STEVE SMITH -- What’s Up

For those who may not know, here is an element of our family’s

lifestyle in a nutshell: My wife and I have not watched television for

more than five years and our two kids have not watched television for

more than two. And, yes, this is my annual anti-TV rant, which always

occurs in mid-April, just prior to National no-TV Week, which begins this

year on April 23.

Two recent events have made my dislike of television that much more

intense and have fortified the mountain of evidence proving that TV is a

very bad influence on children.

The first came in January when the U.S. Surgeon General reported that

watching television promotes violent behavior in children. Even more

alarming was the finding that the violent behavior occurred regardless of

whether the programs the children watched were violent.

The second event is actually two, both of which occurred last month

just south in the San Diego area. The two high school shootings shocked

the nation for a millisecond, until most of the media realized that Wall

Street’s high-tech meltdown was a bigger story than campus safety.

After San Diego, we were told once again that our schools are safe,

that given the enormous number of children attending school, these

shootings were not even a half-blip on the violence radar. It’s the same

line the FAA trots out every time a plane crashes and we’re supposed to

understand that it’s more dangerous to drive to the supermarket than to

fly to Salt Lake City, which has issued 30,000 concealed weapons permits.

In another year, or even at another time of year, I’d be in lock step

with the statisticians, asking people to calm down while tossing out the

word “aberration” like so many plastic Easter eggs.

Except that I no longer agree with the spokes people, not after the

Surgeon General’s report, which was quite clear: Watching television

promotes violent behavior in children. There were no qualifiers in the

report, no use of “may” cause or “could” cause, just a direct link from

the evidence to the facts.

Of course, no one can prove that television caused the two people to

shoot up the San Diego high schools or any school, but we should not be

taking any chances with our children. In the light of such a strong

statement by the Surgeon General, we should take a second and look harder

at raising TV-free kids.

But we’re not taking enough precautions. Across the country, only

5,300 schools have a formal program to reduce or eliminate the influence

of television from the lives of students. Here in Newport-Mesa, the

district saw fit to establish a program to punish bullies but did nothing

to stop what very well may be one of bullying’s major causes. We have no

formal TV reduction program in our district.

There’s another reason to get kids to turn off the tube. It is a fact

that when kids turn off the TV they start reading; reading is the No. 1

activity that replaces television viewing, followed by playing with

friends.

At our local schools, we spend lots of time and money promoting “Just

Read,” which is a very fine program, but it would be much more effective

if we also ran a concurrent program to encourage families to turn off the

TV.

Last year, the school board passed a resolution endorsing National

No-TV Week. This year, they did not.

Our schools need a no-TV policy. The reason why more schools don’t

adopt one was made clear by Bill Habermehl, the new superintendent of the

Orange County Department of Education, who told me: “I think it’s because

[schools] have so many things on their plate right now and they hope it’s

more of a program that parents embrace. I don’t think you’ll find an

educator in Orange County who won’t say, ‘It’s a wonderful idea, we

support it,’ but they just don’t have the time or energy to jump on one

more bandwagon. And we could do a lot of stuff but if the parent at home

still watches television, that’s where the model is.”

Habermehl nailed it. In order to get kids to watch less TV, parents

have to watch less TV and, sadly, many of them are just not ready to make

that sacrifice.

So as the serious school violence moves across the country from

Jonesboro, Ark. to Columbine and closer to us, we have the means at our

disposal to reduce the likelihood of violent behavior by our children,

according to the Surgeon General.

But this year, it will be business as usual.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.