After leaving class today I had an instant image of my kids. All the different things they say and how street savvy they are, and when I was there age I did not even know half of what they know. I was speaking to another teacher about my four- year who said, "Because I'm black." I was informed her mother uses this expression a lot to explain her point of view on racism. My student at the age of four must believe this is an acceptable response.
Children pick up on everything and I mean everything. When Soulja Boy first came out nearly half of the female school agers knew his song word for word and could break out the dance for you. When watching the video for this song it looks like a dance video and to a group of younger children it’s cool. I decided to look up Soulja Boy on youtube and he even has an instructional video posted. I personally did not know what the phase, "superman," was but I knew it was probably not acceptable. When I found out later I just thought to myself there are elementary students singing this song just because they think it is the cool thing to do not even knowing what they are saying. To me this proves that at a young age the media in this case a music video or song tells them what they should like even if they do not understand.
Today at work I really paid attention to the diversity of the daycare and I heard one of the stereotypes we spoke on in class. "Hispanics having a large family," a father came to pick up is son and was telling everyone his wife is expecting and when he was receiving congrats he said, "Well ya I'm Mexican I have to have a large family."
Images are all around us even though we may not pay attention to them, they exist. I know I really noticed the images today and it really bothered me.
2 comments:
Hurray for you!!! We should all be upset and pressed to do something or at least become more media savy. How about having different videos available for the children? Many may get frustrated if you decide to teach their children but you can always get find subtle ways to make a difference. Pay attention to your own media habits as well as your students. Let's see what you find. Good job. I am going to ask you to go deeper, Nicole. Do we sometimes buy into portrayals that describe us so much that we can't tell the difference between the images and the reality?
I can attest to what you are saying in regards to children relating stereotypes to themselves and the media. My job also is related to working with children, specifically of teenage adolescence. I have also observed kids talk about the how they act or "This is how I am because I'm Black." It truly is amazing what children pick up from the media. I have actually played movies before for the kids and, ones who have seen the movies already practically have the whole scripts memorized as they can speak what the characters are going to say before they say it. What is unfortunate is even for kids who are not exposed to the media, they pick up stereotypes from others who do get exposed frequently and it passed on and goes down hill sort of like a domino effect. Because of the power of the media other children are easily influenced by others with racial and gender stereotypes. I think this frequently happens within children of their own race as things are constantly communicating about racial stereotypes among other children of the same race. As kids pick up on these things and learn from each other they may make comments like "I 'm a gangsta because I'm Black."
The reason I chose to discuss African American kids is because when I have asked them what movies they like, they respond about movies that have all Black characters. These movies are related to street gangs. From my experience kids pick up on the images portrayed because when I ask them why they like those movies, they say because they are living the life and that's what they see everyday. According to them that is what life is naturally supposed to be like. This is even more unfortunate because the kids I work around are in street gangs and grow up around negative influences and images. These movies only intensify what adolescence learns, especially when they relate the movies to their daily lives. For example, one movie kids have told me about is “Boyz 'N the Hood." They relate movies like this to their own life experiences, which illustrate the impact media have on children. So you absolutely have a good point when you mention what the kids pick up at the daycare center where you work and you hear them use words or terms and you have no idea where they came from. What bothers me most though are the stereotypes kids pick up and then attach it to themselves. Parents really do need to be more attentive with the material they allow their kids to watch and talk with their children frequently about these concerns.
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