TV tilt encourages kids to stretch their minds’ muscles
“CHILD Genius” requires young contestants to master such diverse subjects as science, history, culture and the arts.
A new competition on the Lifetime channel, “Child Genius,” should inspire young viewers to stretch their mental muscles and neurons, instead of just playing computer games.
Each week, young and gifted “walking encyclopedia” and know-it-alls compete against each other to answer questions in different areas. At the end of the telecast, their scores of correct answers as opposed to “pass” or “wrong” are tallied up, and the top three are lionized—while the bottom three have to leave the show.
We suppose that the time will eventually come when the last three survivors will have to fight to the finish for the mind tilt’s top prize and crown.
In the past, a limited version of this competition was on view in the annual national spelling bee aired on US TV, with little kids amazing and humbling adult viewers with their sesquipedalian prodigy. (Spell antidisestablishmentarianism? Oh, you got one letter wrong—and so, goodbye!)
For its part, “Child Genius” makes the task an even taller order by requiring its young contestants to know anything from science to historical and current events, to culture and the arts!
That increases the challenge exponentially, which is why the tilt has motivated its young contestants to do much better than their peers.
Stoked elders
In addition, their parents and teachers are also especially stoked to help them as best as they can—sometimes with consequences!
For example, last month, the top scorer, Ryan, who notched a whopping total of 25 points was visibly ticked off by his loving but obviously pushy and “OC” mom, who, even after he did so well in the tilt, nagged him to do better!
Uh, mom, can your son take two minutes to savor his success before you push him to the next level?
In fact, when Ryan’s mom tried to hug him to make amends, he irritably wriggled out of her “smothering” arms!
Shots like that suggest that the tilt should be handled in a way that’s more sensitive to the child contestant’s feelings. And that everyone should remind himself that winning is wonderful—but these geniuses are still boys and girls, so everybody, lighten up, please!
Local version
It would be great if a local version of the intelligence tilt for children could be produced here to inspire our own exceptional youths to do more than just dream of becoming show biz stars (the cushy “career” of choice these shallowly fantasticating days).
Advertising support
Advertisers keep saying that they will support inspiring and motivating shows for the country’s youth so we trust that they will place their spots in a TV tilt for children that does more than just highlight their singing or “mini-me” impersonating abilities!
At the moment, the only TV competition for children that sort of tests Filipino kids’ minds is the “Pinoy Henyo” portion of “Eat Bulaga,” which has become so popular that it’s even “gone national!”
That’s all good—and “very Pinoy,” but an all-out intelligence tilt for Filipino kids along the lines of “Child Genius” would really hit the spot! After all, we do have our share of precious prodigies, don’t we?
