Ok, as we all know, I think Baudrillard was a little over my head. Or, as I said to my mom, perhaps I am just too much of a genius and it was under my head. Haha :) So...I will not talk about Baudrillard.
The first was the three-minute montage of media images that bombard viewers on a daily basis. It is obvious that a lot of what is on television is definitely not appropriate, but this video provided an excellent look at the variety and frequency of such images/ideas. The material we make available to children is shocking. In fact, I was just watching America's Funniest Home Videos the other night - a family show, on at 6:00 in the evening - and it went to a commercial break and the very first commercial we see is a bunch of young girls drinking beer and dancing suggestively with beer in hand at a huge house party. Because I was watching the show with my 9-year old niece I was particularly disturbed by this. Of course it spawned a nice discussion between the two of us about drinking. But it is crazy that these types of images are so easily accessible to young children. What about all the kids that don't have someone watching with them and discussing the things they see on TV?
So I guess this is where schools, teachers and curriculum come in! With our society changing the way it is, I do believe it is absolutely necessary acknowledge these issues. I'll bet that such media images had some part in causing people to feel the need to create that gender document we looked at in class. There is definitely a need to acknowledge in schools what students are seeing and hearing through multi-media. Like we've discussed in class - where is the line between the job of the teachers and the job of the parents? When I talk to my parents, grandparents and other family members and friends, it is obvious that those lines haven't always been so blurry. The school had its place and the parents had theirs. So what has happened now that causes schools to have to fill in the gaps? As much as one might like to say that schools should not have to take on parental roles, what can we do? We can't leave our students floundering. So I definitely think that curriculum and curriculum design do need to accommodate the changing needs of our students and the changing jobs of the school.
In the second video - the Profiles of Generation M2 from the Kaiser Family Foundation - there was one line at the very end that caught my attention. It was when the young guy was talking about text messaging constantly, and he said that when he gets a text "I feel special". I think that one statement hit the nail on the head. "Young people of today" are always being admonished for talking on the phone, texting friends, emailing, using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and playing video games. But I have to wonder...it can't be solely at the fault of these kids. If these kids didn't have their cell phones, computers, video games and friends to occupy themselves with in their spare time, what else would they be doing? Would their parents play board games with them in the evenings? Would they take them out to the museum? The zoo? For a walk? Chances are that many of these parents are either holed up in their offices working, or else glued to the TV for the evening. I really do think that this "hyperconnectivity" is a way for people to feel special. They feel part of a community when they would otherwise be lacking that feeling. Now, I don't want to sound like a grump. Obviously there are many, many, many wonderful parents out there. And I'm sure even wonderful parents have kids who are obsessed with "hyperconnectivity". But I do think that family time has definitely suffered.
Turning again to curriculum, I think that this raises a lot of conflicting issues. On one hand, we say that because we are a technological world and our students use all kinds of technology we should be incorporating technology into our classrooms. At the same time, one could say that because students are bombarded with all of these technologies outside of school we should try to expose them to different ideas and methods of communication in school. Personally, I tend to lean toward the latter. I am here to teach students what they do not know. Not what they already know. I'm not sure I've said this before, but as an example, we have many wonderful music technologies that can enhance music learning (ie. Garage Band, Music Ace, etc.). However, I generally choose not to incorporate these into my classroom because I know that many students spend much of their evenings and weekends "plugged in". Instead, I use the time to help them make music as a community, with real people and real instruments, rather than on their own while staring at a computer screen.
So technology creates a tricky situation for education. Do you go with the flow, or do you go against the grain?
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