School Assemblies - Look How Far We've Come!

Translating ...

During my Spirit of America school assembly program, the children say a quick story about how people used to see most of their entertainment, "live on stage." I say - "there were no iPods," (they scream), "there were no computers." (another scream) "... and there were no video games!" (this time - a cry of pain !).

This little exercise is a good illustration of how our children see and what they expect from their entertainment. Make no mistake, I did not promote going back to the old days in any way. Quite the opposite. I feel that although the creative opportunities for the displaced children of school age, advances in technology have made so much more satisfying experience.

How do you deal with these experiences in a school assembly? Let's look at which school assembly in recent history. I can only speak from personal experience, but I just think that maybe two or three assemblies throughout my six years stay in Samuel Everitt elementary school in Levittown, PA.

One set featured a local dentist, who gave us all a lesson about brushing our teeth, "correct " way. (I'm pretty sure there are still guys out there for these assemblies.) What I remember most about this program was getting those red tablets to chew after brushing to see which parts of my mouth were missed. Do you remember those? They were actually invited Dental Disclosing Tablets (I just looked at ).

Then, as I recall, the officer who showed pictures of the local jailhouse and gave us the opportunity to put on handcuffs. (I believe that several colleagues used the opportunity to repeat after high school.) Finally, a firefighter who showed us how things are burned.

Yes, that's cool. However, today's school-age children are expected so much more. It is simply time that we live in. Most of them (I can not say that each) or their own children or use the iPod. Most of them are technologically advanced and adept at using computers and most look at least some of the approximately 800 television channels available to them (as opposed to three or four that were available to my generation). One of the reasons why I added a multimedia component in our school assembly to compete with and hopefully surpass what children see every day in class and at home. No more filmstrips in school, even the board is out of date. Assembly booked today should be an exciting, informative, technologically up-to-date, participatory and exceed the standard fare of entertainment our children see on a daily basis. Finally, depending on the school and to special needs, most shows should be able to add educational value as high school students. After all, it's -. school