Globe and Mail Talkback: Hannah Montana Schools Curious George

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Klueril

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I found this very interesting article in today's Globe and Mail (Canadian newspaper)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081118.wxleducational18/BNStory/lifeFamily/home

It talks about a study on the true E/I value of 40 kid shows, 30 so called E/I programming and ten other popular shows from PBS. It was done in the US by a group of education experts. It covers multiple markets and multiple channels as well as shows that are only aired and no longer in production. They analyzed three random episodes from these.

Turns out Hannah Montana is more educative than one might think. For those who don't want to download the full report's PDF here is the rankings for the shows:

40- Dragon
39- Jane and the Dragon
37- Curious George
37- The Replacements
36- Magi-Nation
35- That's So Raven
34- My Friend Rabbit
33- Awesome Adventures
29- Wild America
29- Safari Tracks
29- Dragon Tales
29- Cake
28- Saved by the Bell
25- Will & Dewitt
25- Jacob Two-Two
25- Horseland
24- Animal Exploration with Jarod Miller
23- Jack Hannah's Animal Adventures
21- Dino Squad
21- Care Bears Adventures
17- Sushi Pack
17- Emperor's New School
17- Clifford the Big Red Dog
17- Animal Atlas
11- Word girl
11- Veggie Tales
11- Maya and Miguel
11- Hannah Montana
11- Degrassi the Next Generation
11- Arthur
9- Adrenaline Project
9- Strawberry Shortcake
7- Teen Kids News
7- Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman
4- suite Life of Zack and Cody
4- Cyberchase
4- 3-2-1 Penguin
2- Between the Lions
2- Beakman's World
1- Sesame Street

The whole thing is pretty interesting, if a bit of a daunting read.

I'm glad Cyberchase was ranked so highly, its one of my favorite shows ever, E/I or otherwise! Its that good.

Its also interesting to note only 1% of those shows actually tought any form of mathematical knowledges (Cyberchase and Sesame Street mostly I bet).
 
How did The Adrenaline Project get so high on that list? It doesn't have any educational messages (unless you count the random facts that pop up occasionally) or life lessons aside from cooperating with others.

Also, rofl at Will & Dewitt for being so low. It doesn't really have any entertainment value and apparently it doesn't have any educational value either.
 
Probably because it wasn't airing on national television at the time of the study. Judging from the list of shows, I'd bet this study was done in early 2008.

EDIT: Looking at the report, it was done in the fourth quarter of 2007.
 
Glad to see Cyberchase ranked so highly (but find it dubious it's tied with the likes of "Zack and Cody"). Especially since it's one of the few educational shows that actually teaches math concepts (plus manages to be entertaining as well)... though would think "evil cyborg trying to destroy the sitting head of a digital alternate universe" would count in the "aggression" category. ;-)
 
Magi-nation? Isn't that a card game show? How on earth is that educational? Never seen Degrassi either, but I thought that was just a school soap/drama show... if any of those we're going to be on the list, I'd have put Ned's Declassified. I guess Hannah Montana I can at least see since Miley learns some kind of lesson in most of the episodes.
 
I feel like this thread deserves to be mirrored to the Entertainment board for some reason.

Degrassi #11, good for it as there are some lessons to be learned in some of the earlier seasons.
 
Degrassi is more than a soap. It got pretty hard hitting issues explored in there: teen pregnancy, rape, drugs, school shooting, Kevin Smith coming to shoot a movie in your school and hitting on your mom (:p), etc etc.

There's some shows in there I never even heard of :p

Some results are odd but it really shows its hard to come up with worthwhile educational shows. Especially, as the TVO guy says, when you don't have an education specialist on board.

Poor Jacob Two-Two being in the bottom rung...its still pretty entertaining though. Notice how a good deal of those shows are Canadian? I don't think its a coincidence...
 
From the episodes I saw, I think it earned a E/I because every episode tended to have one moment where a character explained some educational fact that would help get to where they needed to go.

Though, if that's all it takes to make a show E/I, I'm a bit surprised 4Kids didn't make Dinosaur King E/I (my guess is because their target audience, at least from my personal experience, tends to find E/I shows "uncool").
 
Yeah, it's no encyclopedia but it's more "educational" than more than a few shows on that list anyway.

Seriously the E/I label is so vague you could slap it on almost anything that doesn't tell kids to incite anarchy or something.


It's way easier to get a US broadcaster to pick it up that way. A big indicator on how well a Canadian series does if it's able to be picked up in the US.
 
What surprises me the most about this list is that Saved By the Bell is on it, as well as Suite Life of Zak and Cody. I thought both shows were more like kid comedies and while people could learn a lesson from watching an episode, somehow, both shows feel too comedy like to be taken as educational. Especially Saved By the Bell, which felt too weird to be taken seriously in the first place. I haven't seen much of The Adrenaline Project, but it looked more like a game show to me more than a show with educational value. I've only seen Degrassi when it was on Nick for awhile a few years ago so I can't comment much on that either.
 
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