“There was a turtle by the name of Bert
And Bert the Turtle was very alert
When danger threatened him he never got hurt
He knew just what to do”
Anybody
that grew up during the Cold War may remember this little jingle. This was a
message on how we could prepare ourselves if an atomic bomb were to have ever
been dropped on the United States. The message was created by Civil Defense
Administration to show just what you need to do in case there ever was an
attack. Following our discussion last class on wartime animation, I went
looking for this little educational video because of when I saw it in my high
school history class. This always interested me due to the fact that based on
what we know now, I know that even though we might listen to what Burt the Turtle
did and ducked and covered more than likely we would end up being blown to
smithereens anyway. But do you want to tell a bunch of kids that? I highly
doubt that. So with that being said, this is why this little gem came to be.
What is interesting about this is that it shows the kids in the classroom and
people around the country just in fact that there could be a possible atomic
bombing at anytime and it could come without warning. So how should they go by
relaying this message? Well, look no further than Burt. Even today we are still
faced with the real situation that there could be an attack, but we are far
more prepared than we were back in 1951. What interests me even more though is
the fact that things escalated so quickly during World War II and afterwards.
If people would have heard someone talking about a weapon like this prior to
World War I perhaps, they may look at you like you have three eyes. Fast-forward
what really is not too much time when thought about and you have this. It really
is amazing that something like the atomic bomb was created, and then to have to
find a way to relay that message to kids, well it seems near impossible to do
due to the fact that if you told a kid that everything they had could be gone
in a literal flash it would scare them to death. So I applaud the creators of
this film due to the fact that it gives kids a way to deal with something as
real and as monstrous as a nuclear attack.
While I didn't grow up during the Cold War, I can relate to this. Being only nine years old when 9/11 happened I can understand how odd it is to learn that someone wants to attack your home country. Admittedly, we did not have Bert the Turtle telling us to duck and cover during a terrorist attack, we didn't really have any kid-friendly media to explain to us what happened (other than the Time for Kids article my teacher made us read in class about a week or two after the attacks). We had to learn everything from the news and our parents, and even then things still didn't make sense. It's interesting how times have changed.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Many people see Civil Defense as an oxymoron, and see the present day Dept. of Homeland Defense as nothing more than a bureaucratic extension of Civil Defense. I say in the face of a threat one needs to do something. Prepare, have a plan or face the consequences. The alternative is to have a defeatist or nihilist view of the situation, in which case I would simply ask that person to get out of the way while I and others at least try to do something to survive whatever is coming. Children like guidance, and like to know what to do. To simply leave children with nothing is in my humble opinion inhumane. Should we simply tell children to inhale as much smoke at they can when there is a fire so that they don’t have to deal with the pain of death by fire? That may be a stretch of the argument, but I know preparing your mind for threats ahead of time help you deal with them. It does not matter what that is, but knowing the threat and having a plan is better than being faced with it and all you can say is: I have no idea what to do. The CD cartoons served their purpose.
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