It steals away the time
Young children watching endlessly
Never learning how to climb
Not talking with their neighbors
Not playing in the sunshine
No baseball or jump rope
No writing down a rhyme
Screen's on in the kitchen
Even at mealtime
Screen's on in the car
Never any downtime
No time for reading
That's not a real big time
No time for adventures
That would be like work time
Not much time for the real world
That can only be part time
Can't develop real relationships
And it really is a crime
Because of that mesmerizing screen
"American children and adolescents spend 22 to 28 hours per week viewing television, more than any other activity except sleeping. By the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV."
-- The Kaiser Family Foundation
-- The Kaiser Family Foundation
2 comments:
Have you read Chris Van Allsburg's book The Wretched Stone? If not you HAVE to have it! It's written as a sea log about a crew of seamen who find a stone that gives off a soothing glow. The crew likes it so much they begin spending hours every day sitting and staring at it. Pretty soon they aren't playing games, making music, or doing their work. Instead, they're just watching that stone. Eventually they all begin to turn into monkeys. The man writing the log finally throws the stone overboard and, with time, everyone returns to normal. It's a great book to discuss with you class. I've yet to have a class to make the connection and realize that the stone represents television, though. I've had to lead them to that discovery. If you don't have it you'd absolutely love it.
Sorry for all the typos. I was trying to type that too quickly I guess!
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