If you love something, it suddenly becomes interesting,
entertaining, relevant, and extremely fascinating. You are willing to do almost anything to
learn more about this particular something; in short, you become engaged.
This is what the public school educator needs to do in the
creation process: he or she needs to
inspire this type of fascination for their subject in their students. Hobbs states, “When the romance bond is
strong and students are fully engaged in a topic, they are eager to delve into
the precision stage of the process. But
without romance, the work involved to dig into a subject can make study seem
lifeless and dull.” I agree with the
basic sentiment of Hobbs statement, but I disagree with the word “romance”
being used to describe it. “Romance,” in
today’s culture is a fleeting thing.
True learning is not fleeting; it lasts.
If an educator truly inspires and excites his or her students, they will
remember the experience, and what they learned.
For example, I still remember my mother reading to me from
C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia every
night when I was younger. I got so
involved in the stories told within those pages that I became utterly
passionate about learning to read, and that passion has lasted throughout my
life. Creating that passion in students
is possible, and should be the goal and aim of every teacher.
However, one flaw in this rose-colored world—that is filled
with creating passions and excitement in students—is the simple fact that
everyone is interested in different things.
It is impossible to inspire passion in every student for every
subject. So, the question that needs to
be addressed is, “How do you reach those students that are not interested in
the subject matter you are teaching?”
The best solution is to find out what the students are
interested in, and apply that to the subject matter. Yes… it is true that you will not reach
everyone, but you will reach most. One
idea for my own classroom would be to use video, Wii, or other virtual worlds
to assist with the design for a production.
I would have the students examine the virtual worlds they play in,
figure out what they like and dislike, and then apply it to a design. Personally, I find design to be the least
exciting aspect of theatre; for those students who feel similar to myself, this
would hopefully draw them in and create some excitement and passion for
creating their own world on stage. I use
this example because today I was in a kindergarten classroom, and the question
I was besieged with was “What games do you play?” If the students can connect what they love
and are interested in to a subject they are learning about, it is likely that
those feelings will be transferred to the subject.
I do agree with Hobbs “ that when adolescents have communicative
power, it is inevitable that they will say something that makes adults
uncomfortable.” It is also true that
when you give adolescents power, you might not always be able to produce or
show what they create outside of class.
However, that does not mean that they should not create it in the first
place. Yes. There does need to be supervision, but give
them boundaries and let them go. What
they create will inevitably teach them more than anything they would learn with
you just talking at them.
As for the Seeing and Writing readings, they could be used
in any number of ways in regards to media creation. I
think they are all best used as starting points in a conversation, or for a
project. I personally would love to use
the “Capturing Memorable Moments” essay as a way to introduce my students to
the idea of documenting an important part of their life using media. This could be done by amalgamating their
facebook statuses, it could be done by making a photographic collage of a
specific moment they remember, it could be done by making a film or a podcast
documenting a traumatic moment…. the list could go on and on. For theatre, I think my favorite idea would
be to have the students experiment with sounds or images to enhance an important moment in a
show. This could be a good introduction
to sound design and would help them understand the importance of moments in their
own lives, as well as moments in the characters’ lives.
1 comment:
Jen- Thank you for your provoking analysis of the Hobbs reading. I agree that creating a "romance" in which everyone will engage can be quite tricky, but I liked your example of the kindergarten class: the teacher didn't ask the students to talk about their favorite game on the Wii, they simply asked about what games they liked to play. I think this is a great example of the paradoxical need for both boundaries and freedom that Hobbs discusses. Adolescents need both freedom (it is a time of growth) but they also need boundaries to feel safe (their world is shaky enough; setting boundaries/rules in our classroom helps to create badly-needed stability). I fully intend to create projects/assignments that both grant students freedom AND provide guidance.
Speaking of "guidance," I wanted to emphasize the role of an educator as a guide. Hobbs talks about the "precision" stage in teaching how to create using technology. In summary, precision involves lesson plans, activities, and instructions in how/why to use certain types of media, and, probably, discuss the ethics of using media/sending certain messages. I think this is exactly where we need to introduce the rubric that Hobbs suggests in the closing pages of the chapter and do a pro/con activity like Mr. Peterson did. I think that before we just "let them go," we really need to instill a sense of social and personal responsibility (if the students don't have such already).
Teachers should be guides, not dictators. They should ask the questions needed to get students thinking about the moral/social consequences of their creations. In the end, the teacher-guide has to set the course - by provided a rubric that defines clearly what is expected, but that is not so specific that it restricts students. As stated previously, a paradoxical element of adolescence is the need for both freedom and boundaries at the same time. As a guide, it is the educator's job to strike the best balance between pointing students in a generally correct direction, and placing so many parameters around them that they are hardly able to move in any direction at all. This is a difficult line to walk, but I believe that it is our job as educators to do so.
Creating the romance, teaching precision, and facilitating generalization are the tasks that Hobbs lays out for educators, and they seem like overwhelming tasks. But by meting out freedom and boundaries as wisely as possible, both the romance and the precision will lead to products/lessons that are worth of generalization.
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