Week Six: Toys

Like many girls, my favorite toys growing up were dolls. I asked for new ones every Christmas, and we had huge boxes full of dolls and their "stuff" in the basement. I still remember many of them as if they were dear friends: Joyce, my Cabbage Patch Kid; Sean, my Dreamland Baby; Megan, my "Teeny Tiny Preemie." I also had a whole array of Barbie dolls, including a really cool one my mom bought me when she was pregnant with my brother which had a tiny baby you could hide in her retractable belly. "House" was absolutely my favorite game as a kid, and my friend Shelly and I played it daily. Dolls gave us the freedom to play endless iterations of the same game. While playing "House" Shelly and I took care of kids and pets, sent them to school, and survived tornadoes.

According to this week's reading from Tooning In, as well as other articles I have read, play is an important learning process for children. Often play is in imitation of adult activities, which allows them to have imaginative rehearsals for their later life. There is an evolutionary factor at play here: children like me who played parenting games as kids are historically more likely to raise healthy children who are also good parents, continuing their line of decendants. Playing kickball on the playground helps kids learn the important skill of negotiating rules, a skill they will use daily later in life. Play "enables children to make sense of their world, develops social and cultural understandings, provides opportunities to meet and solve problems, fosters flexible and divergent thinking, allows children to express their thoughts and feelings, develops language and literacy, and develops concepts in all academic areas" (White 145).

While the more "modern" toys definitely have the potential to increase cognitive development (video games, as discussed earlier, help develop spatial reasoning among other things), I would argue that it is the more low-tech, open-ended toys that have the greatest potential for learning. Parents often joke that their children are more interested in the box the toy came in than the toy itself, and I believe there is definite wisdom in that statement. While modern toys often come with "one way to play," there are hundreds of possibilities for engagement with a cardboard box. As an experienced babysitter who has spent more than her fair share exploring toys with kids, I can tell you that my kids will have toys with the greatest number of ways to engage: dolls, blocks, play food, musical instruments, toy cars and ramps, bats and balls. As the article discusses, children need "an environment in which children have the freedom to construct their own dramas built out of their own interpretations of reality" (147).

Vygotsky and other learning theorists have argued that there is definitely a social component to learning. I truly do not believe that the noisy toys with lots of buttons that claim to teach your children the alphabet will actually live up to their claims. Children need to explore literacy with their parents, teachers and peers. Literacy and numeracy will not just come to kids without the scaffolding and social support of an actual person. In addition, computer games should be considered learning supports to a school curriculum, not school itself. In my own classroom, I believe it is important to incorporate toys (are there any language arts toys? Magnetic Poetry, maybe. I'm open to suggestions), games and play, but not at the expense of actual teacher interaction and teaching.

Week Five: Avatars

My Online Avatar Nightmare

Express Yourself with Gizmoz Video Clips

Week Four: Shopping Malls

"I like it here. Everything is so...perfect. You walk around feeling like all your problems can be solved by the right nail polish or a new pair of shoes."
---Marissa, "The O.C."


"The O.C." is one of those guilty pleasure shows because it is, yes, incredibly vapid, but it has those moments when it makes genuine insights on the world we live in. On of those moments is shown in the video above--an entire episode called "The Mallpisode," which taps into a fantasy you probably never knew was in the collective unconscious of American consumers: being trapped inside a mall overnight. This clip made me laugh because it not only plays out the fantasy of being alone in a mall(getting to play hockey in a department store, eat mall food, sleep in the mattress showroom), but there's this great "consumer moment" when Summer and Marissa stop to check out a new product. "Hey, it's the new body shimmer. Ooh, shimmery." They're unable to occupy the space without shopping.

While the characters on "The O.C." represent the wealthiest of the wealthy, people with lower incomes still have a relationship with the shopping mall. A woman I babysat for once asked where I lived, and when she didn't quite know where in the metro I was talking about she asked me which mall it was near. "Oh, Ridgedale," she said, "I know where that is." The mall had become sort of a geographical marker for her. It's possible to map out the Twin Cities metro by the "Dales" (Brookdale, Ridgedale, Southdale, etc.), and apparently some people do. The top movie of the last month or so, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" takes place in a mall, which suggests to me that the mall has become practically a mythical setting.

