Weekly Reading #9

Quotes from Chapter 6:

"[Teens] act and behave in ways that conform both to their local community and to the vast array of media messages that display how teens and young adults should behave, think, and act." Pg 108

This entire page stood out to me because I have an opportunity to glance briefly into the social structures of different regions throughout the east coast while performing my job duties.  Over the past two months, I have been to roughly 50-60 high school or college admissions events in West Virginia, Maryland, DC, Delaware, New Jersey, and Mexico. While I understand that this is just the introduction,  I felt I might have something to lend to the chapter in terms of my experience.

I'm always very intrigued by the different cultures represented through attire, behavior, and attitude in different areas.  When I visit Prince George's County in Maryland, boys rarely ask me about academics, instead wanting to know about football or basketball programs. "Ya'll D-1?" is a question I get frequently, for students that are only looking to play for a division one sports program. These students, largely from inner city regions of the DC suburbs, view athletics as their inspiration to get out and make something of themselves, idolizing professional athletes that came from the region. There is a joke among admissions counselors about the questions "You got hair?", which is a student looking for a cosmetics program. In cental/southern Delaware, students wear camo and blue jeans. In the Atlantic City region, girls wear spandex and belly shirts while guys wear letterman jackets. In West Virginia, boys typically roam from table to table in "packs" and often make jokes about exploring college rather than asking serious questions.  In Baltimore, students go from table to table trying to find the school that is furthest away, then fill out a card for information no matter what the school's criteria is. While doing this for Fairmont State, they often look up and tell me that they are going to the local community college, but want more information anyways.  In Bel Air, MD last week, I had several families tell me that West Virginia was too far away, only to then go to the Florida Institute of Technology table and say that they would be visiting soon. In the Philadelphia suburbs, many girls wear tons of makeup and lipstick with revealing clothing, and boys will follow them from table to table, getting information from colleges based on what the girls choose. Certain high schools have students that only want a certain major, presumably based on overbearing advice from a teacher or counselor. You can only hear "I want to be a forensic psychologist" so many times at one school before you realize the idea has been implanted and has no real foundation.  

Anyways, I need to get off of these tangents The point I'm making is that I can visit a school along I-270 near DC and speak to students and see a culture of, to be stereotypical old guy, "sex n drugs," getting asked questions like "Do I need to take a drug test to get admitted?" 'I can then visit a school two miles away and speak with students dressed better than myself asking about specific research opportunities for pre-med study.  I think it is important, as we begin to analyze the youth that we work with, the remember that every community has its own layers of influence and culture that play a part in the develop of the attitude and behavior of teenagers in society, beyond the general influences that we see in mainstream media.  Ideas that apply to group X may not apply to group Y simply by rule that they are of the same age bracket. 

"When parents and teachers stand on a soapbox and bemoan the problems of media culture, that's not an effective form of education."

I think this is an interesting point to analyze, especially today with the scores of shootings and the increasing teen sexual activity we see in educational environments.  For violence in media, is the answer censorship?  Would shielding our youth from certain images and experiences benefit them as they age? Has abstinence worked well on preventing teens engaging in sexual activity? 

Human curiosity will win if we simply attempt to shelter teens from the media that we see today. If I'm told I cannot, under any circumstances, watch a movie because of nudity or violence, I'm suddenly very intrigued by what exactly I'm being restricted from.  

Education our students to critically engage and analyze media, as well as its effects and messages, is the best way for us to assist students with properly categorizing and understanding media today. Simply telling someone that violence in media is bad teaches nothing.

"When students are invited to identify the restricted portrayals of females, noticing their positions as passive victims, and counting the prominence of romance and fashion themes, they don't always come to the same conclusions as their teachers." Pg 119

I've been thinking about this idea as I've been reading several books over the last year or two. I typically read books from the fantasy, dark fantasy, and epic fantasy type genres, and I frequently find one gender disturbingly represented.  In one series, every female character that plays a major role in the story is raped within a 500 page book.  Other females all solicit sex as a tool for personal or political gain, and great detail goes into explaining the appearance of their genitalia. Of the rapes, around a few of the women kind of pass it off as no big deal. I actually ended up reselling the second book of the trilogy after about 100 pages, as the trend continued into book two. The Warded Man, look it up if you wanted to take a view. I'm curious if others have the same impression I do, as I've never met someone that actually read the book also. 

 

In another series I've read, the male gender is depicted as blood thirsty, violent, extremely sexual, and yet amazingly cultured, often going into great detail about clothing and wine choices. The female gender finds all of these traits as incredibly attractive, and actively seek to "own" men.  It is sort of like a primal James Bond-esque culture. I never encounter a book that has the women as blood thirsty or sex-craved, just as I've never read a book where the men are passive and helpless. 

I always find books interesting in examining the effects of our culture, because I feel that many of us, myself included, read books as an attempt to escape into a different world, a projected kind of reality. The path that a book takes in creating it's own world can sometimes reflect the echoes of what the messages projected in our society.