The debate to whether popular culture
should become a part of our classrooms is ongoing, consisting of vast amounts
of research. It has been recognised how popular culture is ever-expanding,
predominantly in children’s lives, and as this culture evolves, children are
becoming even more exposed to non-print literacy (Walsh, 2010).
I have conducted an interview
with a student teacher to explore their views on popular culture and the use of
multiliteracies within the classroom to gain more insight into how they believe
it will affect their classroom practice. The overall view on the matter was
that incorporating popular culture would be very beneficial as teachers would
be using the children’s personal interests as a starting point for their work,
providing the children with immediate motivation and engagement in what they
are learning. Other benefits highlighted during this interview were that using
a variety of medias within the classroom would target the learning to a wider
audience; meaning that a larger range of learning styles were catered for and which
made learning more accessible for them. This view is in support of Arthur (2001)
who states that ‘popular culture in early childhood settings enhance learning
opportunities for children’ and also the view of Merchant (2007) of making
education ‘more engaging for children’.
One barrier to using
multiliteracies and popular culture which was noted was that of confidence. The
student teacher I interviewed expressed concern that they would not feel
confident in using a wide range of media in the classroom and stated that a
teacher’s knowledge and experience may hold them back from engaging with these
learning tools with children. Marsh et al. (2005) has recognised how teachers
need to have more support as they experience these new technologies for
themselves. This is also an issue explored by Dean (2010) who believes that
teachers need to be provided with the opportunities to explore and develop
their use of media in order to build the confidence required to incorporate
them into the classroom.
To conclude, the student teacher
fully supported the view that educators should use multiliteracies in order to ‘build
links between children’s literacy experiences at home and those of the school’
(Coles and Hall, 2002) in order to ‘provide a meaningful program that includes
the lived experiences of the child’ (Arthur et al., 2003).
Arthur, L. (2001) Contempory Issues In
Early Childhood, Popular Culture and Early
Literacy Learning, volume 2, Number 3, 2001
Literacy Learning, volume 2, Number 3, 2001
Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Harrison, C., and Morandini, C.,
(2003) Sharing the lived experiences of children, Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 28 (2): 8 – 13 in Marsh, J.
(2005) Popular Culture, new media and digital literacy in early childhood.
Oxon: Routeledge Falmer
Coles, M. And Hall, C (2002) Gendered readings: Learning from
children’s reading choices. Journal of
Research in Reading, 25 (1): 96 -108 in Marsh, J. (2005) Popular Culture,
new media and digital literacy in early childhood. Oxon: Routeledge Falmer
Dean, G. 'Rethinking Literacy' in Bazalgette, C. (ed) (2010) Teaching Media in Primary Classrooms London:
SAGE
Marsh, J. Brooks,G. Hughes,J. Ritchie, L.
Roberts, S. Wright, K (2005) Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of
popular culture, media and new Technologies University of Sheffield (Section
2.10 p.46; Sections 3.2 & 3.3 p48/49)
Merchant, G. (2007) ‘Writing the future in the digital age’ Literacy 41 (3)
pp.118-128
Walsh, M. (2010) 'Multimodal literacy: what does it mean for
classroom practice?' Australian journal of Language and Literacy 33(3)
pp211 - 239
I agree with your interviewee that by including multi-literacies it would be extremely beneficial to children with a variety of learning styles.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that the main barrier to the inclusion of media within the classroom is the teacher's lack of confidence. Living in a 'technological generation' surely this is something that teachers are going to have to be familiar with as new technology/media is always going to appear in the classroom.
I agree with the student who you have interviewed, in that using popular culture can be used to motivate learning, especially with boys. I had not considered the view of teachers confidence in incorporating it in the classroom, however with the increase of new technologies, and product endorsements, I think that it will be hard for teachers to avoid, as it is readily accessible.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the teacher's confidence in using the technology , it's often that the tech is too slow or not working or it's just too difficult to log everyone on to the Internet , so it becomes a barrier to using new technology.
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