In recent decades, a movement has begun to alter the traditional approach of teacher to student teaching. This is referred to as the ‘banking’ method – as it deposits information into the students from the teacher. This one-way dialogue is hard to comprehend and very difficult for actual learning to take place. As Friere (1970) states, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information” (p. 79). With this statement he is saying that a one-way dialogue is virtually useless because nothing is ever truly learned in this fashion. Instead “knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other” (p. 72). With this mindset, it is only natural that a two-way dialogue is used in the classroom – one where the teacher and student are equally engaged in thought and discussion where “they become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (p. 80) from the experience. Only through a change in communication style can students and teachers benefit fully.
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Reviving Ophelia
Reviving Ophelia is a movie focusing on developmental issues of adolescents in America, specifically of issues in young women. This is not an adolescent problem – this is a cultural/societal problem that has been created through inadequacies obtained from the media and the continual portrayal of ‘the perfect woman.’ The pressure to fit in at this age is already heightened – now, as a society, we are putting increased pressure on these girls to be something that is virtually impossible. Nearly everything in the media today is airbrushed or altered one way or another. How is anyone, especially adolescent women, supposed to have a positive self-image of themselves when we are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images of what we should be? We are brainwashed from a young age to believe we are inadequate if we do not look like the girl in the magazine. Well here’s the truth: the girl in the magazine doesn’t look like the girl in the magazine. Everyone has body image issues. We do not need the media to be making us feel worse. We need to keep our lives in perspective and realize that we are doing more harm to ourselves than good by accepting the way the media is portraying the ideal woman.
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When the word Disney comes to mind, images of childhood come flooding back to me: singing Hakuna Matata with Timon & Pumba, waltzing with Belle & Beast, monkeying around with Mogli, even wishing with all my being that toys really do come alive when I am not looking. Mickey Mouse Monopoly is a documentary exposing the Disney corporation for its overwhelming monopoly on images fed to children. It argues to display the stereotypes Disney products uphold, and the power it has over youths worldwide. Despite the remarkable case this movie makes for Disney being an inherently bad influence, I will argue that Disney has done nothing but the opposite for me. Whether you agree that Disney promotes gender and racial stereotypes or not, is not the largest issue at hand. What do we do now that children are being exposed, from all types of visual culture, to these stereotypes? And how should they be approached in classrooms? Instead go blaming everything on Disney, we should self-examine our own culture and discuss how to create an open environment for learning in and beyond the classroom.
Sarah Kedzior 