PLAYING ON PARENTS' FEARS寓教于乐教丧乐失
2008-02-04
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PLAYING ON PARENTS' FEARS寓教于乐教丧乐失
PLAYING ON PARENTS' FEARS
By Margaret McCartney
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A couple of years ago I did all my Christmas shopping by internet. Now, each December, I am inundated by catalogues full of gifts for children. There's a “light ‘n' strike” game – soft foam mallet included – that “creates excitement and a positive feeling towards maths”. There's the “math mat challenge”, an interactive floor mat with “fast and crazy quiz games”. There are games that help children recreate a mini-Colosseum, or examine an “anatomically correct” skeleton, do some “polymer science” or master some mini-electronics.
The theme is education, education, education. It's all gruesomely worthy, part of a suffocating trend seemingly intent on draining the fun out of childhood by age seven.
Even so, it is hard not to feel, flicking through the catalogues, regular stabs of low maternal achievement. I did not sign up my progeny for infant language classes, yoga, creative dance or baby sign language. I thought learning is what babies and children did, given a bit of opportunity, quite naturally.
Baby “developmental tools” come in a variety of forms: flash cards; toys made of fabrics with “different stimulating sensations”; “high contrast” patterns that supposedly hold the attention of babies; and “educational” DVDs.
A recent paper in the US Journal of Pediatrics has suggested that such DVDs may not be beneficial and might be bad for babies. The researchers, from the University of Washington, asked parents about their infants' viewing habits and then about the words they understood, in order to gauge the infants' level of language development. They found that the more time the babies had spent watching the DVDs, the less developed their language skills were.
Criticisms can be levelled at this study. Parents who bought these DVDs may have done so because they were concerned about already poor language development; also, we don't know about the long-term effects – for example, any adverse effect of these DVDs may balance when the child reaches nursery school. What's more, studies asking people to recall behaviours tend to be less reliable than those that actively follow behaviours. Neither did the study identify which DVDs the babies were watching.
The Disney Corporation, which owns Baby Einstein , asked the University of Washington to withdraw its press release about the study, citing flaws in the research, and the fact that Baby Einstein was named in the release. (The release began: “Despite marketing claims, parents who want to give their infants a boost in learning language probably should limit the amount of time they expose their children to DVDs and videos such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby.”) The university did not; the letter from Disney does not set out any evidence of the positive effects of these DVDs.
The direction to “educate” babies early isn't just about such educational DVDs. It is also about the supporting industry, which minimises the efforts of parents and carers who don't have the resources to keep up. The warning undertone is that unless we, as consumers, purchase the components of childhood we might not get it right. What nonsense!
The shame is that learning is not seen as an inevitable part of play and is, rather, made into the only goal of it. Playing for playing's sake is seen as second-best. I am dismayed at yet more opportunities for parents to think their own efforts are not good enough. It is time, not cash, that is best spent on children.
Margaret McCartney is a GP in Glasgow
寓教于乐，教丧乐失？
作者：英国《金融时报》撰稿人玛格丽特·麦卡特尼(Margaret McCartney)
2008年1月29日 星期二
两年前，我在网上购买了所有的圣诞礼物。现在，每年12月份，我都会被儿童礼物产品目录淹没。目录上有“让孩子兴奋、让他们对数学产生好感”的“敲数字”（light ‘n' strike）游戏——内附柔软的泡沫小槌。有“算术毯”（math mat challenge），那是一块可以互动的地毯，能进行“快速疯狂的数学问答游戏”。还有一些游戏，有帮助孩子搭造迷你罗马圆形剧场的，还有帮助孩子了解“符合解剖学”骨骼构造的，有帮助孩子学习“高分子科学”的，还有帮助他们掌握某些微电子学的。
这些游戏的主题是教育、教育和教育。真是有价值得可怕，这属于一种令人窒息的趋势，似乎要把人类7岁以前的童年乐趣通通抹杀。
即便如此，在翻看这些目录的时候，我很难不时常感到自己做母亲很失败。我没有为了自己的后代，报名参加过婴儿语言课、瑜伽、创意舞蹈或幼儿手语。我本来以为只要有点机会，婴儿和小孩子就会自己学习，这是非常自然的事儿。
婴儿“发展工具”形式多样：单词、数字抽认卡片，由“刺激不同感官的”织物制作的玩具，能引起婴儿注意的“对比强烈的”图案，还有DVD“教育片”。
最近《美国儿科杂志》（US Journal of Pediatrics）上的一篇文章提出，这类DVD对婴儿可能有害无益。来自华盛顿大学（University of Washington）的研究人员向父母询问他们婴儿的观看习惯，然后询问它们所理解的单词，以衡量婴儿语言发展的水平。他们发现，婴儿看DVD的时间越长，语言技能发展得就越慢。
针对这项研究，会有一些批评意见。父母之所以购买这些DVD，很可能就是因为，他们的孩子语言发展状况本来就欠佳。同时，我们也不知道长期影响如何——比如，等孩子上了幼儿园，这些DVD的反面影响也许会调整过来。另外，那种让人们回忆行为的研究，往往没有主动追踪行为的研究可靠。何况这项研究也没有指明婴儿看的都是哪些DVD。
迪士尼公司（Disney Corporation）要求华盛顿大学撤回关于这项研究的新闻发布稿，指出研究有缺陷，而且新闻稿中还指名道姓地提到了迪士尼旗下的节目《小小爱因斯坦》（Baby Einstein）（新闻发布稿开篇就说：“尽管市场营销说得好听，但如果父母希望促进婴儿学习语言的能力，也许就应该限制孩子们看《小小爱因斯坦》和《聪明宝宝》(Brainy Baby)等DVD和视频节目的时间。”）。华盛顿大学没有撤回新闻稿；迪士尼在信中也没有提供任何证据，证明这些DVD有积极效果。
早早“教育”婴儿的趋势不只体现在这类DVD教育片里，还体现在支持行业上，这个行业把没有资源、跟不上形势的父母和照看者的努力最小化了。一个微弱的声音警告说，作为消费者，如果我们不购买这些童年构成品，我们就可能做错。真是胡说八道！
问题在于，学习没有被当作是游戏的必然组成部分，而成了游戏的唯一目标。为玩而玩的好处被降格了。想到还有很多情况会让父母们觉得自己做得不够好，我就沮丧。要知道，投入到孩子身上的最好支出是时间，而不是钱。
（本文作者玛格丽特•麦卡特尼是格拉斯哥的一名医生。）
译者/徐柳
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