Dear people, be careful — new angels have appeared. Be attentive so that your children aren’t taken by these angels… And what angels? Not the ones you know with white wings and halos on their heads; they don’t appear unexpectedly when you need them. They are a new breed of angels; they are modern-day student-angels — to put it differently, they are from “The School of Angels”.

 

No matter how much I tried to shut off my brain and think, it’s all the same, nothing will change by what I write, but well what can I do? This is how I am — I can’t stay silent. 

 

The School of Angels: A new masterpiece from H1 (Armenia’s Public TV broadcaster), following the “Anna” series. What does this “innocent” TV series offer? What does it teach our children, what message does it have? 

 

Let me try to somewhat explain this message:

“Dear students, lose the studying, lose school, lose respect toward teachers, lose all that is sacred and valuable.

 

“Girls, it’s better that you tend to yourselves, style your hair in place, dress well (meet the dress code requirements), while you, boys, diligently cram — for the jargon that completes your image (so you don’t fall behind your friends), learn to lie and… attention! Learn to break each other’s jaws. You will definitely need this during your fights.

 

“Yes, darlings, what’s the point of studying?  What boring and uninteresting pastime have you found? Fall in love; even wreck a family, if necessary; more so, graduating students: you shouldn’t prepare for exams. You’re not naive, are you? Find a fearless boyfriend, let him rent an apartment for you and… run away together. Feels good, eh?”

 

Enough already, dear screenwriter, how much more of this can we stand? I, for example, as an average TV viewer, longed for a scene in which, say, one of these student angels prepares a lesson, reads a book (of course I’m not saying show the entire process of reading a book for hours), does any kind of homework or, say, as a group they discuss a topic that would be of interest, that is appropriate for school-age children. At the end of the day, it’s a school, right?

 

Today, even without this, the word “teacher” has lost its sometimes eminence, and you shouldn’t play more with that fuse… In the series, mini angels unsparingly ridicule the teacher and it is in no way punished; on the contrary, the principle forces the teacher, contrary to her will, to give good grades to the cruising-in-a-Jeep, always-absent-from-class, but… but, the most important, son of a money-wielding character.

 

I understand that to a certain extent it’s our reality, but you just can’t do that: television is for not only revealing and presenting reality, but also educating, showing the right way. The jargon and filth on the street shouldn’t be brought on air and offered “with care” to school-age children who are at their “most dangerous” age (as at this age they’re constantly copying and imitating others).

 

Dears, I have one request: let’s give good material to be copied, so that we don’t go looking for who to blame when it’s “pasted”.

 

Shushan Ohanyan

Journalist

 

School: High school named after Sero Khanzadyan, city of Goris

University: Goris State University, Faculty of Armenian Language and Literature

Favorite book: Oliver Twist

Favorite music: instrumental music (piano) is more dear to me

Favorite sport: football (soccer)

Favorite expression: “No cause is high enough to justify the unworthy means to achieve it”

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.