22nd Jul 2008
aftermath of ubc class #1
so, great class…fun, open, informed, and participatory…very cool for a summer class. it is amazing how much media is in our veins…our students’ veins…our consciousness and formation of our knowledges. it is hegemonically in the dominant culture’s interest to keep us media illiterate…perhaps that is why media literacy is not on education syllabii, in core curricula, and on our radar. how different would a critical media curriculum be? we would not have to alter our content, merely add another lens in which to read media. Freire advocates us to teach our children and youth to read the world–that reading the word is not enough–being functionally literate is still being culturally illiterate.
and so we begin two weeks exploring the effects of media, and critically understanding the multiple meanings in a mediated society. i am looking out the window at a large Chevron filling station in the middle of the bay…a signifier of corporate consumerism even in the water…that is a symbol i remember from my childhood, laden with red, white, and blue, the gas company remains an american icon–i am interested in your symbols, the symbols of our students…what do these symbols mean? how do they inform our consciousness?
in the language of Mike Myer’s Linda Richmond….discuss
so, great class…fun, open, informed, and participatory…very cool for a summer class. it is amazing how much media is in our veins…our students’ veins…our consciousness and formation of our knowledges. it is hegemonically in the dominant culture’s interest to keep us media illiterate…perhaps that is why media literacy is not on education syllabii, in core curricula, and on our radar. how different would a critical media curriculum be? we would not have to alter our content, merely add another lens in which to read media. Freire advocates us to teach our children and youth to read the world–that reading the word is not enough–being functionally literate is still being culturally illiterate.
and so we begin two weeks exploring the effects of media, and critically understanding the multiple meanings in a mediated society. i am looking out the window at a large Chevron filling station in the middle of the bay…a signifier of corporate consumerism even in the water…that is a symbol i remember from my childhood, laden with red, white, and blue, the gas company remains an american icon–i am interested in your symbols, the symbols of our students…what do these symbols mean? how do they inform our consciousness?
in the language of Mike Myer’s Linda Richmond….discuss
Posted in Culture, Media | 74 Comments »