Week 10: Pinterest

So I was finally forced to join Pinterest for uni (I swear they must want me to fail!) and create a board showing what I thought was big with young people these days. Firstly I had to get past all the gardening pins which were absolutely amazing and I was so tempted to quit uni and become a professional green thumb... Before I remembered the only time I have had success in the garden is when my green thumb boyfriend does all the planting and sets up the water system. So that was a kick in the face...

Anyway, back to Pinterest and uni. As I am still waiting to hear what my lovely interviewees think of popular culture, I wasn't exactly sure what they are watching and I don't have many young people to ask. So I ended up guessing, and I will admit, my guesses were probably pretty stereotypical - One Direction, Hunger Games and J-Law, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I apologise for this, I should probably be more active in knowing what is cool with young people so I can encourage them to read and get involved... But my personal restrictions (I ban myself from reading books during semester as otherwise uni gets very neglected) do get in the way. When I worked at a school library is was easy to keep up with things. Hopefully when this course is over I can catch up on all that I've missed (not the Twlight movies though, I was about for the hype of the first release, that'll do me just fine).

What do you think? Have I missed something crucial that young people are totally addicted to?!

Week 9: Reading for Life Starts Young

I am a huge believer in the importance of reading from a young age. Such a huge believer that I was buying books for my eldest nephew before he was born… He and his younger brother are always, without fail, always read at least one book each night before bed. They are nuts for it. My nephew recently turned four and he knows what he wants – two books and a song before bed. He has even worked out that by choosing books with lots of pages and words means more reading time before. Clever, but annoying. Some of those Thomas books are so repetitive! I can’t complain though, because this love for reading is only ever going to help my nephew in school and the real world.

Earlier this year I attended the Read for Life - Early Childhood Symposium hosted by the State Library of Queensland in Mackay (more info available http://www.plconnect.slq.qld.gov.au/news/2013-news/read-for-life-early-childhood-symposium). The guest speakers, Jay Laga’aia and Dr Susan Krieg, spoke on the importance for reading to children from a young age. One fact which really struck me was that a child should have read at least 10,000 books by the time they start school. For my nephews, no drama. For other kids, probably not so good.

However, it’s come to my attention that not all children are lucky like my nephew to be raised with a love of books. This is a shame, and even more shameful is that the general public don’t seem to realise on what these kids are missing out on. By not encouraging children to read from an early age, we’re contributing to the declining rates of literacy within Australia.

ABC News reported in 2010 that Australia was one of the only countries in which reading literacy levels have declined (McDonald, 2010). In this article, Geoff Masters, chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research, stated that it is mostly related to how highly education is valued within Australia (McDonald, 2010). One of Master’s main points was that there was a huge gap between low socio-economic groups and Indigenous groups with higher socio-economic groups. In the recent election a huge emphasis was placed on education reform.

Now that the election has finished and the new prime minister will be sworn in this afternoon, it will be interesting to see how he values education. One of statements on the ABC News website has spike my interest though. The Coalition in their view on education aim to ‘give school principals more control of their schools and parents more say in how schools are run, devolving responsibility from bureaucrats’ (ABC, 2013).

To me, this doesn’t seem to be the best way in close the gaps that Masters mentioned. By giving responsibility entirely to the school principals then it would all depend on that particular school and community. What happens when kids get lumped with a lazy principal who’s holding out to their retirement? Or if their community doesn’t value education? Or their local MP is a t*sser? There needs to be a balance between government and schools in order to provide the best for the children. As they always say - Children are the future!

So maybe take the time to sit down and read a book with a young child. It’s a rewarding and fun experience (for the kid too!)

Reference List

McDonald, T. (2010). Australian students’ literacy levels declining. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-08/australian-students-literacy-levels-declining/2366804

Lane, S. (2013). Education policy: where the parties stand. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/policy/education/

Week 8: What helped me understand Learning Pack A...

I chose to do my critical essay on Learning Pack A as I feel that this was the most engaging pack offered in the first section of this course. My essay looked how popular culture increased civic participation in youths. One article which I came across really helped me to see this link was an article by Henry Jenkins in the Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures called "Cultural Acupuncture": Fan activism and the Harry Potter Alliance. Mind you, that entire issue from the Journal of Transformative Works and Culture was a great asset. In this article, Henry Jenkins, the man behind 'participatory culture', explores how popular culture can make civic participation or activism attractive to young people using the case study of the Harry Potter Alliance (http://thehpalliance.org/).

'Fan activism pushes deeper, dealing not with isolated references but with the full content world, recognizing and rewarding fans who know more and imagine better. Certainly, some of the HPA's allusions are widely recognized—Dumbledore's Army, perhaps—facilitating meaningful partnership with nonfan organizations that value the creative energy the Harry Potter books unleashed. Yet, as fan activists, the HPA members mobilize obscure characters and events, even quoting specific dialogue, and thus reward fan mastery. Fan activism works because of its fannishness. This fannishness extends beyond specific ways of reading texts to specific forms of fan participation (including cosplay, Wizard Rock, fan fiction, and fan vidding), some of which may look strange outside the community. But each contributes to fandom's ability to organize and mobilize quickly, to frame issues and educate supporters, to get the word out through every new media platform and channel. This ability is what ultimately distinguishes fan activism from more casual deployment of pop culture references.' (Jenkins, 2012).

For me, this article helped me to better understand participatory culture and how it can benefit young people. Contrary to what people say, young people are finding a way to connect with real world concerns in an online environment, one that is possibly more accepting than the physical world around them. They are developing skills, making friends and connections based on mutual trust and interests - all good things. Don't assume that I'm saying that an online life is more important than the real world, but for some kids this is probably the better option while they are growing up. Hopefully from this participatory culture and the experiences had, they will learn those skills which will guide them later on when they leave school and face the real "real world".

And good on those teens and young adults for getting active on matters of social and cultural importance through the Harry Potter Alliance, it's more than I ever did. I think sometimes we don't give teens or young adults the appropriate knowledge to deal with those issues. A lot of young people I know, ones who are contributing to today's society, know nothing on politics and all that is involved and are so not keen to learn. Maybe if we had had the participatory culture using popular culture to engage us like the HPA, maybe now we might feel more credible having our say and taking a stand on issues that are important to us.

Ultimately, this article highlighted to me the possibilities of using popular culture to engage youths, not just in civic participation but in general social environments. This was something that the essential readings did hint at but did not go into great depth - or if they did, they just weren't that interesting to me... See, already an example - using the Harry Potter Alliance to explore this issue actually made it attractive to me!

Reference List:

Jenkins, H. (2012). “Cultural acupuncture”: Fan activism and the Harry Potter Alliance. Transformative Works and Culture, 10. Retrieved from http://journal.transformativeworks.com/index.php/twc/article/view/305

Week 7: Introducing Me...

My name is Susan and I am currently studying a Masters of Information Technology in Library and Information Science at Queensland University of Technology.


This blog is for my reflections on CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts. This class is probably more specific to teacher-librarians, but I've always liked encouraging teenagers and kids to read is a really important aspect today. As the role of a Young People's Librarian looks attractive to me, I thought this could possibly benefit my future career.... Also it was nice to step away from library specific content!

I think it's important to appeal to young people to read and if pop culture is going to reel 'em in, let's do it!