Tag Archives: children

Justification

  By laurelfelt | January 26, 2012 - 5:32 pm | , , , , ,
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As I tore apart my computer in search of texts to enrich my article for Learning, Media, and Technology, I found this piece which I delivered (or didn’t — I have a habit of jumping off-book and riffing in front of a live audience) before the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees on April 15, 2011.

I’ve always wanted to make the world a better place, and thought that the way we raise children is central to any/all such undertakings. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, I studied Education & Social Policy, with minors in political science and French. I did original, on-site research for my honors thesis, visiting child care centers in Paris, Oslo, and urban Chicago. I reviewed the way each culture balanced the social-emotional and the cognitive — Were they tensions in opposition? Were they intertwined partners?

Spongebob Squarepants got me to graduate school. My friend Jenn and I were babysitting a bunch of five-year-olds and, while we happened to be on the street of a housing project in Boston, I suspected that this scene could have unfolded anywhere in America, maybe anywhere around the world…

Here we go round the mulberry bush… the ice cream truck chimed. My friend Jenn asked the kids what they wanted.

“Spongebob!” they cried, eyes glued to the image of a frozen treat shaped like he who lives in a pineapple under the sea.
“They’re out of Spongebob,” Jenn explained patiently. “What’s your next choice?”
“Dora!”

POP! Goes the weasel!

That’d be Dora the Explorer, another children’s TV character who the youngsters could ice cream-ily cannibalize. Now, I’d been a kid who worshipped at the electric fireplace, effortlessly memorizing movie & TV dialogue, gobbling books, acting in plays. But I always, ALWAYS, had firm ideas about chocolate and vanilla. Was something different going on here?*

I started out by looking at the extent to which young people interacted with electronic media, analyzing children’s media content according to unsavory themes, like aggression, materialism, xenophobia, and stereotypical gender roles, which I continued at USC. Then I became interested in influencing the content itself, first through disseminating research to studios with Dr. Stacy Smith, then by supporting entertainment-education efforts with Dr. Sheila Murphy and Hollywood, Health & Society. From there I became interested in what people do with the content, and that’s what led me to Dr. Henry Jenkins and, in a sense, brought me back to square one. How do we make the world a better place, shift the way we raise children, address the social-emotional and the cognitive?

This skills-rich approach seems the way to go, in my opinion. Not only is each person, each community, and each moment in time distinct, but people hate being told from on high what to do. It doesn’t make sense to come up with one fixed set of solutions, one “universal” plan, and tell every person out there to do it. It just doesn’t work. But let’s say you help them to develop skills, fundamental capacities for diverse application. Then individuals’ and communities’ possibilities are limitless. They can realize their own potential, and build their own solutions that reflect their unique circumstances.

At RFK Community Schools, via the Explore Locally, Excel Digitally after-school program, I’m helping those skills to take hold. The skills pertain to social-emotional competence (SELs; self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making), and new media literacies (NMLs; defined as “a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the new media landscape” (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Weigel & Robison, 2006, p. 4)). Despite the words “new” and “media” in their label, NMLs are neither new nor exclusively for or about media. They’re especially useful in the context of new media, but they’re fundamental, time-honored, digitally agnostic skills. They’re about enriching learners with useful, versatile capacities that help them think sharper, work better, and appreciate fuller the ethical ramifications of their actions.

As thirteen-year-old me once sang in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, playing the role of Mrs. MacAfee in Harand Theater Camp’s summer 1993 production of Bye Bye Birdie, “I don’t know what’s wrong these kids today!”

Anticipation

  By laurelfelt | July 14, 2011 - 8:24 pm |
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Terrorism struck Mumbai yesterday evening, first time since the November 2008 incident in which “10 terrorists laid siege to the city for 60 hours, targeting two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station” (TNN, 2011). In this case, three IEDs were detonated, one in each of the following financial/commercial areas: Opera House; Dadar; Zaveri Bazaar. Officials report that the explosions occurred between 6:50 and 7 pm on Wednesday, July 13.

Blackberry messages alerted our coworkers of the incident as we concluded class around 7 pm. We scrapped our plans to catch a screening of “Delhi Belly” and instead walked home, wondering whether pedestrians’ behaviors seemed different, or if we were just regarding pedestrians’ behaviors with different eyes. Do people seem more on edge? Emily asked. Besides the inextricability of our own affected lenses, there was also the confounding variable of incipient rain, which could make anyone anxious. Impossible to tell, I concluded. And we continued heading for cover.

