"Correlation may not cause causation, but I find that they often occur together."

Educational programming for small children is a delicate art. It has to be both repetitive enough to become quickly familiar but varied enough to hold interest, and to stretch beyond the audience's level without talking down. And then there's the whole question of how to engage parent(al figure)s, and so get them to help with the learning -- humor that goes over their children's heads, or some other way of avoiding unrelieved earnestness?

The producers of Pitagora Suicchi / Pythagora Switch seem to have mastered the art.

I first heard of it through the Algorithm March (with ninjas!) and the Algorithm Exercise, done by more than one person with a series of repeating moves that mesh in such a way that they avoid hitting each other. Judging by the number of videos out there, the show-identifying segments of ingenuous Rube Goldberg contraptions of marbles, tracks, and everyday items are the most popular among people old enough to post 'em. The least interesting to me is the most overtly educational segment, the fun facts o' daily life science with wooden penguin puppets named Pita and Gora -- though I'm charmed by how every single time the talking book opens himself to more information on page whatever, Pita and Gora actually look inside before remembering that, oh yeah, they're too young to read, even if that's the signal to call on the services of that creepy television that's also a dog.

Despite imagining hoards of tots doing the Algorithm Exercise in front of the TV, I suspect that it's the Father Switch that hooks them. Take one small child and her/his father and a box with five buttons labeled with kana on a line, such as ka/ki/ku/ke/ko, and when the child pushes one, father has to perform an action that begins with that syllable -- say, calisthenics/kill two birds with one stone/cuddle/chemistry experiments/corner a rhino. (Only, yanno, without props.) Instant power trip. Especially since the participants are clearly ordinary viewers, just like oneself. I wonder how many home-made father switches are scattered across the living rooms of homes in Japan.

Enough -- I've spent far too much time this evening tracking down episodes on the 'Net, and watching them one after the other is not good for the adult brain. For while it's a Weird Japanese Thing, it's not weird because it's Japanese but because it's children's educational programming. But as I said, enough -- it's time to head to bed.

If I can find the right marble to push, that is.

---L.

"Correlation may not cause causation, but I find that they often occur together."

Educational programming for small children is a delicate art. It has to be both repetitive enough to become quickly familiar but varied enough to hold interest, and to stretch beyond the audience's level without talking down. And then there's the whole question of how to engage parent(al figure)s, and so get them to help with the learning -- humor that goes over their children's heads, or some other way of avoiding unrelieved earnestness?

The producers of Pitagora Suicchi / Pythagora Switch seem to have mastered the art.

I first heard of it through the Algorithm March (with ninjas!) and the Algorithm Exercise, done by more than one person with a series of repeating moves that mesh in such a way that they avoid hitting each other. Judging by the number of videos out there, the show-identifying segments of ingenuous Rube Goldberg contraptions of marbles, tracks, and everyday items are the most popular among people old enough to post 'em. The least interesting to me is the most overtly educational segment, the fun facts o' daily life science with wooden penguin puppets named Pita and Gora -- though I'm charmed by how every single time the talking book opens himself to more information on page whatever, Pita and Gora actually look inside before remembering that, oh yeah, they're too young to read, even if that's the signal to call on the services of that creepy television that's also a dog.

Despite imagining hoards of tots doing the Algorithm Exercise in front of the TV, I suspect that it's the Father Switch that hooks them. Take one small child and her/his father and a box with five buttons labeled with kana on a line, such as ka/ki/ku/ke/ko, and when the child pushes one, father has to perform an action that begins with that syllable -- say, calisthenics/kill two birds with one stone/cuddle/chemistry experiments/corner a rhino. (Only, yanno, without props.) Instant power trip. Especially since the participants are clearly ordinary viewers, just like oneself. I wonder how many home-made father switches are scattered across the living rooms of homes in Japan.

Enough -- I've spent far too much time this evening tracking down episodes on the 'Net, and watching them one after the other is not good for the adult brain. For while it's a Weird Japanese Thing, it's not weird because it's Japanese but because it's children's educational programming. But as I said, enough -- it's time to head to bed.

If I can find the right marble to push, that is.

---L.