Edutainment Tip #1: TV Shows
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Amir Ahmad in Miscellaneous Learning Tips, Nurturing Passion |
Many, if not most of my close friends study medicine. And many, if not most loathed it when they started. Lately, the majority of them have begun to like it. Now, while they enjoy learning new cool stuff within their formal educational framework, they’ve also been raving about how much more they love watching House, MD.
Picture Courtesy of Oscar J. Baeza
In case you don’t know, House MD is a TV show about a bunch of doctors (the main character being Dr. House himself) who try to solve mysterious medical cases they’re confronted with.
Gregory House, M.D., is a maverick medical genius, who heads a team of young diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Most episodes start with a cold open somewhere outside the hospital, showing the events leading to the onset of symptoms for that episode’s main patient. The episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose and treat the patient’s illness.
It’s a very entertaining series. Even I myself like watching it although I’m not into medicine.
This got me thinking.
Why do I and countless other non-medical people like the show? Sure, Dr. House is hilarious but still, what’s so captivating about the episodes?
Puzzles.
Puzzles are fun. Given, the highly inquisitive nature of the human mind, it’s no surprise that we’re intrigued by them. Of course when the puzzles are dry and very complex, they can seize to become enjoyable but if the format they come in is entertaining, then it’s all good.
TV shows with fun puzzles are a form of edutainment, and there are surely tons of TV shows on this planet about many subjects. There are forensic detective series like CSI, a show about the power of mathematics called Numb3rs and others about law like Law and Order.
The list goes on.
With so many available series about numerous subjects, finding an edutaining one we can be entertained by and learn from shouldn’t be difficult. The DVD section at Amazon should be a good place to start searching.
Remember, this doesn’t even begin to include documentaries, edutaining shows on Discovery Channel and reality TV series like Donald Trump’s The Apprentice. ;)
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3 Responses
I used to be into murder mysteries because of their puzzling nature, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch a single episode of House.
House could seem boring at the start but eventually it gets very entertaining. :)
Netflix is another great place to start. They have such a brilliant suggestion system. It leans what you like and helps you find similar content.
We can be entertained and educated at the same time. My favorite edutainment would be the website TED. Inspiring talks on subjects that are entertaining too.