PBS Dinosaur Train
My four-year-old grand-daughter and I just watched an episode of Dinosaur Train on PBS. This is an afternoon show that teaches advanced vocabulary along with information about the Mesozoic Age.
In today’s episode we learned the word herbivore. We also learned quite a bit about the teeth of the triceratops.
Big words abound on this educational and entertaining show. The paleontologist who gives explanations, Dr. Scott, does not talk down to the children.
However, despite the high level of the content, the conversations between cartoon characters are riddled with nonstandard English usage.
Examples from the episode we watched:
Scrub your feet really good.
Let’s keep real quiet about the concert.
In addition to the nonstandard usage, the introductory song and the adult animals in the cartoon use the words “kid” and “kids” ad nauseam.
Writers for educational television should not write to the same criteria as writers for commercial shows. In a television drama, nonstandard usage has its place in the mouths of uneducated characters. It seems to me that writers for children’s television have a responsibility to model standard usage at all times. It may be the only time that some of the children watching hear it.
