Week 2 blog: response from survey

Explore the outcomes of your parental/student teacher survey. Did any responses surprise or challenge you? What might be the subsequent implications for your future practice? Make links to the in-session discussion and to any relevant readings.

There have been many debates over the past few decades as to whether popular culture should be used in the primary classroom. From conducting my survey on a family member who has been teaching for 30+years and a fellow student teacher I have received a positive response toward the increased use of popular culture with few disadvantages discussed.

The teacher surveyed mentioned that during her lessons she likes to incorporate ideas that the children are interested in and although 10 years ago she may have lacked confidence in the benefits of using popular culture in learning, these attitudes have changed over recent years.  Marsh and Millard (2000) suggest that using popular culture can ‘capture’ the interests of children, however, as discussed in last weeks seminar if we are to overuse children’s interests from outside of the classroom children may become uninterested and ‘switched off’ (Lambirth, 2003)

On the other hand, the student teacher surveyed mentioned a low level of confidence when using popular culture as they feel they lack experience and are unsure of how they will be judged by teachers if they take the risks of using unknown resources. Harrett and Benjamin (2009) discovered that there is a general lack of confidence among young teachers in trying different media resources. Questioning whether young teachers are equipped with the knowledge and skills to use media effectively across the curriculum. Therefore student teachers should be educated in the effective use of media and the possible benefits it can provide. 

Marsh (2000) states that using popular culture in the classroom can be motivating for many children and can offer them the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise in the classroom, allowing them to experiment with ideas (Harrett and Benjamin, 2009). On SE2, my class topic was superheroes; throughout this topic the class used comics and videos as a stimulus for creative writing. They were engaged in these tasks and often looked forward to writing, including those who felt they were not very good in English.

One of the problems teachers face in the 21^st century is that we live in a life that may change radically in the next few years for which we have no blueprint (Robinson, 2006) following this, one of the disadvantages that arose from the survey was that not all children are exposed to digital technology at home, and that this may give them a disadvantage towards learning. However I feel this is no difference to children who before had never read a newspaper or other forms of literacy except the books at home or in the school.

Gaskins (2008) suggests that by giving teachers and children choices in the classroom allows for learning that is meaningful and exciting. Therefore, when teaching although I will ensure to use traditional teaching methods, I see little harm in introducing popular culture into learning experiences.

References

Arthur, L. (2005) ‘Popular Culture: views of parents and educators’ in Marsh, J. (2005) Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood Oxon: Routledge Falmer

Harrett, J. and Benjamin, T (2009) ‘Travel with a Time Lord: Using media to enhance literacy’ Literacy 43, (3) 134-142

Lambirth, A. (2003) ‘They get enough of that at home’:Understanding aversion to popular cultures in schools’ Reading 37(1) pp.9-13

Robinson, K (2006) Do schools kill creativity? Ted talks, available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html Last accessed: 26/01/2014