Ignorant Exhibitionism

            Education through the use of media has occurred since media’s inception.  Sometimes it educates people on the proper way to behave or the proper values to have.  After the Enlightenment, some wanted to keep religiousness/morality out of education. They wanted education to be objective and free of the heavy-handedness of the Church.  After all the power the Church use to have, this opinion seems very understandable. But can morality and values be removed from education leaving only solid blocks of learning with no embellishment.  I would like to submit that, even if you could, values should not be removed from educational media.

            I believe that children become most invested and learn best from those that care about them. The man in “The Son” shows a proper way of teaching through the medium of film.  Olivier teaches the boy, Francis, how to make a toolbox. He tells Francis how to build it and lets him try. If Francis begins to make a mistake, Olivier will stop him give him a few tips and maybe hold something in place for him, but Francis is always the one making it.  While building it, Olivier asks Francis about his family and what he is going to do on the weekend.  This is a good and proper thing for him to do.  Children need that connection; they are emotional beings that need support not just unadulterated facts. There is a time for education and a time for emotional connection, and often the two overlap.  I think that is why Mr. Rogers was so good at what he did on TV.  He could connect with children from a television screen like no one else could. His love and sincerity can come through even from watching a video on YouTube that he narrated about how crayons are made.  How to educate is a huge thing that adults need to strive to improve on.

            Often people think of documentaries as boring but real, fact-filled educational machines.  Often this is not the case. Some documentaries try to show reality but fall short.  Cameras are fairly noticeable, and it is difficult to observe people while not being observed by them.  And if a filmmaker wants a nice looking shot, he will often have to stage it: a mock-reality.  “Chang” is a documentary from 1927, but it is all staged.  Does this take away from the educational value? I think it does, at least somewhat.  It means that I can’t take it at face value. I don’t really know how natives live because so much of the subjectivity of the filmmaker is injected into the film. So while I believe that emotion and values shouldn’t be removed from the film, I think that these emotions and values should come from the souls of the characters.  It was an interesting film, but it felt like the filmmaker just wanted to parade every jungle animal across the screen and then trap them all in a really deep hole.  Whether you agree with objective or subjective education, we can all agree that ignorant exhibitionism is unacceptable.