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.