Despite what anybody says or thinks about TV cartoons and their popularity with children everywhere, I am convinced that they hold the key to our kids education. And whether we notice it or not, they contribute tremendously to children's education all over the world and everywhere where cartoons are shown on TV.

And I am not even talking about the instances where people in foreign countries are said to learn the English language by watching TV cartoons for hours on end. Whether this is true or not, the subject of my article is knowledge obtained by kids that goes beyond learning a language.

To start with, there are those who are strongly against TV cartoons and believe that they are generally harmful to children. If I remember the argument correctly, it is something about making children violent and resentful towards any authority over their lives.

There are those who believe that kids waste valuable time watching TV cartoons. Time that would have been better spent doing something else.

I believe that a lot of these people with such arguments have hardly watched TV cartoons themselves and just pass sweeping judgment without taking the time to really learn what they can about cartoons. I say this because my experience with TV cartoons has actually been very different and my opinion is that rather than being harmful, they can be quite useful - as an education tool.

I have discovered, accidentally, I must admit, that a vast majority of cartons shown on TV are very educative and help children learn lots of useful things and information which can be key assets in their lives.

When I was a kid I grew up watching lots of cartoons myself. I especially remember The Jackson 5, a cartoon based on the singing group of the time where Michael was one of the lead singers. And I also remember The Road Runner, The Flinstones and another cartoon about a robot called Gigantal (or something like that.)

I know for a fact that I learnt a lot of useful stuff from cartoons. But maybe I am not the best judge of that, so instead let me use my son and grandson as examples. I have watched them from the time they were toddlers and I think I am in a good position to analyze the effects of TV cartoons on them.

The first incident that drew my attention to TV cartoons was the time we were having some discussion about science with my young son. Instructively, one of his favourite cartoons on TV is Dexter's lab. Could this TV cartoon be one of the main triggers that has made him so interested in Science?

Well, back to what I was saying. I can't quite remember what we were discussing with my son that day, but the discussion ended up with me mentioning Albert Einstein, the scientist, and his theory of relativity. My son instantly recognized the formula e=mc2.

I was shocked. I knew that there was no way that he could have heard of this scientific formula in school, so I asked him where he had come across it.

TV cartoons of course. He had seen it several times in Dexter's laboratory and a number of other cartoons he usually liked watching on TV. He did not know exactly what it was, but he was familiar with it already.

Later in school, he will of course cover the topic in his high school science class. Imagine the interest he will already have after our short discussion where I told him a thing or two about the great scientist called Albert Einstein?

There are several other incidences which have happened with both my son and grandson (my daughter's son who lives with us) since then that reveal how educative cartoons can be.

Later I really thought about it and realized that it should not be so surprising after all. Ask yourself this question, who writes the scripts for all those TV cartoons? Grown-ups of course. Yes, they do simplify everything and try to look at it all from the child's point of view. Still there is no preventing them from passing on lots of the knowledge they already have to children through their TV cartoon scripts.

It is interesting that I am yet to meet a kid who does not love TV cartoons. I think that even if you were to offer a cash reward for somebody to find a kid that did not like cartoons, your money would be fairly safe. They hardly exist.

Education happens to us every day as we face life. The more interesting the experience, the easier it is for us to learn. Actually we have all learned a lot of things through our beloved hobbies and stuff that we really love. Learning is easy when it comes to things that we really enjoy and like.

It is human. And this is precisely the reason why more ways to teach kids stuff using TV cartoons should be explored by teachers and educators in general. There is no doubt that the kids will learn very effectively anything taught to them using their favorite TV cartoons.

But having said that, let me quickly add that not all TV cartoons are good or suitable for children, as far as I am concerned. And I am not talking about adult cartoons. I am talking about the stuff that is shown on TV specifically targeted at kids.

There are a few whose objectives are not very clear - at least to me. For example, why would somebody want to teach children the basics of witchcraft?

I am not an expert on this subject and neither do I have any intention of using this article to preach to folks about this subject. However my suggestion is that parents should be every careful to ensure that their children do not get addicted to the wrong TV cartoons. You can find out from the experts which ones they are.

Meanwhile I will sit down and enjoy the occasional cartoon with my children anytime, I also usually learn stuff from them TV cartoons, you know.