My thoughts on... The International Journal of Learning

I did have prior knowledge that the media affects different cultures differently. However, I did not have the knowledge that the media and advertisements affect these same people in such negative ways. It is unfortunate that the media influences and disempowers urban youth, thus effecting their performance not only in their every-day lives, but also in the classroom. I LOVE that the article stated that schools either need to, or schools have already started to teach students about the media and how to interpret different messages, good or bad. I vaguely remember learning about media in high school, but quite honestly, it is the lessons in ENGL 101 and 201 that impacted me more. (Which not every child has access to college) I do agree that the media needs to be understood. If commercials, billboards, posters, etc. are hard for adults to understand, then imagine how hard the media is for young people to understand. Young adults are also extremely manipulative, so it is important for teachers to intervene and show their students that the media is difficult to understand, but with practice and understanding someone can block out the manipulation from the media.

I loved the quote in the Hip-Hop Project section that says “Understanding the world you live in will help you become conscious of your oppression. When you are conscious of your oppression, your ideology will change and when your ideology changes, your actions will change.” By making students aware of the world around them, they will be able to understand and have the capability to control their surroundings through awareness. This article is entirely what I would like to be as a teacher. I have talked about this in class, but my junior and senior year English teacher brought up the classic movie, The Matrix. As much as I love the movie, I never understood the deeper meaning until I took his classes in high school. He referred to the scene where Neo is presented with the choice of taking the red pill or the blue pill. Our teacher said that we could both play it safe and never learn anything new in his class, or we could “take the red pill” and learn new things and take risks to be prepared for the real world. Of course, we all chose the red pill option, which is what this article reminded me of.

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