Go Outside!

Main Stream's picture

If you are a teacher or parent, please watch:

NO CHILD LEFT INSIDE

Main Stream's blog | login to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Getting Kids Outside
muddle's picture
Submitted by muddle on Sun, 04/27/2008 - 7:12am.

The Dane County (Madison, Wisconsin) school system had their own nature preserve with hiking trails, etc. When we lived there and my kids were in grade school, I volunteered as a parent chaperone to take a group of kids hiking. This would have been, say, 1988 or 89.

I'll never forget this one kid who complained every step of the way. He was wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt (and this was in the day when I did not approve of the Simpsons). As he trudged along, he whined, "This is boring. Do we have to do this? Where are we, anyway? I want to go back."

Finally, I had had enough. I whirled around.

"OK, kid. What do you like to do?"

"Play video games."

He's probably 30 now. I wonder if he ever got off of the sofa.


login to post comments
Muddle, You didn't approve of the Simpsons?
Richard Hobbs's picture
Submitted by Richard Hobbs on Sun, 04/27/2008 - 11:02am.

Okay, I know what you mean. When the Simpson's came out, I was rather "religious" and I had a problem with that show too. But then I pulled the thong out of my buttocks, and I realized I didn't have to take life so seriously.

I recall a short time after the Simpson's came out, my older brother was flying through Atlanta and I went to see him. We chit chatted while waiting for his next flight, when I mentioned the Simpsons. He said, he and his wife refuse to allow his kids to watch that show, I chuckled and said thats interesting, "We tape it for our kids!".

Time tends to change our perspective of things. Now the Simpsons seems rather lame in comparison to what we see on the T.V. or at the movies, or online today.

I wonder what our societial mores will be like when I'm an old fart, sitting in my adjustable bed in a nursing home, flipping through the channels of my Holograms 5-D viewer, as I make snide comments at the nurses, most of whom, haven't been born yet.


login to post comments
Simpsons
muddle's picture
Submitted by muddle on Sun, 04/27/2008 - 11:34am.

I think the show itself evolved.

The earliest episodes seemed to center around Bart, and he was presented as a smart ass. My objection to having my children watch it back then had to do with having a healthy respect for one's elders (at least those who deserve that respect) as well as for authority.

I haven't changed on that point. In fact, I think that many parents miss the boat when they suppose that the main things from which to shield their children have to do with sex or violence. There is a kind of cynicism that permeates much of today's entertainment for kids, including, for example, the Disney stuff, that can render kids calloused and insensitive to values that they ought to hold as sacred. Bill McKibben (following Mark Crispin Miller)calls this the "Hipness Unto Death." It is essentially that postmodern detachment and flippancy that views nothing as sacred and permits anything and everything to be the butt of a joke.

But, back to the Simpsons, I think that the show has come to feature Homer more, and it is easy to recognize that he is simply an unprincipled moron.


login to post comments
Get Outside - Thank you Main Stream
carbonunit52's picture
Submitted by carbonunit52 on Sat, 04/26/2008 - 9:56pm.

I used to take my daughter, and now take my oldest granddaughter, boating, camping, biking, and hiking quite a bit. An off-the-couch, non-tv, wonderful experiance. They talk about this much more than anything else. It is a pleasure to share their exuberance and to share what you know with them.


login to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.