Television Serials and Education

Parents blame their child’s poor grades on TV. Be it school kids or college students, they are scolded for watching too many serials on TV. It is true, TV watching has an adverse effect on children who are enrolled in the current education system. This is a problem, and there are two ways of tackling it. You either stop the kids from watching TV, which leads them to pursue other less decent activities to kill time, or you modify the education system in such a way that it makes TV serials an integral part of the curriculum. This post strongly advocates the adoption of the second method.
But how can TV watching be an educational activity? Firstly the so called ‘educational channels’ that are present are not the solution. All they show are lizards and crocodiles. Real education can be attained from the various TV serials that are already present. In fact most of the things you learn from these shows can almost never be found in books. For example, many physicists will tell you all the intricacies concerning time travel, but none of them will tell you that repeated time travel will give you frequent nose bleeds and will ultimately result in your death. Something only a person who has watched LOST will know. TV serials have a way of giving only relevant knowledge that is applicable in the real world. For example in TV serials you never encounter a situation where there’s a frictionless surface, since it doesn’t happen, it’s completely useless.
In the current system, the biggest problem is attendance. The root of the whole issue is getting up and going to the lecture hall. Students just can’t get up. We’re not made for things like that. TV serials provide a very easy and nice way out. With the concept of reruns, shows that air at 8 in the morning will also air at 2 in the afternoon, so you really don’t have to get up early. And for those who do get up early, the 2 PM show serves as a revision exercise.
Another problem faced today is student satisfaction. Most kids find the curriculum boring, and with good reason. The fact that the voltage at the gate of a transistor, makes electrons flow from one side to another, is hardly as cool as say, Michael Scoffield having a tattoo of the Fox River prison blue prints all over his body in the show Prison Break. With TV serials students will be actually interested in what they’re studying, and hence perform better in the examinations etc.
One of the biggest issues with TV serials today is the content. Them government officials might argue that the content in TV serials might not actually be ‘educational’. No one knows what they mean by that. But if anyone says, “Learning about transistors is essential; all your devices run on them.” The best way to counter them is by giving them an example. When you’re in a deserted alley and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by three demons, what would you do? Sure you could flash all your gadgets at them in the hope that those transistors would do something magical, but it is highly unlikely. Instead if you’d paid attention in the last class which featured the show supernatural, you would instantly reach for the nearest barrel of holy water and splash the demons with it, and come out of a life threatening situation without knowing anything about transistors. Another example is interviews. No matter what you learn in college, you screw up interviews, because books don’t help in such matters. But now we have reality TV. Every reality show has interviews, where you see everyone making fools of themselves and you learn exactly what NOT to do in an interview.
TV serials help in all aspects of education an example of this would be moral education. Usually in schools moral education is zero, and the classes never happen. In case a teacher does show up for moral education class, she is swarmed by kids shouting, “Ma’m PT period ma’m, please ma’m.” To which the teacher replies, “But students , I thought today we’d talk about the secularism and respecting other religions.” And the students would chant, “Ma’m secular tomorrow, PT today.” The teacher would sigh and let them go. So in effect there was no moral education in school. But when TV serials are a part of school, the whole situation is different. Kids watch TV in school and come out telling each other, “Dude, we humans have got to stick together, irrespective of religion we should stand together and fight those mutants.”
Everyone talks about ending terrorism, by educating the narrow minded terrorists somehow. This couldn’t be easier and more achievable with the help of TV serials. If TV serials are somehow broadcast to terrorists infested areas, Achmed the instructor would tell the child recruits, “Come on children, time for some shooting practice.” To which the children would reply, “After half an hour sir, we’re busy watching HIMYM,” Achmed would furiously snatch the remote and just before switching off the TV he would stop and unable to contain himself, he’d smile. “That Barney Stinson,” he’d say shaking his head. “These American’s are not all that bad, I couldn’t bear the thought of killing Barney or Robin.” To which one of the students would reply, “But sir, Robin is Canadian!!” and they’d all share a nice laugh. And when the head of the squad calls upon volunteers for the next suicide bombing mission, no one would raise their hands. The terrorists would look at each other and say, “Dude, LOST season finale is coming up in a couple of weeks, there’s no way I’m gonna miss that!!” In the end the terrorists and humans will get together to form a huge army to fight the mutants.
I could go on but the new House episode is coming up and I really hate missing class.

Imagine there's no Twitter

Twitter is awesome!! Evereyone loves it. The whole world loves it so much, it makes you wonder. What if this was all planned. What if there's a hidden motive behind twitter? Our lives are so inextricably twined with twitter,that what if, one day, twitter was shut down!!
Who would stand to gain?
The suspects
1) Them mobile phone service providers -
These companies are hungry for money, and you can't blame them. They employ the maxim, "If you want to chat with your girlfriend for hours, you might as well pay for it." But the day twitter dies, its Christmas for these guys. Imagine that two minutes after Jack posted he'sabout to finish his sandwich, twitter died. Then Jill and five others would be frantically calling jack to find out if he did in fact finish the sandwich. They would HAVE to know, it would be impossible for them to sleep otherwise, and if they did manage to sleep, they'd be dreaming about Jack and his sandwich and just when he's having his last bite, they'd wake up!!
Considering that there are a billion twitter users, and that finishing a sandwich is just about the most boring tweet possible... anyone can see them company guys swimming in gold.
2) The Undertakers -
We might not like to think about it, but its a very real possibility. The day twitter shuts down the suicide rate will quadruple. There are those whose lives revolve around twitter, and if they die, only one group stands to gain. The undertakers. Are they the ones behind the twitter phenomenon?
3) Other social networking sites -
Yes there are many of these and we keep getting invites to them all the time. But do we actually join them. If not why? Its because of twitter.We feel we're following thousands and there are thousands following us, so there's no need to be more connected.
But the day twitter dies, these sites will be our saviours. Jill would tell Jane, " Dude, I'm dying to know if Jack finished the sandwich!!" To which Jane would reply, "You don't know yet!! He's totally updated his status in xyz.com."
"I have got to join that site!!" Jill would say and xyz would have one more user. Scale that up to twitter's user base, and you have xyz's popularity sky rocketing.
4) The Transport Industry
Twitter has brought out the social beast inside us. Earlier we were content talking to our neighbours and friends, now we are talking to everyone and still go to bed reluctantly.
So once twitter is dead, and you feel the need to talk to someone, halfway around the world, or even a different part of the city, its the transport industry you turn to.
There are of course certain drawbacks in each point mentioned above
1) Mobile phone guys :
There may be a spike in their earnings the day twitter dies, but humans by nature are cheap. Once they get their phone bill they'll stop.
2) Undertakers :
I've always imagined them to be gaunt, dressed in black with a black hat, and living in the early 1900s. I'm guessing they probably don't really know about twitter.
3) Social Networking sites:
Man is not just a social animal anymore. He's a socially hungry animal, who would probably already be on site xyz and all the other ones anyway. Jill would probably have the same friends in five different sites and also read their status messages in all five of them. If twitter died she'd know about Jack's sandwich by checking out the photo he posted in xyz which shows an empty plate
4) The transport industry :
As far as the transport industry is concerned, refer to point one.

On a (partially) serious note the consequences of twitter's phenomenal popularity is quite thought provoking