To Be and To Have -- Inquiry

As a child myself, I was always glued to Animal Planet and the Food Chanel, and not just because puppies are cute and food is delicious. I was fascinated by the nature shows and even programs like Dogs/Cats 101 and the Eukanuba dog shows, where facts about different breeds of animals were numbered off, and informational cooking shows like Unwrapped (a show about how different foods are made) Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Books like the Magic Treehouse series were little more than digestible historical facts strung together by story, and yet I devoured them eagerly. Children are, as John Locke put it, blank slates that are eager to be written on and, for good or bad, molded by society.

Children’s learning is dominated by two modes—media and adult example. Picture books and films about animals, science, history, cultures, etc. are essential to exposing children to different subjects. And when they fail to capture their attention, museums, aquariums, and zoos physically immerse them in the learning environment, such as Jean Painleve’s The Seahorse and the Bean Museum. Both used types of media immersion to teach children about the world they live in.

Our viewing for the week, To Be and To Have (2002), demonstrated the other important mode of learning—adult example. While much of informational children’s media covers scientific, artistic, and historical fact, it is the guidance of adults that teaches a child’s inquiring mind about society and how they fit into it. Although the main setting is a classroom, the focus is less on the curriculum the students are learning and more on their nature curiosities and interactions with one another. During a self-motivated project to fit together various erasers, one is stolen, two fiver-year-olds experiment (and almost succeed!) with a copier and a coloring book, and two boys figure out what makes them fight with each other every now and again. The ever-patient teacher teaches them more than how to pass exams, he teaches them how to read, write, cook, and get along with one another even after disputes.

One of my favorite scenes is when Jojo comes back from washing his hands of paint, and tells his teacher that there is a wasp in the hall. Rather than brushing him off, the teacher pushes his observation further and asks Jojo what he thinks the wasp was doing there—he encourages inquiry and continues to prod his students to ask questions and not just accept one answer.

Media has such a potential for capturing a child’s imagination and the possibilities for turning their attention toward a positive learning experience that prods them into inquiring about the world really is exciting to me as a future creator of media.