Learning Unit 7:
The Disappearance of Childhood
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: When There Were No Children
- Chapter 2: The Printing Press and the New Adult
- Chapter 3: The Incunabula of Childhood
- Chapter 6: The Total Disclosure Medium
- Chapter 7: The Adult Child
- The Disappearance of Children in Numbers
- Readings:
Introduction
This is second book by Neil Post we discuss in this course.
In The Disappearance of Childhood, the author focuses on the impact of TV on this social construct that we name CHILD.
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman’s aim was to reveal the impact of electronic media on society in general, although the last chapter also dealt with education. As I mention in the previous learning unit, Postman was an educator and an education scholar. His main concern was the decline of educational values and the role mass culture plays on it.
In this book, the fate of children in the age of TV is at the center of his concerns.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I
Chapter 1: When There Were No Children
Chapter 2: The Printing Press and the New Adult
Chapter 3: The Incunabula of Childhood
Chapter 4: Childhood’s Journey
Part II
Chapter 5: The Beginning of the End
Chapter 6: The Total Disclosure Medium
Chapter 7: The Adult Child
Chapter 8: The Disappearing Child
Chapter 9: Six Questions
Relevant for our course are chapters 1, 2, 6 and 7, which you will find in this learning unit.
As always, I recommend the reading of the whole book, which you can find at an affordable price in this link:
In the following paragraphs, you can find an useful guideline for understanding Postman’s main theses.
Chapter 1: When There Were No Children
In this first chapter, Neil Postman reflect on the idea of childhood. His conclusion is that childhood is not a natural phenomenon by a social construct.
What does this term, social construct, mean?
And how is it possible that, at a certain time, there were no children?
Chapter 2: The Printing Press and the New Adult
We already discussed the impact of the printing press and the development of the typographic mind in the previous learning unit. These two factors also are responsible for a revolutionary idea of what makes an adult.
How can the mechanical reproduction of books change what we consider to be an adult human being?
Chapter 3: The Incunabula of Childhood
In this chapter, the author reflects on the birth of the concept of Childhood. In his opinion, the idea of childhood is the response to the new concept of adulthood brought about by the introduction of the printing press and the raise of the typographic mind.
How does the author explain the birth of childhood from the spirit of the typographic mind?
And what are the cultural implications of the birth of childhood?
Chapter 6: The Total Disclosure Medium
We discussed in the previous learning unit the particular characteristics of the TV discourse. The nature of the medium, we concluded, determines its contents. Literacy, so Postman, carries knowledge and thus, open secrets. Still, last the same time, it creates obstacle to reach those secrets. A rigorous training is necessary in order to extract wisdom from books.
TV becomes the “total disclosure medium”.
What is what that means?
Why is the content of TV different from the content of typographic media (books, newspapers, magazines)?
And how might this difference, according to Postman, affect the idea of childhood?
Chapter 7: The Adult Child
The disappearance of the concept of childhood, as we knew it, also has consequences for what he had been calling adulthood.
Postman is pessimistic – almost fatalistic – about the future of education. The penetration of TV in our life, the increasing presence of this medium in the Western households, the overwhelming amount of time the average American citizen spent in front of the screen can only have a devastating impact on our culture. It is not only that what we have been calling childhood for centuries might disappear, but also our traditional concept of adulthood – essential in a democratic regime – is at stake.
What is this risk for the adulthood that postman refers to as “The Adult Child”?
The Disappearance of Children in numbers
Neil Postman’s book ends with a series of statistics that, in his opinion, support his thesis.
First of all, the author studies the children and crime statistics in the U.S. from the 1950s to the late 1970s,
| 1950 | 1976 |
| 170 | 94,784 |
| 0.0004% | 0.8% |
This numbers represent an increase of the 11,000% in serious crimes and 8,300% in non serious crimes.
The sexual activity of children and teenagers also show a rapid increase. In 1976, over 55% of American younger generation had had sexual intercourse before the age 18. The raise of venereal diseases among teenagers also shows a significant increase:
| 1950 | 1976 |
| 17 per 100,000 | 54 per 100,000 |
Finally, Postman studies some statistics on the use of alcohol and drugs. Among 10th to 12th graders, alcoholism was increasing (1 out of 10 kids could be consider a heavy drinker). As for the consumption of drugs (marihuana, cocaine, heroin, …), there was no significant difference between that age group and the rest of the adult population.