To Cheat or Not To Cheat?: Disney Doesn't Care

So, I'm trapped in my house on a pretty day grading mildly horrible analytical essays on Frankenstein that, yes, I brought on myself.  Emily's Disney Channel cartoons from the morning have evolved from the preschool, educational shows that I can actually tolerate (Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Doc McStuffins) to the slightly older target audience of "Good Luck Charlie."  Although these shows focus on high school life, no teenager actually watches them--they truly are meant for kids in 2nd or 3rd grade at the oldest.  

I was able to ignore the show for the majority of the 30 minutes it wastes as mere "background noise," until the very end when a panicked boy asked his mother to assess a dress he made for his (art?) class.  The dress, comically enough, was made from candy wrappers and ribbons and construction paper--yet functionally wearable by the four-year-old model he used to help him construct it.  The next scene shows the boy in a classroom with his teacher (poised with her gradebook and pen in hand, ready to assess his project).  He shows off a cute, sleeveless sundress while he narrates how the young girl wearing it will be both free to move and dance while adhering to the highest fashion trends of the top (pre-pubescent?) divas.

The teacher, clearly impressed, discusses the fine attributes of the dress--the "clean lines," "excellent fabric choice," and "elegant design" of the pattern.  At this moment, he picks up the girl model and the teacher notices a price tag sticking out of the back of the dress.  "Is that a price tag?" she asks.  He admits that, yes, it is a dress he bought rather than made himself.  The teacher sighs and scribbles in her gradebook while announcing, "Alright . . . B minus!"  
"Really?" he emits, incredulously, "because buying is a creative way to solve the problem?"
"No," she retorts, "because this is your third time in my class.  We're DONE." (insert laugh track)

So, here's my problem.  Before these viewers even come close to entering an academic environment in which they will be significantly challenged to think for themselves, to fail multiple times before succeeding, to exercise some shred of integrity in a world that makes it so incredibly easy to eschew, Disney is teaching one solid lesson: As long as you fail--or cheat--enough times, someone will merely push you through a system that ostensibly is set up to assess achievement.  In other words, there's no actual achievement necessary in order to pass a class or graduate a program or collect a degree. 

Now, for countless occupations (including blogging :-)), this lesson may not matter.  But what happens in twenty years when our western world is peopled with aspiring and practicing doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, engineers and architects who have absorbed through their earliest media digestion that cheating is as valid a method of achievement as actually learning content or acquiring competency?

Once Emily is sufficiently knowledgable with her shapes and colors and letters and numbers, we'll switch over to the Discovery Channel or National Geographic where she will learn true lessons about what happens when you're NOT the fastest animal in the African savannah.

In the meantime, at least, Disney will furnish me with fodder about which to blog :-)