As in the quote above, I think malls serve a problem solving purpose in our world today. I live near the pretentiously named "Shoppes of Arbor Lakes" in Maple Grove, which is a fairly new mall-like development that's rapidly growing. There are so many different stores (mostly chain stores, but not all) that if you live nearby, there's no reason to venture anywhere else if you need to buy something. It becomes an all-purpose destination, one that is likely to solve any "consumer problem" you might have. It doesn't take much of a stretch in thinking to come to the conclusion that shopping centers might solve your other problems as well.

I'm not much of a shopper, so the mall isn't my favorite place to be, but I've been spending more time in malls lately in my quest to build up my "teacher wardrobe." After awhile, you start to tune in to the things marketing teams must study to know end: what about the mall environment makes people buy stuff? The most obvious example is the "shopping music" that plays loudly in most clothing stores. Besides building the "identity" of the store (and therefore the consumer that should shop there), it seems to be meant to raise the heart rate, keep energies up and inspire purchases. The perfumes that are sprayed regularly in stores like Abercrombie (yes, there are store policies on perfume spraying, and yes, it does smell HORRIBLE) are most likely meant to do the same thing. A discussion of the research that goes into environmental "shopping cues" would be an interesting one to have with young people.

The Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301977.html) was, to me, the most interesting of the readings this week. I had never strongly considered the role the government's role in encouraging consumerism as a way to gain popular favor, but it makes perfect sense to me that preoccupation with stuff is the perfect weapon against the critical thinking of the masses. If the average American is more concerned with the latest whatever than they are with the decisions being made by our country's leaders, then it's easier for those leaders to make decisions that do not represent the values of the average citizen. It is that very issue that I would make a point to discuss with my students. Teaching a critical literacy curriculum is nothing without considering what things get in the way of our critical thinking, and I think a study of shopping malls is just the thing to illuminate that point.

Week Three: Video Games

Although I have two brothers, my gaming experience up until this point has been pretty limited. My favorite game to this day is Tetris, but I remember playing Crash Bandicoot with my brothers on Playstation and taking it very seriously. However, my boyfriend is an avid gamer, committed not only to playing video games, but to analyzing and evaluating them. I must admit, dating him has been a little like going to nerd camp. This assignment to reflect on gender, gaming and education could not have come at a better time.

As a girl who admittedly does not have the patience or determination to get into a game with an extended storyline, I am drawn to games that offer more short-term entertainment--Tetris, Guitar Hero or racing games like Mario Kart. My boyfriend has put some serious thought into finding games that will appeal to me, especially after I expressed my dislike for fighting and shooting games in general. One game he had me try was Pokemon Snap, which is a variation on a shooting game that makes it non-violent. The premise is you are going on a "safari" of sorts, looking for Pokemon creatures to take pictures of. There are several criteria for good pictures, and points awarded for the best pictures. In fact, my boyfriend argues that the regular Pokemon games are a great example of games that appeal to both gender--for boys, it's a fighting/strategy game, for girls, it's a game about collecting cute creatures.

Of course, a game whose sole premise is "collecting cute things" doesn't entirely appeal to me either. Through my experiences babysitting, I've been exposed to several games that are marketed directly to girls. I have to tell you that in general, they totally suck. One is a DS game called Nintendogs whose entire premise is petting and bathing animated puppies. Another is a game that mostly involves choosing a preteen girl character and "buying" clothes for her to wear. Most of the "girl" games I've experienced tends to involve the collection and maintenance of "cute" things, with no real goal or challenge.

The articles for this week seemed to explore two possibilities for incorporating gaming into an educational setting. The first is to use games as a text to look at through a feminist lens. Because both most game developers and most game players are male, how does this affect the construction of video games? In the articles I read for this week (both of which feature the voices of female gamers), many video games alienate female players, either through their stereotyping of female characters, hypersexuality or because the type of game doesn't appeal to female players. Asking students to critically look at the construction of these games, then using the feminist lens to brainstorm ideas for improved games, seems to be a worthy assignment for adolescents. Below are two possible responses, the first from the "game girl advance" site and the second from my boyfriend's blog at Gametrailers.com:

Set up some rules and let the players play with both the gamespace and the genderspace, however they wish. Don't push girls away from games like Tomb Raider just because you're afraid boys won't like to identify with Lara. Don't insert gratuitous sex - or for that matter, violence. Make it *mean* something. Don't bind gender with too many built-in characteristics, but let girls be girls in your game. Allow a lot of different types of female characters, not just thin, pretty, busty ones.

