Education-as-Entertainment - Essay Example

fort and that it is the basis of modern livelihood, giving it an entertaining approach is a way to ensure it does not get shunned just like any other technicality in life. This study mainly purposes on the treatment of education as entertainment and the issues involved. Postman (1985), presents the extent to which treating education as entertainment has been embraced. The embracing of “Sesame Street”, a long-running American children television series, by educators, children and parents is a clear implication of entertainment being accepted as a way forward in education.

Postman’s Learning in the age of Television further makes it look like it is one of the most recommended ways of learning by stating: “To those who had not yet been to school, even to those who had just started, the idea of being taught by a series of commercials did not seem peculiar”. On the contrary, Edmundson (1997) expresses stern dislike on the subject of education being treated like some form of entertainment. Some teachers do not teach to amuse, divert or interest learners and should they hear their student term education as some form of enjoyment then they get to develop self-dislike (Edmundson, 1997, pp. 40). “Schools want kids whose parents can pay the full freight, not the ones who need scholarship or want to bargain down the tuition costs” (Edmundson, 1997, pp. 43). Perhaps this could explain to us the reason as to why entertainment should be integrated into the education system and made part of it.

Seemingly, it is not entirely essential to have education as entertainment since according to Edmundson the idea is a way to lure students into specific learning institutions. This therefore sounds like an open market competition where the most attractive school gets more ‘customers’. Now this makes school look like “Sesame Street”, and we now know that children love school only if it is like “Sesame Street” (Postman, 1985, pp. 1). In this case the two authors,