Could a child learn everything just from watching Hollywood movies and TV shows?
Without any other form of education
Without any other form of education
No. So many things are miss represented in movies and TV or skipped entirely in the name of entertainment.
Finally, someone pointed it out! I was beginning to think I was the only one who cared. This used to keep me up at night as a kid.
Numb3rs (2005)
"Don Eppes, an FBI agent, leads the Los Angeles Violent Crimes Squad and investigates various crimes with the help of his brother Charlie, a mathematical genius."
A child won't learn anything from the vast majority of Hollywood films. It's storytelling not in the educational sense, but the entertainment sense.
On one hand I am always amazed at what kids can learn and latch onto in the weirdest ways. So I have no doubt that a lot can be learned through context. Watching movies can absolutely demonstrate a seemingly endless scenarios in a way that can be understood.
However, as someone raising a child, let me tell you how often I have to stop and explain that certain things are not real just because there's a video of it. Or how many words are being used incorrectly because they were heard in one context that was misunderstood.
I think a child who only had media to teach them, with no one to correct things, would have an endless amount of misunderstandings - nevermind the amount of things they'd believe that are entirely fictional. Basically, no, this kid would be screwed.
There are a lot of cultural things to learn from Hollywood, but very little actual academic content comes out of Hollywood. If any.
Add public TV to that mix and the academic content level goes WAY up. I don't think of public TV as Hollywood so I'm unsure if OP is including it.
Seems that youtube has much more content that I would call educational. I would go there for an education before Hollywood.
So then I have a different question:
Could a child learn everything they need to know just from watching YouTube without any other sources of education?
I would want to research before saying for certain. But I think so.
It would be interesting to see if you could get everything required for High School graduation there on yt.
You can learn a lot of things but there is definitely a crossover where you're putting your brain to work to solve the problem with a known answer that you don't know that is going to be graded that television can never replace.
I believe there was a documentary on just this topic called "Galaxy Quest...."
Seriously, though, Hollywood is not in the business of offering verifiable facts, they want to entertain people and hold their attention. However, the actual humans that write the scripts do pull inspiration from their own lives and real life events, and even the most fantastical of stories may be rooted in something from reality.
How many scientists and engineers over the years have cited Star Trek as their inspiration to pursue their careers? They may not learn much real science from that media, but they spark their inspiration from it, and that's just as important. Something has to capture their imagination first. Otherwise all those scientists may have ended up doing much more boring things for a living.
And let's face it, sometimes life imitates art. I am convinced the only reason flip phones exist is that some design engineer wanted to make Captain Kirk's communicator.
This child learns from a fake world. Then it is going to live a fake life. Somehow it fits...
Does that include educational tv show like sesame street? If yes, then it kinda depend on the kids i guess, they really have to be good in learning and also self motivated to learn. If no, then nope, it's gonna produce another idiots because Hollywood get a lot of thing wrong, and also sometime have some unacceptable social behavious being put out as something good.
Obviously not, and I'm not even going into the depth of your definition of "everything", where would a kid learn long division?
You can learn a lot even from seemingly stupid/mundane things. Like Seinfeld, it's not educational but how many tidbits about life and culture can you pick up from it? You learn there was a popular drink called Bosco, there is a brand of snack cakes called Entenmann's, you learn things about the JFK assassination on the Keith Hernandez episode, you see a parody of George Steinbrenner and learn he was the manager of the New York Yankees, people retire to Florida and live in crazy retirement communities, just to name a few. There is a grain of truth in most jokes. But you can't learn everything from watching TV/movies.
i believe many if not most peoples heads are a hazy mess of mostly opinions and fantastical bullshit. some are taught with the best of intentions.. some are intentionally misled. meanwhile people love and strive and try and learn enough on the way to get by somewhat, or to be an example to others. someone who ONLY has access to hollywood movies and TV shows can likely have charming conversations, but vastly useless in areas that matter. in this way they are likely to become executives.
School and university especially give a student access to more than just material to absorb, they teach a student how to learn. Without that framework, a person is not equipped to think critically. Not to mention, the real value of a teacher is not to dictate information to be memorized, it is to identify mistakes and issue corrections. No type of non-interactive medium can accomplish this.