Do we really know what we are doing?

I have been reading a new book, The Children of Cyclops, by Keith Buzzell. It just happened to be on the free book shelf, at the Ruldolf Steiner College. I was at RSC last week, for my early childhood in-service teacher training session. The subtitle of the book is, The Influence of Television Viewing On the Developing Human Brain. I have known for quite some time that TV viewing changes brain wave patterns, contributes to learning challenges, and most of the content these days is just not worth viewing. However, until reading this book, I have not really understood the magnitude of this increasingly horrific research. The introduction is written by Joseph Chilton Pearce. Reading this part of the book alone, has the power to stop you in your tracks. Pearce says " TV disrupted or replaced verbal and non-verbal emotional forms of communication between parent-child, already weakened by childbirth interventions and the lost intimacies of breast feeding. It also replaced story-telling, " grandmother tales" father's work-place accounts and all the verbal chatter of the dinner table or fireside. It replaced bedtime tales and turned radio from story-teller to music box. Thirdly, it replaced play. The child not played with does not learn to play and play is the overarching intelligence of childhood and all learning (lifelong). " He goes on to say " Play is the primary way all learning takes place in the first decade of life and intimately involves story-telling and or family-talk, and the corresponding development of the internal imagery which such word-flow fosters. Of all the damages wrought by TV, impairment of internal imagery maybe be the most serious. All higher forms of intelligence on which a society depends, such as empathy, compassion, love as well as the later stages of intellectual development, science, philosophy, religion, are based on capacities for abstract thought and the metaphoric--symbolic structures of mind developed through internal image-making, which begins formation in the first year of life. If you are not concerned at this point, don't worry, the implications grow more staggering!! The book continues on it's horrific path, helping the reader to see how an unused brain atrophies and the way our brain grows is by playing, moving and interacting with other LIVE humans. Beyond the fact that our societal brain is shrinking due to lack of use, the shock affect TV produces in the brain causes a constant saturation of cortisol in the primitive part of the brain, which tells the body it is in constant emergency state. Cortisol in large or constant doses is toxic. Besides causing nervous, anxious and depressed children and adults, being constantly in the state of fight or flight is a direct cause of cancer and heart disease, this research from University of London's medical school.

The question that looms in my mind is; With out the society building and continuing factors such as love, appreciation, compassion and empathy and with our brains literally shrinking due to under-use, do we really know what we are doing? I think it's time to explore the answers to this questions, ready or not. I have a good feeling our future depends on it!

Here are a few links to check out:

NY Times article on children and TV

Keith Buzzle book on children and TV

Look for Shannon's post to follow and some more helpful links to information to begin or add to your own file cabinet!

Love and Light,
Stephanie