Media Literacy All The Way! -- Assignment for June 4th

For this week’s post I read the introduction and first chapter of teachingmedialteracy.com by Richard Beach. This reading brought up the importance of incorporating the teaching of media literacy into the regular curriculum – something I find to be necessary. I found the case from Eden Prairie to be quite determinate of the disparagement that may be faced as educators advocating for a media literacy curriculum. The incident brought up in this reading was a school board member who felt the use of film in classrooms was is inappropriate because it involves a “low skill level” where as reading and discussion is elite and therefore more important (Beach 2007). In the many hours I have spent in schools, I have seen this resistance to media and media literacy to be quite strong. Of the teachers that have incorporated media, many fail to also incorporate a critical pedagogy; they use movies or other media simply for the sake of using it. As educators we need to have sound pedagogical reasoning for all the choices we make – showing a movie just because doesn’t seem sound to me. I feel incorporating media literacy throughout the curriculum not only provides students with important skills they need in a world overflowing with media, but it also provides students with a medium they are familiar with and therefore more able and willing to understand and discuss it. It seems for students school is a place of reading, and outside of school is for everything media. Why not bring in this world the students live and breathe everyday and teach them the same skills they learn from reading books?

In my student teaching experience I have noticed how media continually influences the student’s lives. Students are involved with some form of digital media for nearly 7 hours a day (Beach, 2007). Students are typically in school for 6-8 hours leaving another 5-8 hours left in their day. Seeing little media interaction in school, it seems students must spend a large amount of time outside of school involved with some form of media. Why then, shouldn’t educators jump at the opportunity to help students develop skills in a form they spend a lot of time with? Why is there such refusal for the use of media?

I wonder if the strong rejection of media studies is a result of elitists who feel that there is a need to decrease the amount of television people and children watch because it “rots your brain”. I think we need to instead accept the fact that people watch a large amount of television and are engaged in many forms of media. We then need to use that pre-disposed engagement in schools as an opportunity for learning. We also need to recognize the increasing importance of teaching children to be critical of TV and other media as their consumption of those things is increasing. Educators need to help students to be aware of how media positions its consumers and shapes society, as well as the messages it conveys and the messages it leaves out.

Like many children as described in Beach’s book, I grew up in a house that had a TV for every room, even my own bedroom, although my family did not get a computer until I was in middle school, and internet access years later. As I’ve grown older I’ve ditched the cable bill and seldom watch TV, but I can’t seem to give it up, nor my precious PS3. I feel no need to give up TV, video games, or other media, as I don’t think they are mind numbing. I look at the media I consume as I do of any text, with the critical eye (or ear) I have learned and developed through my education. Sure I more often kick-back and relax, but I’m able to also take a step back, understand the constructs of the media, and see the value and place it has in our society. As I’ve become more critically aware of my media surroundings, I’ve seen my parents to be easily swayed and provoked by the television they consume. Maybe this is why I feel it is so important for children to learn and understand how the media influences and shapes us, to learn how to be critical consumers in a society saturated with medial influences. As my studies as an English major, I feel lucky to have become well aware of how the media affects and tries to affect me, but I’ll admit being critical about the media is something I am still learning more about. I feel then, that it is my job to give students access to the media through a critical perspective so they can become informed consumers and participants of society.