Education & development: The Importance of the television program for the dev. of future generation
- Izzan Fathurrahman
- Jun 4, 2020
- 3 min read
“Education is the responsibility of every well-educated people.” – Anies Baswedan.
Some people say, education is what we get in the classroom, course, or any other form of formal education. But in my view, formal education isn’t the only medium for us to learn, particularly for children. Every single activity, even our daily activity, like watching television, could be a great source of learning.
The learning process that occurs outside the circumstance of formal education is usually known as informal education. This informal education is as important as formal education as well. If formal education will determine our mark and knowledge of mainstream subjects like math, physics, chemistry, or history, then informal education will be the key factor to affect our behaviour and characters. The source of this informal education could be various, it may come from parents, friends, social environment, or even a television program that we watch. For example, a father teaches his children about how to being polite and honest to the other people, or on the other hand, a friendship that gives us a precious meaning of solidarity and togetherness. How someone behaves is usually affected by informal education that he/she has received. Informal education will determine their value of life. For instance, a boy who usually got beaten in his family most likely will grow with fear, rebel, and rude attitude.
One of informal education’s source is a television program. The television program has a big influence on children’s development. It’s always being watched and probably the only entertainment media that the children have got. It can reduce the values on society, whether those are bad or good, into a set of program. If the values are good, the implications probably would also be good for children. But if the values are bad and mostly prohibited in society, then we might put a high concern about this. For instance, if a girl loves to watch a cheap drama about teenager love and unfair love’s competition by bullying the other girl, she probably will spend most of her time to thinking about her love story, relationship, or in further, bullying her competitor in order to win a boy’s heart. While in fact, that’s actually not her priority. She should spend most of her time to study, do extracurricular, or other productive activities rather than get confused about her love story. In another example, a boy who tends to spend his time to watch teenager drama which focuses on speeding motorcycle in the street probably will behave based on that drama. He might cry to his parents so they will buy him a motorcycle and use it for speeding and dangering people in the street.
Considering the big influence of television program among the children, it’s important for the government to filter television program based on children's need. For example, the government should ban a television channel which made not proper program for the children. It’s also necessary to the related industry to provide a decent program for the children. Example, media industries should adjust their program related to the age of their consumers. If they want to provide a program related to elementary school children, it should be a drama which focuses on healthy friendship, an intellectual quiz, or creative games. If it is related to the high school children, probably it’s a program which focuses on leadership, healthy friendship and relationship or pursuing a dream. They shouldn’t display a cheap drama and sitcom which always talk about the love story, bullying, or speeding vehicles, all day long.
It’s undoubted, as a source of informal education, television program plays an important role to build children’s character. The surveillance and implementation of television program should be tightened in order to maintain the values that they will deliver. If we can’t control our television program while that is one of the major sources for children to learn, then we must wonder about the character of our future generation.
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