As girls make a more and more powerful influence on the gaming market, will we see fewer damsels in distress and more female protagonists - with autonomy? I sure hope so. I think it's fruitless to try and convince people to boycott games that uphold gender norms, but I think it may be more reasonable to think that gamers as a culture may identify increasingly with flawed protagonists, skinny men, plain women, androgynous people, LGBT characters, and people on general transgressing from the norm instead of supporting it.

The second possiblility for incorporating video games in the classroom came from the second two articles, which suggested playing video games as part of classroom activities as a learning tool. The Labyrinth game described uses an internet-based puzzle game as homework to reinforce math and literacy skills taught at the middle school level. I won't address the issue of technology access here (though it is a concern) but I thought about motivation and engagement as the primary goal of using video games in the classroom. My question would be, aside from the "fun" factor, do video games increase learning and understanding of skills and concepts in ways that traditional pedagogy (worksheets, etc.) do not? To me, both of these possiblilities for using video games in the classroom should only be considered if they can offer a learning experience currently lacking in schools.

Week Two: Fandom

Resistant as I am to write ANOTHER blog entry related to "Lost," this week's topic (fandom) made it impossible for me to resist. I just finished reading the book Lost Ate My Life: The Inside Story of a Fandom Like No Other by Jon "DocArzt" Lachonis and Amy "hijinx" Johnston, which means I am now not only posess a large amount of knowledge of the television show, but I'm well versed on the topic of this particular fandom as well.

I became a fan of "Lost" in the summer of 2006, after the first two seasons had aired on ABC. My mother, who is strangely more tuned into the "hip new things" than her children sometimes, rented the DVDs and my family watched the first season on a family vacation. As far as I know, "Lost" still has the honor of the most expensive pilot episode ever produced for television, and it's the cinematic quality that money allowed, as well as the characters and mystery, that hooked my family immediately. We continue to get together every Wednesday night to watch new episodes, I bake a "Lost" related cake for season premieres, and we have plans to visit Hawaii someday to scope out filming locations.

Watching and discussing the show is one of the most fun things we do as a family, and it's pretty miraculous that all five of us enjoy the same show. Librarian Nancy Pearl describes four "doorways" people use to relate to a book: story, character, setting and language. People who value different doorways have different experiences with the same book. I believe people have the same experience with television as a text, and "Lost" is accessible to those who value story (often males, who look for action-packed programing) and to those who value character (often females, who value relationship-driven shows). So gender and individual tastes do play out in "Lost"'s fandom.

The interesting thing about "Lost," though, is that casual viewership is not allowed. The show is so complex and mysterious that it is just not accessible to those who haven't watched it from the beginning. Nikki Stafford, who writes the Finding Lost episode guide series and the blog "Nik at Nite," describes the look on people's faces "as I rave about Lost to people who’ve never seen it - “What is she TALKING about? Time traveling bunnies? Polar bears on the island? People coming back to life? I’ll stick to CSI…”" In fact, in a blog entry I myself posted in February 2005 (almost two years before watching the show myself) I mention "We talked about the show "Lost" and I reconfirmed my decision that that show is ridiculous and I'm glad I don't watch it." For that reason, when I meet another "Lost" fan, an instant connection is born. Recognizing that another person is "in it" as much as I am is a way to forge a social relationship where one doesn't exist.

One of the most interesting things I read about in Lost Ate My Life was that "Lost"'s fandom is pretty unique. Like many current shows, the internet explosion has nurtured connections between fans and encouraged the amount of internet material there is out there. But it's the connection between the fans and the writers, producers and actors who work on the show that has made "Lost" fandom most unique. "Lost"'s official fan website (www.thefuselage.com) allows fans to communicate with and question showrunners directly, and the writers make themselves available to fans at conferences as well (such as Destination L.A. and ComicCon). In fact, some aspects of how the show is run (no sweeps schedule, no repeats, an agreed-upon end date) are due mostly to fans asking for those things. No other television show has created such changes in broacasting just to appease the fans.

Another phenomenon that evidences the close relationship between showrunners and the fan community is the appearance of "Easter Eggs" in any given "Lost" episode. Easter Eggs are "anything that is more than what it seems to be within a frame of film, an episode of the show as a whole, and is intentionally put there by the creators" (Lachonis, p. 191). For example "Hurley's Numbers" (4, 8 ,15, 16, 23, 42) are a series of numbers with mysterious significance that show up in some capacity in almost every single episode. The show creators know that hardcore fans are up to the challenge of finding every single reference to any of those numbers, so they find ways to bury them within the narrative. It's a way of recognizing that "Lost" fans are some of the most intelligent and obsessed people around, and giving them a wink.

