Sid the Science Kid

I've been reading other moms' forum and blog posts complaining about this show. My kids watch it. They sing the songs and they actually learn things from it. Plus, it inspires them to ask questions. Today, they were telling me about apple trees growing from apple seeds which come from apples. Then they asked, "how did we get apple trees before there were apples?" and we got to talk (briefly and simply) about plant evolution. Which received a reply of, "Oh! Like people!"

Anyway, some other moms are unimpressed. The complaints I'm reading, though, are pretty ridiculous.

One mom who clearly wants her kids to be prepared for the over-crowded reality of public school said, "What the heck kind of school does he go to that only has 4 students in a class and only studies science?!"

I don't know what kind of school he goes to. There are lots of different types of schools and instructional methods out there, though. There are small groups of kids from different families who do what I would call homeschooling together, and there are child-lead curriculums that often result in science-heavy learning because kids at that age have a lot of questions about how the world works and why. It never occurred to me to question these things because they reflect my homeschooling pretty well. My students are all siblings (and my children), but its pretty incredible how much science we end up studying compared to math or any other subject.

Another mom said some of the kids sound like they're high. I'm not going to say much about that comment but... they're kids! They have different voices. Never once have I thought any one of them sounded "high". That mom also said one of the kids sounds like he's about to attack the other kids. While I don't deny that you can read aggression in a voice even when a person is smiling, the kid she's talking about just happens to have a slightly lower-pitch kid voice. He's always smiling and kind of goofy.

This mom isn't kind in her judgement of anyone in Sid's classroom (except for Sid, strangely). Regarding Sid's teacher, she said, "And what the frick is up with the kids calling their teacher Miss Suzie???? I doubt that's her last name. And why in the heck does she dance around like a stripper when she moves across the classroom?"

Is it really so wrong to call your teacher by her first name? Is that never acceptable? And why is it important what they call her, as long as it's not offensive?

About the dancing... I had no recollection of anyone dancing like a stripper, so I watched an episode to see what she was talking about. Let me just say, I'm not sure what stripper you're referring to but Miss Suzie dances like a muppet. There's good reason for that, too. This show as created by the Jim Henson Company using Henson Digital Puppetry Studio. They use motion capture, which, "allows the Company's world-class performers to puppeteer and voice digitally animated characters in real time creating a unique, more spontaneous and fresh result." (source)

If you don't know how motion capture works, imagine people in body suits, with ping pong balls taped to them so a camera can watch the white orbs move around and then interpret that as a digital figure moving around on a screen. Simple enough until you consider that the characters in Sid's world are shaped more like the monsters on Sesame Street than like actual people. I've included a picture of one of the puppeteers who does the dancing that ends up as the animations for the characters.

Seriously. Personally, I wouldn't knock Miss Suzie's dancing until you've tried to dance in something like that. I haven't. I imagine it's embarrassing and silly. Also, I imagine it would be incredibly difficult to make it come out looking like a human, dancing.

Maybe you just hate dancing, or are offended by educators being happy and active and enjoying their jobs. True, I can't remember a single public school teacher in my whole childhood ever dancing, and Miss Suzie does it several times per episode. On the other hand, I dance all the time. I dance when I'm doing dishes, holding the baby, folding the laundry, playing in the sprinkler, cleaning the play room... Maybe that's another artifact of public schools.