It's a Trap! --Educating your Kids Through Pop Culture

   Recently my children have been watching Dr. Who with my sister. They are now fanatics. I roll my eyes at this thought, because the kids spend so much time and effort on it rather than their schoolwork. That being said, I have come to accept the fact that this sci-fi show, which has been on TV longer than I've been alive, has it's value.
   My sister, Julia, got Hamlet from the library to watch on her own. As soon as my children saw that David Tennant (10th Dr. Who) starred as Hamlet, they wanted to watch it. She put it on and they sat quietly watching for 40 minutes. After she said it was time to turn it off and move on to another activity my 4 year old daughter, Christy, says to her, "Where's the TARDIS?" (The TARDIS is Dr. Who's spaceship/time machine.) We laughed that she had the patience to wait that whole time to find out why it wasn't there.
   So I figured that was the end of it. No more Shakespeare for my girls. After all, when we tried watching Julius Caesar they complained it was boring. Later that week, Christy asked to watch the Dr. Who movie (she has started to call it Scary Hamlet).

  So Julia put on Hamlet again. They finished it and even asked to watch it again. I was amazed! Julia loves Shakespeare, so she showed a YouTube video to the kids of a comedy group called Reduced Shakespeare Company performing shortened versions of the Bard's plays. They loved it! Maybe they'll look on this experience fondly when it is time to delve into the world of Shakespeare. Or, perhaps we can take this as a lesson to find other things that will help make difficult things more endearing to us and our children. There is so much to find online and in other good books. We just have to find them using the resources available to us, like sisters!
   Another reason these types of shows, or books even, can be beneficial to their young minds is the thinking the children do when they are not reading or watching the program. I get questions all the time about the world of Dr. Who., like why is the TARDIS so large on the inside, and how does it fly? They are introduced to more imagination-creating topics, draw pictures, and make believe they are on time traveling adventures. They even apply what they have learned to other aspects of life, such as Julia and the kids realizing that Santa Claus must be a Time Lord, then finding more reasons to support their theory.
   It never ceases to amaze me how we can find knowledge everywhere, and the seemingly silly or off-the-wall will be able to spark an interest in the greatest of works. As the new year starts, remember to search out those things that will inspire us to learn and shape our world for the better.