AT Week 5

What is the role of art education (or art educators) in teaching students to be media literate digital citizens?

This can sometimes be a tough question to answer, based on limitations and policies. My role as an art educator as well as art educations role, in general, for our students to be medial literate, is big. We, a department whole K-12, have the opportunity to expose our students to digital media and applications that most other areas cannot. We have the opportunity to teach them skills that are highly sought after in the 21^st century. With the younger students, I am a bit more limited. Many of these limitations stem from inexperience with the kinds of programs that would give my students the opportunities they need. In my personal situation K-5, currently get a medium level of exposure to technology. My curriculum is very much centered around the basic foundations of art. My goal with my masters program is to further my abilities to teach my kids how to become media literate. One of the vital things I feel I need to share with my students is the artistic side of reading. Not words, but symbols and designs. This world is so full of digital media that uses little to no direct words, but uses interpretations. Art’s role is to teach students to interpret and understand what they are seeing all around them. “Young people tend to trust, believe, and be highly influenced by the information they see and hear, whether it is provided by a teacher, a news outlet, a friend, or a website.” (Rosen 150) I also feel it is our role as art teachers to teach them to questions the things they are seeing, as well as teach them how to have different opinions.

I also struggle with this idea due to the fact that I have students who cannot think outside of their box. Imagination is not something that my student walks in to the art room with anymore. I am teaching many how to be imaginative, and sometimes it is like beating my head on a wall. “Creative play has dropped 94%. They don’t know how to amuse themselves or calm themselves down. They regurgitate what they have already seen; they are not required to make up their own storyline. In a way they are being told their imagination is not good enough.” (Consuming your kids) What a powerful message our world is sending to these minds we are molding. These students are so sucked in to their digital devices that they miss out on the opportunity to be a kid and just play! Again here I am at the cross roads of play and the future…Why is it that they only seem to briefly intersect, not intertwine? Kids are no longer have the self-esteem to use their imaginations either, “The fundamental message that I need something outside of myself to play is really tragic and harmful” (Consuming your kids).

“A 1999 survey shows that people are hit with 3000 ads per day” (Killing Me Softly). It is absolutely unbelievable what kinds and how many ads are thrown in our student’s faces daily. I decided to watch some “children’s channels” after watching this weeks documentaries. During a commercial break, they showed 2 commercials that pertained to a show, and 4-5 commercials specifically aimed at the purchasing of products. Our kids are being programmed by the advertisements to “need” things that were once a luxury. Not to mention the amount of content that has sexual innuendo with commercials and TV programs. And we wonder why we have so many young mothers (whole different soapbox topic). Marketing is also selling their values. “Advertising, it sells concepts, tells us who we are and what we should be” (killing me softly). They spend so much time studying our kids because they know they are the real “buying power” and kids give the marketers what they want, “cradle to grave brand loyalty.”  I have brand loyalties but mine are brought on by usage of products and their competitors, truly sticking with a brand because it is quality, not because it’s the it thing. My students even behave this way when it comes to toys- the marketers hooked them early on. The marketing world has also showed parents that giving their children what they want will make them behave. Wrong, smart parents do everything in their power to keep these ideas from themselves and their children. I could not agree more when they said our society has “The right for children to grow up and parents to raise them without being undermined by the marketing” (Consuming your kids). As we raise these egocentric children who need instant gratification, who have a give it to me, right now kind of attitude, we are setting them up for failure in the real world. It’s a scary thought to think what this generation could do to our governmental structure and not to mention their spending habits-hello national debts crisis…again!

So my job is plain and simple, yet totally complicated when it comes to the politically correct BS I must abide by. So here it is… unfiltered. My job is to show my students a world of creativity that is inspired by their imagination. Those imaginations are clearly going to have to be developed in my room. I also vocalize the importance of play, whether it is outside or inside, but just good old-fashioned play. Our imaginations grew with every step we took as children because we were give the power of creativity and play. We were given the power to think for ourselves and act upon those thoughts and learn from our mistakes. Even if it meant falling on our faces, but hey if I turned out all right, I know my students will too. I am here to foster the kind of learning, questioning and deciphering that teaches my students to be life long creative learners. If that avenue includes technology, then bring it on and I will be happy to learn with them! I loved the interview on the today show, she said it is our job to teach the children, “It’s safe to come to you and ask questions, you don’t have to have all the answers.”

Parents are no longer holding themselves or their children accountable. As teachers we are the students accountability partners. We are here to teach them what is socially acceptable behavior, even if that is not what they are taught at home. To mold their little growing brains and show them the power of themselves. So back to the art educators role. My role is not just to shape their minds but also to set them free on an adventure of creative learning. I hope to teach my students to question the ads and symbols they see daily and interpret how it effects their lives. These are some of the most intelligent kids, yet they have little common sense, nor have they learned how to filter all of those things coming at them. Art opens a door to a visual world and teaching our students this new language that is not verbal.  

Hopefully all of my preaching on my soapbox made sense. This was a topic that needed digestion time. A topic that is truly ever changing, as is our world, and as we should be with it.