Dora, Diego and the Teaching Lie
May. 12th, 2012 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutI am having trouble with Dora and Diego's science curriculum.
My girls love Dora and Diego's individual shows. And, hey, they feature brown people and catchy songs and Spanish vocabulary and wild animals and all of that good stuff, even if I find their constant near-yell annoying and the pace really slow (and Dora's imitation-computer bits totally unnecessary).
Earlier this week, Dora was drawing a rainbow bridge across a chasm to get to her destination. When she got to the bottom of the rainbow, she pulled out her purple crayon. "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple!" she exclaimed.
"That's not purple, that's indigo!" my children replied. "And she forgot violet!"
And then this morning, Diego needed to replace a bunch of strawberry plants destroyed in a storm, so he brought some strawberry seeds.
Except as any strawberry gardener or farmer knows, strawberries, while they have seeds, reproduce most effectively by suckers.
I know what Dora and Diego are doing, and I know that the teaching lie is an entrenched pedagogical technique, but I may have mentioned once or twice over the years how much I loathe it (and why).
My girls love Dora and Diego's individual shows. And, hey, they feature brown people and catchy songs and Spanish vocabulary and wild animals and all of that good stuff, even if I find their constant near-yell annoying and the pace really slow (and Dora's imitation-computer bits totally unnecessary).
Earlier this week, Dora was drawing a rainbow bridge across a chasm to get to her destination. When she got to the bottom of the rainbow, she pulled out her purple crayon. "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple!" she exclaimed.
"That's not purple, that's indigo!" my children replied. "And she forgot violet!"
And then this morning, Diego needed to replace a bunch of strawberry plants destroyed in a storm, so he brought some strawberry seeds.
Except as any strawberry gardener or farmer knows, strawberries, while they have seeds, reproduce most effectively by suckers.
I know what Dora and Diego are doing, and I know that the teaching lie is an entrenched pedagogical technique, but I may have mentioned once or twice over the years how much I loathe it (and why).