For a couple of Americans, going to work at the World Trade Center less than 24 hours after financially-targeted terrorism has rocked the city… well, it’s somewhat bizarre, to put it mildly. We dodged puddles as monsoon conditions (really just rain), for the first time since our arrival, complicated our morning commute. No time was lost in security, however — that is, no extra time. As always, we opened our bags for two security personnel upon entering the World Trade Center compound at Gate 4. Inside Center 1, we walked past security guards, put our bags on the metal detector’s conveyor belt, walked through the scanner, and continued on our way. No additional personnel were detailed, no extraordinary procedures were invoked. We waited for an up elevator amid an average-sized crowd of businessmen, and climbed aboard after an average-length interval had elapsed. Business as usual. First floor. Excuse us. We’ve got to go teach five-year-olds how to fly.

As we set up the classroom, Emily asked Malika what to expect from the kids. Will they be upset about the situation? she inquired. Malika assured us that this sort of thing was common enough, and parents wouldn’t be too shaken by it as to produce a tense atmosphere at home. How should we talk about all of this with them? Emily persisted. Malika recommended saying as little as possible. We braced ourselves for what was to come (and prepared our curriculum — it was still another day of demystifying lift and air pressure). Vasundhara had contacted parents the previous night, trying to ascertain whether enough parents would send their children today in order to justify our session. Only four children were definite No’s — but in the end, out of a class of 14 youngsters, only four children were definite Yes’s. With three teachers and a cleaning-oriented aide… those are some ratios.

And the first thing that those attendees did upon entry was head to the block area, talk of terrorism on their lips.

CHILD 1: There’s a bomb in India.
CHILD 2: In Opera House.
CHILD 1: Let’s build Opera House.
CHILD 3: I saw it on the news channel.
CHILD 2: All of the others are scared of the bomb. The three of us will go to a single table.

It was textbook.

I jotted their dialogue and supported their efforts to build Opera House, a fire brigade, a helipad, my house, a plane, and a birthday cake with candles. They talked about emergency rescue and superheroes, with mentions of the bomb periodically peppering their discourse. It was difficult to determine the extent to which the pretend phone calls reporting fire and simulated superhero combat was influenced by current events — both play scenarios are daily staples, especially for one special needs child. As a special treat, teachers delighted students with some chasing and full body tickling. Maybe we all needed to blow off a little steam.

We wrapped up our extended session in the block area and, once again, our students noticed that there were only four little pairs of hands to assist in classroom activities.

CHILD 2: All four of us, our mothers didn’t get scared.
CHILD 3: My mother got scared but my father didn’t get scared.

I read them a story during snack, a tale they found humorous (thank goodness, not ominous) about an inventor who creates robots that run amok and destroy his workshop. We showed them videos of flying creatures, which surprisingly failed to captivate their fascination. We hoped that our special needs friend would thrive in this less-stimulating environment but he still struggled to control his impulses and focus on curriculum. We charted the four forces and the relationship between airfoils and air pressure before singing the children goodbye, and it seemed as though at least two of the kids got it. Whether they’ll be able to speak about it to their parents (who may or not be product-oriented, may or may not be scared) I cannot say.

Malika ordered us McDonald’s for lunch and we waited for its delivery… and waited… and waited. Several phone calls to various managers didn’t seem to produce results. Only the language of financial violence — threat to not pay for the food — prompted a return call from a middleman who apologized and said, if Malika did not pay, the money would be pulled from his own shallow pocket. An hour and 15 minutes after its specified delivery time, the food arrived, and Malika got through to corporate, settling the matter so that neither she nor this poor, powerless employee would have to pay.

We weren’t sure what would manifest in the afternoon. Parents had said they were sending their kids but we’d heard a similar tune the previous night. The artist who had agreed to ply our hands with mehndi canceled. Malika left for her appointment. We planned an itinerary that would allow Emily and me to work together — more practical considering our staffing and possible low numbers.

Everyone showed.

The afternoon flowed smoothly, alternating between games and serious science. We’d made it through our last full day of instruction, as Friday is divided — one quarter curriculum, one quarter preparation, one half Open House. Emily and I bought snacks for our Bollywood movie night at home with Malika, who wound up canceling. We drank the wine ourselves and let the Gilmore Girls, well-known friends to Emily and me both, engage in their fast-talking banter as we wrote the final newsletter and commented on this week’s student journals.

Tomorrow is our last day of EMP, and not a city-wide holiday as yesterday’s unsubstantiated rumors had alleged. Emily has said that teaching is improv — you have to embrace the unexpected and adjust without getting bent out of shape. This time last week, I was recovering from a fever and stomach bug; this time next week, I’ll be back in Glenview — that is, if all goes according to plan.

I can’t conclusively know what’s coming next, and that’s the point of some of the education reform arguments I’ve read and happen to have made myself. Since we live in a world of constant change, all we can do is hone our agility, enhance our ability to react to what comes… and perhaps develop our serenity as we lie in anticipation, practice our acceptance of the (inevitable) unexpected.

