are those formulaic Hollywood bits of tripe: Good Luck Chuck and the like. Let’s face it, the films that win the Oscars attract the audiences that don’t $#!t themselves—those who have read a book outside of what they’ve been assigned in high school or church.
This might further explain why the majority of Oscar nods lately go to seasoned veterans of acting and directing, or to biopics. Look at this year’s nominees. There might be two exceptions to this postulate—three at best—but most everyone is in the 40 years and up category, or has been in the industry for over 20 years or better. Hal Holbrook and Ruby Dee are up for the Oscar for the first time. For as exciting as Ellen Page’s nom is, Holbrook and Dee are in their 80s and seasoned veterans of silver and small screens. On the one end, it is because they are craftsmen who have honed their skills these last 20, 30, and 50 years and have finally reached their stride. It could also be because the up-and-coming have had too much structured play, aren’t raising their hands enough in the classroom, and aren’t finding the right crowd to have those passionate discussions that deconstruct the artists of today, while blindly drunk at parties.
*(John Anderson has lectured on fine art and new media at American University, George Washington University, George Mason University, and The Corcoran College of Art and Design. He has also performed in Golden Hour Pictures productions. He last appeared as a disgruntled cinema studies teacher in “Shady Kids.”)
3 Comments
February 24, 2008 at 1:55 pm
There was an article in the recent New York Times Magazine that discussed research on children’s play and is very much applicable here.
February 24, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I would love to comment, but I just can’t think of anything to say…
February 24, 2008 at 3:19 pm
You’re a champ