The Chester Challenge The Principal At Chester Elementary, Dennis Olsen, Has Challenged Families To Turn Off Their Televisions And Spend Time Together
As Dennis Olson caught up on his professional reading this summer, he came to an uncomfortable truth.
Television was swallowing too much of his time.
Reading - in particular, reading aloud to his younger son, Brian - was getting short shrift. It was time to push the pendulum back. Olson’s education magazines reported on research showing that reading aloud is directly related to greater success at school.
So Olson and his wife, Sharon, turned off the TV and settled in with Brian, a sixth-grader, to read Super Fudge. Aloud. In bed.
“That’s where we read.”
Olson is the gregarious principal of Chester Elementary School. He became convinced that what was right for his family was, in this case, also a good thing for his students. He sprang the idea at Chester’s back-to-school night, coupled with a slide show with the theme, “In the eyes of a child, love is spelled time.”
Thus the Chester Challenge was born. It goes like this:
Turn your television off at least one night a week, spend time together in family activities, and read to your children at least two hours a week. The program will run until Christmas vacation.
Nearly 200 of the 280 families at Chester are participating. Some have pledged as many as five nights. The average family is turning off the TV 2-1/2 nights per week. Chester parents, overall, have agreed to read to their children 725 hours per week.
“Talk about a way to improve test scores!” Olson said.
At the start, he was nervous about the project.
“I may not be the principal in the parade this year,” he said a few weeks ago, referring to his selection last spring to appear in Spokane’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“But it’s worth the risk.”
He saw a couple of pitfalls.
First, going without TV was tough enough for Olson.
“It wasn’t real easy in my house,” on those first August evenings, Olson said. What if he put out the challenge and then flopped himself? What if parents who took the challenge floundered?
Second, he worried about overstepping his bounds.
Indeed, some parents have stayed away from the program, disliking the sense of being monitored in their own homes.
But since late September, the front hall of the school has bloomed with the bright yellow pledge cards. One looks suspiciously tattered.
“Everybody asks ‘What happened to that one?”’ Olson said. “It went through the washing machine because the kid didn’t want to turn it in. But the mom found it.”
Two months later, the Olson family has bought $50 worth of new table games, and the nights without TV are something they look forward to.
“It’s really changed our family. I’m listening to the kids more. That doesn’t mean they’ve become perfect kids. But you start talking and you find out what’s going on at school and who’s bugging them and what are we going to do about it - instead of looking at the TV and looking like a bunch of goons,” Olson said.
“My oldest son (Brandon) is 14. I’ve got three more years with him. My youngest is in sixth grade, so we’ve got seven with him.
“I kept hearing all these stories from families with kids in college - stories about how now is when you should spend lots of time with your kids. And I didn’t do anything about it.”
He is now, three nights a week.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: News from the front lines of TV-less land These comments are excerpted from letters received by Chester Elementary Principal Dennis Olson from Chester parents whose families are turning television off at least one night a week: “The first night we talked about the Chester Challenge ended with a 6-year-old in tears, a 10-year-old pouting in her room and two adults yelling at one another. Our family wasn’t exactly closer. “We did agree to two nights, one during the week. We have now played Parcheesi, read more stories and discussed what is going on in our lives and in the world … We also reduced computer game time/use so we didn’t substitute one screen for another.” “Sundays and Mondays are our days. We have done it for many years and have found a feeling of love and caring dwells when we’re not fighting about what we’ll watch or not watch.” “Here’s more fun ideas for family activities we enjoy: kick the can, capture the flag, flashlight walks, rollerblade tag, snow walks, rain walks … Whiffle ball at night, guaranteed to make you laugh!” “Our family appreciated your implementing the family TV-off program because then there was proof that it wasn’t ONLY our family that went without TV all week long.”