Saturday, September 8, 2007

And a child shall lead us

In mid-September, CBS will broadcast "Kid Nation," a reality show where 40 kids between 8 and 15 will be placed in a small New Mexico "ghost town" without supervision. They will then have to create a government and functioning economy.

Depending on how awful the editing is, this could have some interesting outcomes. Will the 15 year olds, being almost twice the age of the 8 year olds, be better business people? Will the sure-to-be-typecast kid with a parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent who have been the mayor of a town be the best choice to govern "Kid Nation"? Will the average kid line up to follow the kid who loudly broadcasts that he has all of the answers, even if it is later shown that he doesn't? Will the kids who have had some civics or government classes, or participated in volunteer organizations, be more well-rounded members of the town than those who haven't?

Tune in, or set the TiVo, and lets see if we can see some parallels between the kids and ourselves.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When no one has "paid their dues" who will lead? what type of arbitrary experience will the kids set for themselves in order to lead the group forward? Stupid idea for a show, but good point.

GRAFFIX said...

the 8 year olds will have the maturity level and vanity to mimic the commissioners of kisswimmee/st cloud. the 15 yr olds will have the ability to make major mistakes and still smile like our county commish. great idea!! but like the show "are you smarter than a 5th grader" will our elected leaders learn by watching the parallels?

Anonymous said...

I am not sure there would be much difference in what we see passing for government now. $200,000 on a fountain because it is pretty? Sounds like an 8 year old to me.