"Lost" fans are thinkers. They analyze each episode, dig out Easter Eggs, decode characters, and unravel complex narrative structures. They do outside research: if a character is seen reading Stephen Hawking, "Lost" fans are likely to pick up the book as well. Real science is often sought out to explain the science fiction. I've found myself digging out my psych textbooks to brush up on the Skinner Box and philosophy books to figure out the Locke's concept of Tabula Rasa. "Lost" fandom invites not just viewing, but reading, writing, discussion, comparison between texts, and (in my case) baking theme cakes.

I think the notion of fandom is incredibly important to the field of education, because each of our students are fans of something. The feeling of alliegance our students will feel toward baseball or Chris Brown or Heroes motivates them to do things most teachers have trouble eliciting enthusiasm for: research, discuss, ask questions, argue, write, become an expert. Our students are researching Carrie Underwood's favorite color, and alien conspiracy theories, and it's that enthusiasm for becoming an expert that would be absolutely welcome in my classroom. It's my goal to find ways to bring that inquiry not only into the teaching of skills (research and writing, for example), but also to critically look at popular culture.

Week One: Popular Culture in Schools?

Television, movies, and music provide fodder for connections among our disconnected citizenry. Why not use this, rather than belittle it?
Cameron White & Trenia Walker, Tooning In

The first three chapters in White and Walker's book Tooning In: Essays on Popular Culture and Education seem to offer several arguments in favor of incorporating texts from popular culture into the classroom. The first is that popular culture is what connects the world at the present moment in history. If you don't believe me, consider that there are people all over the country who know exactly what Rickrolling is just because they've seen the same viral videos. They're intimately aware of the characters on Gossip Girl because they watch the same episodes each week. Although their daily lives might look starkly different, students from two different parts of the country (or different socioeconomic backgrounds or different family structures) could come together to discuss the latest Coldplay album. In an increasingly isolated consumer society, it is important to recognize the things that bring people together.

The second argument in favor of using popular culture in educational settings recognizes that young people are intimately familiar with popular culture, more familiar than they are with current events or great literature. Because they are comfortable with the themes in music, movies and television, they can bring that prior knowledge to forge connections between pop culture and traditional coursework (literature, history, etc.). Students who are fans of "desert island" shows like Lost and Survivor might be able to come to a greater understanding of Lord of the Flies, for example. Prior knowledge, research shows, pushes learners to new levels of understanding, and the connections between pop culture and curriculum and plentiful. "These connections allow kids to develop the scaffolding needed to construct knowledge" (p. 5).

The third argument is that curriculum designed with popular culture topics in mind are more engaging for the students. Because watching television and movies and listening to music are activities that young people enjoy doing in their free time, why not use that enthusiasm to keep students' attention?

The fourth and most compelling argument in favor of using texts from popular culture in the classroom is to give students' hands-on instruction in "reading the world." Educational goals are changing, the book argues, and should include instruction on critical thinking skills and
"Students who are asked to read popular texts from these broader and multiple perspectives have the potential to develop a more powerful literacy to engage and explore popular culture texts" (p. 23). Young people must find ways to become critical viewers and consumers, to look at pop culture representations as both mirrors and changers of our society and to resist letting pop culture wash over them passively as entertainment

My reaction to these arguments was a resounding "duh." Perhaps it's because I not only love popular culture texts for their entertainment value but I love forging connections between those texts and traditional texts (such as history and literature). My analytical skills allow me to read the world as well as books. I grew up with the internet, which has allowed people to share in their experiences and interpretations of pop culture texts in a way generations before us have not been able to do. Viewers of television shows have the opportunity to use internet forums to discuss and analyze, and music listeners can post their own interpretations of songs on YouTube. This world is familiar to me to such an extent that I can't imagine not using TV parodies to teach Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and it would disappoint me not to teach students how to evaluate films and television.

My hope is that this course will help me to brainstorm new ways to encourage critical thinking skills through a study of pop culture texts. I did not need to be convinced by these first chapters in Tooning In (although I'm sure many outside of my generation did), and I look forward to discussing the implications of these arguments during this semester.