Artistic Thinking -- Week 5

It seems that, as many of the readings and documentaries this week stated, the world in which we live is irreversibly filled with media.  Children are exposed to this from such a young age and will face it for the rest of their lives.  Therefore, part of the education students need is how to responsibly and critically interact with this media-filled world.   

            Artistic expression is manifested differently today than it was when art educators were growing up.  Now, students express themselves through media.  Therefore, students must understand the communication skills involved in media literacy.  Students have previously viewed images passively.  I believe students would benefit in learning how to intentionally engage with media in a responsible way, viewing images critically instead of passively.  One example of how art educators could foster appropriate understanding of media and technology is by giving students the opportunity to engage with and understand what they are faced with from day to day: the language of film.  Students could create animated shorts, documentaries, or narrative films.  Practical communication skills such as writing, graphics, and music, are all part of this language of film.  The Consuming Kids documentary discussed how children are deprived of opportunities to use their imagination.  Since the commercialization of their childhood, children aren’t taught to value their imagination.  How can we bring imagination back into the art classroom?  Perhaps one way is by giving students opportunities to use technology in storytelling.  Teachers can encourage students in creative play, critical thinking, problem solving, and overall storytelling possibly through the use of film.

            From a young age children are faced with images upon images telling them what they need to buy and what it can do for them.  Children are one of the largest markets in the advertising world.  One of the main avenues for such advertisements is Television.  “Young children often respond to the unrealistic quality of television in very real ways, which makes it challenging for educators to teach media literacy… Kids need to be taught how to assess and critically analyze media messages rather than merely accept and believe what they see…children lack the ability to fully understand the messages they are receiving; they are highly susceptible to media’s persuasive and unrealistic qualities.”  Not only do children have a hard time differentiating the television world from the real world, but through television children come to associate happiness with material possessions and money.  In this way, educators must take what children will inevitably face and teach them how to appropriately think about and respond to such exposure.    

In this world of advertisements, the emphasis is often on perfection. This is a perfection that is unattainable because it does not exist.  How can we teach students to decipher truth in media?  Children are faced with the socially constructed ideal of beauty in media.  How can we teach them to measure media up to reality?  Women especially take the brunt of the media’s power and presence.  This influence on body image and perfection ruins relationships, creates unrealistic ideals, and sets women up to fail.  Media’s power and impact on culture creates a need to educate students growing up in this environment in order to give them the ability to respond in a healthy, realistic way.

             

            In regards to using technology, specifically the Internet, as a source of information, students must also be taught to think responsibly and critically.  Given the mass amount of information, both true and false, that children have immediate access to through the Internet, it is imperative to their education that they learn to decipher between credible sources and non-credible sources.  In chapter 7 of Rewired, it states an educators’ dilemma: “We want kids to have access to this information, but we want them to find the best information, not just what’s readily available through an Internet search… While they are highly adept computer users, young students do not possess great Internet skills in the classroom, either in searching for or in evaluating websites.”  One such website that gets mistaken for a credible source is Wikipedia.  This website serves as the most widely cited online encyclopedia in the world.  Many, sometimes hundreds, of people edit the material.  While there are editors who oversee the content, there is still information written by anonymous users who can add or remove information based on their divergent points of view.  Another problem in identifying credible sites is the increase in blog use.  “The perceived credibility of blogs is a threat to information literacy.”   Anyone can create a blog and write anything they choose, credentials or not.  This concept has bled into journalism and is apart of a new age called “citizen journalism: People who are not employed by a news organization but perform the same basic function as legitimate journalists.” 

The chapter ends with the following six principles of media literacy:

1.     Media messages are created

2.     Media images and texts are not always accurate and should be looked at with a critical eye.

3.     Media messages have a point of view and are not always representations of reality.

4.     Various forms of media send different messages.

5.     Media are targeted to populations of people

6.     Most media are created for commercial purposes.  That is, to make money.

Finally, chapter 7 concludes with a quote from Susan Ziegler that I think sums up the chapter well: “A truly educated student, teacher, or parent must be able to identify the power of media acculturation and be able to access, analyze, and evaluate this information.”  I believe that given the technological world as it is today, it has become the educators’ job, along with the parents’, to facilitate their student’s growth in understanding how to view, think, analyze, and respond to media and technology critically and responsibly.  

I feel as though the theme of the class so far, in my mind, was worded in this chapter as well: “Educators must determine the new learning styles of students and develop educational methodology and teaching strategies to meet the learning needs.”