Big Ideas
For the past couple of weeks I've been nagging my son about the Reading Rainbow Young Writers & Illustrators Contest that was coming up this month. He entered a story in the contest last year and received a nice certificate signed by Levar Burton that he has proudly hung on his wall.
This year, however, he dragged his feet about writing another story. Not that it's hard for him. On the contrary, my son can churn out all sorts of tall tales, adventures, fantasies, and space operas. But put him under a deadline and all of a sudden he's got writer's block.
Finally, after another reminder about the contest from me, he stomped his feet and whined, "I just can't do it. Levar wants short stories and I'm full of big ideas!"
Turns out that my son is composing the Great American Novel in his head and doesn't have the time or the patience to whittle it down to 300 words.
Lucky him, though, because I just learned today that the contest has been put on hold due to lack of funding. How come there's no shortage of money for the most inane television shows, like Dancing With The Stars, but quality educational shows like Reading Rainbow have to struggle to be produced? Makes no sense to me.
This year, however, he dragged his feet about writing another story. Not that it's hard for him. On the contrary, my son can churn out all sorts of tall tales, adventures, fantasies, and space operas. But put him under a deadline and all of a sudden he's got writer's block.
Finally, after another reminder about the contest from me, he stomped his feet and whined, "I just can't do it. Levar wants short stories and I'm full of big ideas!"
Turns out that my son is composing the Great American Novel in his head and doesn't have the time or the patience to whittle it down to 300 words.
Lucky him, though, because I just learned today that the contest has been put on hold due to lack of funding. How come there's no shortage of money for the most inane television shows, like Dancing With The Stars, but quality educational shows like Reading Rainbow have to struggle to be produced? Makes no sense to me.
Permalink posted by Phil at 2:13 AM
4 Comments:
Why do athletes make millions and schoolteachers chump change? Cause we're a sick society.
Oh, that's disappointing. My daughter worked on a story for this contest last year, but never finished it. However, in the past year, she's become a story-churning-out machine. I was convinced she'd go all the way this year.
I thought this was a touching post, until the lack-of-funding part. Now I'm just angry.
It can take so much encouragement to convince kids to use their imaginations, let alone share the results with someone else.
Maybe PBS could divert funds from Max & Ruby...
And people wonder why education in this country is lacking--it's because good quality programs have to struggle to get funding while crappy shows seem to have all the funding in the world.
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