If anyone ever asked me what minerals can be found in granite, I could tell them the answer: quartz, mica, and feldspar. Sadly, however, no one has ever asked me that question. I’ve even tried to steer the occasional conversation around to the topic, hoping to show off my expertise – “Hey, does that look like granite to you?” Still, no luck.
The reason I know this is not because of a geology course I took in college, or because I have more interest in rocks than the average American. I know it because the minerals in granite were casually mentioned in an episode of The Secrets of Isis called “Rockhound’s Roost.”
This was also the series that taught me the Latin name for crow (Corvus), and how to distinguish a crow from a raven.
These diverse (and arguably useless) nuggets of knowledge illustrate how watching even the most unsophisticated television shows can make us smarter, whether we realize it or not.
What I learned from Isis did not graft itself in my memory after my first viewing of the show in the 1970s. I’d guess for most people those types of dialogue exchanges just sail by as we focus on the story and characters. But after repeated exposure to these episodes, our wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics is almost certain to expand.
Repetition is the secret sauce that also made the Schoolhouse Rock shorts so effective. Clever concepts and catchy songs helped, but the generation that grew up with Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s watched these segments dozens, maybe even hundreds of times over the years. And now, decades later, many of us can still recite the entire Preamble of the Constitution from memory.
Science was always my most challenging school subject, but here again help arrived from unlikely places. On The Brady Bunch when Peter was falling behind in his science class, Greg and Marcia gave him some rhymes to help with recall (“A vertebrate has a back that’s straight!”).
And how many kids learned more about the human cardiovascular system from Potsie, courtesy of “Pump Your Blood” on Happy Days?
My guess is that other classic TV fans are better at this than I am. Those with greater retention may be able to pick up on an informative line of dialogue after just one or two viewings. I need more than that. Everyone’s memory works differently, and mine sometimes doesn’t work at all.
But if you ever need to know more about granite, you know who to call.
Your turn – what has classic TV taught you?
What I learned from Isis did not graft itself in my memory after my first viewing of the show in the 1970s. I’d guess for most people those types of dialogue exchanges just sail by as we focus on the story and characters. But after repeated exposure to these episodes, our wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics is almost certain to expand.
Repetition is the secret sauce that also made the Schoolhouse Rock shorts so effective. Clever concepts and catchy songs helped, but the generation that grew up with Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s watched these segments dozens, maybe even hundreds of times over the years. And now, decades later, many of us can still recite the entire Preamble of the Constitution from memory.
Science was always my most challenging school subject, but here again help arrived from unlikely places. On The Brady Bunch when Peter was falling behind in his science class, Greg and Marcia gave him some rhymes to help with recall (“A vertebrate has a back that’s straight!”).
And how many kids learned more about the human cardiovascular system from Potsie, courtesy of “Pump Your Blood” on Happy Days?
My guess is that other classic TV fans are better at this than I am. Those with greater retention may be able to pick up on an informative line of dialogue after just one or two viewings. I need more than that. Everyone’s memory works differently, and mine sometimes doesn’t work at all.
But if you ever need to know more about granite, you know who to call.
Your turn – what has classic TV taught you?
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