Animated short films suitable for children to watch such as sound and shadow version of the picture book, exquisitely designed pictures to shape aesthetic and artistic sense, the imaginative plot is the source of imagination and creativity, the profound and understandable connotation has a subtle educational significance for children, parents can also draw inspiration from education.
You Look Scary is a 4-minute no-dialogue short film directed by Xiya Lan, a third-year student at the California College of the Arts at the prestigious American animation school, released in 2016 with a Douban rating of 8.3.
The story tells of a worried crocodile who goes to extract his teeth and is terrified after seeing Dr. Rabbit holding a drill, and Dr. Rabbit is also panicked because the patient is a crocodile, worried about being eaten in one bite, and each of them feels that the other is terrible. In the process of tooth extraction, the two sides made up a killing chase of the weak and the strong. After the tooth extraction, both the crocodile and the rabbit breathe a sigh of relief, realizing that they had misunderstood each other.
This short and entertaining short film is an abstract portrayal of the misunderstanding and estrangement between the two sides, and the psychological activities of the crocodile and rabbit doctor are vividly depicted in the short film. All distrust comes from not knowing, and the deepest lack of understanding is "thinking of understanding." When we untie each other's hearts, we find that "you really just look terrible."
The mental activity of crocodiles
The mental activity of the rabbit doctor
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the "stereotype effect" lurking in everyone's mind</h1>
When we think of dentists, we probably think of a serious doctor wearing a mask and holding a "nourishing" electric drill in his hand. Close your eyes and think about the crocodile, I believe that many people will also see the terrible scene of the crocodile opening its blood basin and opening its mouth. As in the short film, although neither the crocodile nor the rabbit doctor shows any hostility, they fear each other and think that the other is terrible.
Each of us will unconsciously have a relatively fixed, general and general view of a certain type of person or thing, which is the content of our "understanding" of things. This psychological effect is called stereotyping.
Stereotypes can not only appear in cartoons, but are really lurking in our consciousness and widely influencing people's thoughts and behaviors. For example, "blue is used by boys, pink is used by girls", "women are more skillful than men", "black people are prone to emotional impulses", these symbolic characteristics from cognition, society and culture are the embodiment of stereotypes.
While stereotypes can help us quickly understand the general situation of someone or thing, there are also many limitations. Under the influence of the subconscious, because we already have psychological prejudgments, it is inevitable to ignore the differences of individuals, resulting in the consequences of partial generalization. In addition, there are many features that seem to be generalized and unrealistic, even nonsense.
"Don't stereotype me"
In early education, stereotypical "traps" are everywhere. If parents are not careful to guard against it, it may cause disadvantages to the healthy development of their children's physical and mental health. The following three aspects, including stereotypes about children's gender, safety and worldview, are frequent minefields for parents to step on and require special attention.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. Reject "pink is the girl's color" and don't let gender interfere with the choice</h1>
When we prepare supplies for our children, we will routinely give boys blue and girls pink. Although girls can also use blue items or like blue, if boys like pink, there will be many parents who feel "incorrect".
In our consciousness, pink represents a cute girl, and if a boy likes pink, it is a manifestation of "mother", and even has a homosexual tendency. In order to correct the child's "mistake", there are even many mothers on the Internet who post for help: "What if my boy likes pink?" ", treat your child's color preferences as a thorny issue.
In addition to being biased against color, stereotypes also allow us to associate toy types with gender. Usually, parents prefer to buy cars and construction toys for boys, but they will be very wary of buying dolls, because boys who like to play with dolls will also be labeled as "mother". These stereotypes held by parents will make children suppress their true thoughts, and then perhaps one day in the future, they will suddenly burst into a flood.
Child psychologists believe that 2-year-olds cannot determine their gender, and children between the ages of 3 and 5 cannot be sure of their gender.
So gender identity is a process, and pink is like any color for boys under the age of 6. At the same time, if the child likes to play with dolls, it may be a psychological projection that needs more attention and companionship from parents.
Don't say to boys again, "Pink is the girl's color, and dolls are girls' play." Parents need to give more understanding and respect, observe whether the child has hidden needs, do not force him to make a choice, and do not laugh at him, otherwise it may cause a psychological shadow of the child.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. Be wary of "bad guys are ugly", fill in the leak safety education</h1>
Parents must not think that stereotypes are just small things in life, because children's impressions of "bad people" may be a sharp blade to break safety education.
There have been random studies of 3-6 year olds who asked, "What do you think bad guys look like?" 80% of the children answered characteristics related to the appearance of "ugly", such as "scars on the face" and "fierce eyes".
In cartoons and picture books that children come into contact with, we can always find a cookie-cutter similar phenomenon: bad people always make people look a little scary or dare not approach, such as witches have long noses and sharp teeth; gray wolves have scars on their faces; dangerous bears have evil eyes, etc., and those who are beautiful and handsome are "good people".
It is this non-objective stereotype that subtly affects children's judgment of danger and reduces their vigilance against "good-looking" people. Don't say that children are not vigilant, we adults may also be confused by the scum of morality. Zhang Yingying, who graduated from Beijing University and studied in the United States, was brutally murdered because she misjudged the murderer Christensen as a good citizen and took his hitchhiker.
Parents can find some examples to remind children that not all bad people are ugly, and not all beautiful and handsome people must be "good people", so that children's judgment of people is no longer limited to appearance and voice, so as to be more objective. Parents can take advantage of the seemingly cute but actually deadly creatures in nature, such as puffer fish, and it will be easier for children to remember to be vigilant.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >3. Let go of "foreigners are bad" and construct a correct worldview</h1>
In a kindergarten class about the world flag, a 5-year-old child pointed to the Japanese flag and said, "The Japanese are particularly bad!" The child has never been in contact with the Japanese, so why is there such a deep hostility to the Japanese? It turned out that the child's grandparents lived with the child, and every night they would watch anti-Japanese dramas, and while watching, they would tell the children that the Japanese were bad people and so on.
Although history is something that each of us should remember, from an early age, because of stereotypes, a seed of hatred is planted in the hearts of children, that is, a big mistake. Not every Japanese person is a "devil", and not all Japanese people hate China. In the early days of the outbreak of the epidemic in China, many Japanese people rushed to donate money and materials at the first time, composing a good song of "exotic mountains and rivers, wind and rain in the same boat".
In the preschool stage, parents are the eyes of their children, do not let children take the colored glasses we impose on them when they look at the world. Whether it is Japan, the United States, or other countries, we are all a community with a shared future for mankind. Without preconceived hatred, we can let our children have a broad mind in the future world, and shoulder the responsibility of the world with an iron bone.
I am a preschool parenting sister, a master of preschool education, many years of experience in preschool teachers at home and abroad, focusing on the field of family education.
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