Process and products

  By laurelfelt | July 3, 2011 - 6:51 am | ,
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This past week of Art Detectives encouraged participants to examine an artifact and consider, “How was this made? Where was this made? When was this made? Why was it made? What does it tell you about the people and culture who produced it?”

As we spent the past few days presenting the children’s process and products at Open House, scavenging tourist-hungry avenues for souvenirs, rejiggering next week’s curriculum, and visiting ancient temples, the significance of these questions loomed large…

How does a well-to-do Indian parent discern the magnitude and value of a child’s learning from a: (hieroglyphically) carved bar of soap, (rose petal and) watercolored picture, (papyrus-inspired) weaving of paper bag strips, (ancient Greek-inspired) painted clay pot, (Roman mosaic-inspired) arrangement of construction paper pieces? Our EMP Art Gallery offered parents a chance to explore the means of production, experimenting with the materials that made each piece. And the sheer quantity of *stuff* was convincing for this audience.

So how does a well-to-do Indian parent discern the magnitude and value of a child’s learning from: a child-invented toy pieced together from recycle materials? What if this artifact looks unpolished? What if this is the only tangible product of the week? How does this parent see the process, and how worthwhile is the process if the product fails to impress? Our teaching team hatched schemes to unveil process and multiply products, but it was somewhat of a struggle. Were we hired to: a) deliver process to privileged children; b) deliver process and teach their well-to-do Indian parents about the value of process; or c) deliver process, teach about process, and still deliver product? C, I think, is the correct answer. And is that bad? Are progressive Americans too prone to err on the other side, saying that incorrect information and/or poor quality output is okay if someone was “trying their best” or “expressing themself”? Where do we draw the line?

Haggling over products — dime-a-dozen knickknacks clogging Colaba Causeway, I thought about process. How were these scarves and nesting dolls and wall hangings and sandals and bindis and bangles and everything made, in terms of quality and labor conditions? Why were they made? To what extent do they express anything genuine about the culture, save its need to satisfy tourists? On my travels, I’ve often wondered whether the products hawkers vend embody caricaturized versions of their own culture, manufactured to reify foreigners’ (mis)conceptions of their temporary hosts… After all, how many French people wear berets? And yet, how many embroidered berets are sold at gift shops facing the Louvre? How many Senegalese people own carved giraffes? How many Indians carry elephant-mirrored handbags? And yet, back in the States, what joy will these representations of the fantastical Other bring?

Exploring product — the cavernous temples on Elephanta Island, rock-cut shrines to Shiva dating back to the 5th-8th century, I wondered about the who in the process. Who were the people involved in the construction of this work — the visionaries, the models, the carvers, the apprentices, the clergy, the worshippers? I’ve had the privilege of touching ancient stone all over the world, from Jerusalem to Tours, Athens to Bergen. I used to wonder about the hustle and bustle of long-gone marketplaces, wished I could touch the remnant and be hurtled magically back through time. On Sunday, though, despite my recent engagements with commerce, I didn’t think about marketplaces. I thought about women. What role(s), if any, were women given back then? Were they allowed to touch tools, carve stone, pray in the holy of holies? Did they collude in art and religion’s exaltation of the phallus? Outside the temple, two nursing mothers — monkey and dog — tended to their clingy young. Was that the lot of ancient women as well, kept from the high-profile artistic and spiritual by the down-to-earth artistic and spiritual — child-rearing?

This week of EMP is dedicated to toys — creating new products from recycled products (e.g., used waterbottles and containers, bottle caps and bits of fabric and packing foam, etc). So much stuff. Our objective is to focus on the process, the development of ideas, blueprints, and prototypes, the iterative processes of building, testing, and modifying constructions and blueprints… And yet, our questions were about the product children love best — “What is your favorite toy?”, and our process includes selling the product — writing promotional copy, designing a graphic, even shooting a commercial for the ambitious elders. Consumerism. Of course, creating one’s own advertisement raises consciousness to the constructed nature of advertisements in general, their objectives and methods, and so a case can be made for its immunizing, media literate influence upon consumerism… It’s complicated, especially since we’re beholden to pleasing our cultural community by delivering a certain quantity of product that boasts a certain quality.

Still I mull which god to worship, the god of process or the god of product… and I wonder to what extent they’re both false idols. Or vessels…

I’ve decided that I want the theme for this upcoming year to be Joy. So maybe we shouldn’t fixate on the how or the what, the process or the product, but how they make us feel. Isn’t that largely what motivates creation and acquisition — a deep-seated craving for satisfaction? So whatever floats your boat, perhaps…

To hedonism?