Week 12 Reading Response

Herrrrre we go!

Now, this list relates to my own personal thoughts if I were to do a presentation in a classroom today. As I don't have to plan anything or actually have teaching responsibilities, I imagine my listing differs from others.

To promote creativity and self-expression

To strengthen student’s ability to resist the negative messages present in mass media, digital media, and popular culture about violence, materialism, stereotypes, and sexuality

To increase student motivation and engagement in the classroom

To strengthen discrimination skills in distinguishing between high-quality and low-quality messages

To build students’ ability to be active, thoughtful “readers” or interpreters of the media messages in their cultural environment

To help students use their own voices for advocacy and social change

To increase students’ knowledge of the mass media in society

To improve students’ writing and communication skills by enabling them to use a wide range of message forms, symbol systems, and technologies

To develop students’ skills in using digital technology tools

To promote appreciation for locally produced media and respect for diverse cultures

To build students’ appreciation for the function of journalism, news, and of the media messages in their cultural environment

To build appreciation for film and visual media as an art form

To support the development of student’s content knowledge

To modernize the curriculum and make it more relevant to students

“When I shard my concerns with my then 17 year old daughter, Rachel, she said, “Mom, I’m so glad our school doesn’t allow us to use Facebook in school.  I am totally in favor of internet filtering in school. Without it, I would never be able to get any homework done.”  Pg 179

You know, I’m thinking about this and the use of personal media while in school, all the while I am currently sitting in a high school lunchroom on the eastern panhandle of WV.  I see students at different points of their day – after school, during lunch, during class, in between classes, etc.  In regards to my experience, I’d like to share an observation I’ve made about students and cell phone usage.

I often present kids with broad, abstract, or uncomfortable questions, because I want them to be uncomfortable. Students hear the bullshit college spiel all of the time, talking about financial aid, small class sizes, finding success, blah blah blah.  I try to be real, I ask students about student loans, about parties, and the true pros and cons when comparing different types of schools.

Most schools either ban or severely limit cell phone usage during school and class hours. Something I’ve noticed in the schools that do not is that, when presented with an uncertain situation, students that can access their cell phone do immediately as a way to, in my mind, escape the question. By grabbing at their phone, it is an easy way to deflect the uncertainty and duck out of the question,  rather than making eye contact or perhaps answering a question that they aren’t sure they know the answer to.  Students that cannot access their cell phones often attempt something similar, but it is easier to direct a student who eyes are down on a paper rather than glued to a cell phone screen, in my opinion.

 I’ll be honest, I see adults do this in regular conversation all the time as well. Isn’t this a habit that should be curbed? I don’t believe it is healthy, productive, or educationally sound to develop a habit where, in any situation where you feel stress or determine the thing in question is something you cannot ascertain, you feel you can immediately withdraw from the conversation by using your cell phone to create a “privacy bubble,” of sorts.

“In other schools, there is a blanket rule: no R-rated films can be screened.” (pg 181)

In a fit of conceitedness, I am going to reference my own video, posted last week for the PSA assignment. I created the video with teenagers as a target audience, and I purposefully used the words “dick” and “bitch” in it. Let me ask you: what exactly would I be exposing teenagers to that they already are not exposed to on a grand scale every single day? Let us take these same observations and apply them to media used in the classroom. What are we trying to protect students from? We have all been adolescents, we have all gone through that incredibly colorful period of teenage angst, and we all know that it isn’t freshly scrubbed and smelling of lemons. It is a combination of every emotion and every scene you can think of: sex, anger, violence, depression, nudity, life, death, love, hate, everything.

And we know this. Yet, for some reason, we try to hold on to this slim fragment of our imagination that if something occurs in the classroom, it must represent this white glove pinesol view of learning. Teens can’t see a woman’s breasts in a movie, god forbid! That doesn’t promote learning and might incite a riot.

What about the alternative? What if we embraced what the teens are going through (because, like I said, we went through it to) and instead curbed the media to speak the language and life that the audience knows? Wouldn’t that make it more relevant? Last time I checked, my teenage years weren’t a rerun of Leave it to Beaver.

“…we must confront our own biases, prerconceptions, stereotypes, and low expectations as we discover the capacities and talents of studnets who are struggling with school but who may have considerable competency at other at other skills” (pg 184). 

As I have referenced in previous blog postings, I often come across students who find themselves destined for college majors that they have absolutely no fit with, being driven towards preselected areas by parents, teachers, peers, our counselors.  Part of my job, or at least how I interpret it, is to make sure students are entering majors appropriate for their interest and skill levels.  Based on my conversations with other admissions counselors, I’m in the minority in helping students in this regard.

I think this is something that media can help with. Student media projects that aim to discover more on career areas, college majors, or particular jobs, can help take the veneer off of certain areas that a student might be interested in. I’m not talking about the shitty “look at the occupational outlook handbook and find a major” project that ends up with everyone becoming lawyers, doctors, and computer scientists, but real work exploring the who, how, and what. Maybe something like this will help students realize that if they freaking hate math, they shouldn’t do computer science. If they don’t like blood or science, maybe they shouldn’t do pre-med.  And I’m not saying that we should dissuade students from their dreams. If a student truly does have a passion for a certain area or subject, then an appropriately led project should serve as a fuel for that passion, not as a discouragement.