Entertainment For Lively Minds
Happy Days. But for whom exactly?
Does anyone else find the use of Henry Winkler as the new face of a dyslexia campaign aimed at children rather a strange choice?
Does Ed Balls think kids will actually know who he is? A couple of hundred may have seen him in panto this Christmas but outside of that, when was the last time Happy Days was even on? It finished production almost 30 years ago for God's sake. It's like getting Jimmy Durante to be the Green Cross Man.
While it's of course admirable that Winkler is giving up his time to front the initiative, surely it's only the parents who will have heard of him. If was 1977 then he'd be the number one choice. But it's not.
Perhaps it's aimed at parents, but then what child is interested in what their parents think? Couldn't they have persuaded Take That?
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Isn't he
an author of children's books now (when not in panto)?
B is for Balls
H is for...
"Heeyyyyy!"
Take that
would only be relevant to the parents more than the kids as well. Kids don't buy TT records their catchment is mid twenties to 60's isn't it?
Even the So Solid Crew would be past it.
Capturing the youth cultural zeitgeist is impossible surely... unless you're an actual youth (and even then I was pretty bad at it.)
Winkler could work, even tho people may not remember happy days much, the fonz has entered the pop cultural vernacular. Depends what they do with him I guess.
But the best person I can think of the front it would be Dizzee Rascal - credible but not mainstream, not a person who represents the establishment and someone who can use language relevant to young people and reach out across community groups.
Although I imagine one criteria for fronting the dyslexia campaign must be actually having dyslexia, so I dunno if he's eligible or not.
EDIT: The he referred to above is Dizzee Rascal not Winkler. Sorry if it wasn't clear.
Lily Allen could work as well I guess.
Sporticus from Lazy Town
He's a cool kinda guy, bit Fonz-ish. Haven't seen the campaign but kids from 4 to 14 would all know him.
Hasn't Mr Winkler said he is dyslexic
in a number of interviews?
he's been a campaigner on the subject for years
and is the writer of a series of kids books about it.
he said a brilliant thing once about it which im sure many people who have had trouble reading/ with maths/ english whatever at school can sympathise with: "you spend a third of your time trying to figure out what's wrong with you, a third of your time trying to figure out why you can't figure it out and the final third trying to cover up the shame..."
i guess it behoves to remember that he inadvertently gave the world the phrase 'jump the shark' and also to remember this! =
If he's a good communicator why not?
The idea that youngsters will only respond to young faces has become far too prevalent, and it’s a pity.
As someone who grew up in the eighties, the likes of Jonny Ball or David Bellamy loom much larger in my mind than any of the trendy young personalities about then.
that is very true
The people who should be communicating ideas to the young are people who've had time to develop and refine their own, to test their ideas and hone their ability to communicate them.
However with hard to reach community groups their is certainly an advantage in finding people they feel speak to them as a way of bridging many of the gaps we have created between them and education.
Does an old middle class white man work as someone who will engage the kids who need engagement? Some of them may make it work but it is a harder bridge to get the kids across.
Although I would say the above applied much more to teenagers who have a greater understanding of the gulf between their position and those of the "faces" chosen to speak to them. With kids under 12 or so they are used to listening to middle class white men (and women) and Father Christmas is an old white man who appeals to them.
The whole area of communicating knowledge to children and teenagers is a wide and complicated one with no hard and fast solutions, the teacher who is inspirational to one will be inaccessible to another.
Winkler is as good a choice for some as he is a bad one to others. And at least he has experience with and understanding of the condition to bring in to what he does.
As others have said...
...Winkler is himself dyslexic and has written a series of books about a dyslexic kid called Hank Zipzer. The books are written in a style that makes them suitable for children with dyslexia to read. They are, apparently very popular.
I'd say that makes him eminently suitable to be the face of a campaign to educate people about dyslexia.
Zipzer
I know that name from another book... Can't for the life of me remember what it was or who wrote it :-(
An interesting point.
If you think a kid is dyslexic, turn the book they're trying to read upside-down. Then ask them to read it. Kids with a significant degree of dyslexia will read it much better. My mum, who has been teaching kids to read for thirty years, uses this as her test which lets her know that a child needs to be passed on to specialists. Only works, though, on bright kids.