When was the last time you listened to and really appreciated Mozart and Beethoven? When was the last time you thought about British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth? “Baby Mozart” and “Baby Beethoven,” award-winning titles in the Baby Einstein DVD Collection, lead you and your baby to discovery of music and the orchestra. In the Baby Einstein DVD devoted to study of nature in the backyard, you and your baby will share Julie Clark’s and Wordsworth’s faith, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved Her.” Your baby discovers the great big world all around, and you rediscover the classics of music, art, and literature.
Two Fundamental Design Principles in the Baby Einstein DVD Collection
Themes from and allusions to the classics run through the entire series. Julie Clark, originator of the DVDs, wanted to share her love of and passion for the arts, the classics, literature and nature with her daughter. Wise enough to know that passion for wonder works of human imagination comes from full engagement with them, Clark developed Baby Einstein DVD to engage, enthrall, and enchant young minds with the humanities’ greatest hits.
Julie Clark conceived of her work as creation of a “digital media board”-the high-tech equivalent of an old-fashioned flannel board. Although the videos have a narrative element, they give priority to sights and sounds, encouraging your baby to respond, to engage with all they see and hear. The “digital media board” concept has at least three advantages:
(1) Hands free-Your Baby Einstein DVD leaves your hands free, so that you may point to on-screen images, prompting your child to respond. With your hands free you also may clap and gesture, guiding your baby’s responses to all she sees and hears.
(2) Guidance and behavior modeling–you guide the viewing experience, modeling emotions and behaviors which your baby willingly will imitate. Psychologists refer to “the jukebox theory of emotion”: when they encounter new concepts, babies imitate their parents’ and role models’ reactions. When you express surprise, your baby learns how to express surprise. When you express amazement, your baby learns how to express her own amazement. Watching the Baby Einstein DVD Collection with your baby, you teach her how to express joy, delight, happiness, fascination, excitement, and the full spectrum of new and powerful emotions.
(3) Control of the viewing experience-Naturally, because you control the television and video, you control the viewing experience, speeding up over scenes and episodes for which your child shows little interest, slowing down and becoming involved with sounds and images that naturally command your baby’s attention. The designers assure the developmental appropriateness of each video, but you have the luxury of tailor making your Baby Einstein DVD to fit your baby’s needs and tastes.
