As I do not have any young people to interview personally apart
from a 2 year old girl obsessed with the Wiggles. As I am a bit over
conversations about Emma the Yellow Wiggle, I instead asked a friend of mine to
give the questionnaire to her twin daughters who are in year 6.
I found that they both like to read action and adventure
books. Out of the four books they mentioned, only two were familiar to me:
Hunger Games Catching Fire and Skulduggery Pleasant. The other two were The
Golden Door by Emily Rodda (The Three Door series) and The Diamond Brothers:
The Falcons Malteaser by Anthony Horowitz. Already there is a reference to a
famous crime novel/film The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.
When I asked LV whether popular culture influence her or
made her smarter she replied: it
doesn't really impact me in anyway to be honest i think something's impact the
way we learn but i don't think all the things today help, sure they make life
easier but that means that we're not really challenging ourselves to do stuff,
somethings today confuse our brains to do stuff like how adds make us believe
in a simple product.
In describing her favourite book, Skulduggery Pleasant, she
mentioned that the ‘noun groups and
vocabulary is very strong’. In this case it would appear that the popular
culture in the form of the book is actually making her smarter by reinforcing
noun groups and vocabulary which is great.
I won’t tell her
this as personally, I think sometimes it’s best to leave popular culture as an “enjoyable”
part of life, not an “educational” part. When I studied popular culture it
actually first made me hate it/myself as every time I would watch something I
would be analysing the social and cultural background and see how it was
portraying the contemporary time. It took me awhile to be able to simply enjoy
movies again.
Some things in life
don’t need critical thinking/analysis all the time and sometimes learning can
be done unconsciously. I do think encouraging children to critically engage
with books and movies is important, but don’t take away from them the right to
just simply vege out and enjoy something that might not be incredibly wholesome
or education (especially when they’ve been at school all day!). I enjoyed books
as they took me away from my world (and still do), asking me to critically
engage that world with the real world probably would have made things
depressing as it would have ruined the escape it offered me.
I would love to
have sat down with SV & LV to do this interview in person, but unfortunately
when it’s a single parent family, time isn’t a very accessible resource when
their mother works full time and doesn’t live close. However, I still think
they have provided me with some food for thought on popular culture and young
people.
Questions:
What are you currently reading? Do you like it, why?
What’s your favourite book and why?
What are your favourite TV shows and movies at this time?
Why do you like them?
Are there any shows or movies that other young people are
really liking which you hate? If yes, why don’t you like it?
If you could be any character you want, who would you
choose?
Do you participate in any online communities where you
discuss your thoughts on movies and shows?
Anything recommendations on shows or movies I should be
watching?
Do any of these shows, movies or books influence you?
Do you think popular culture is making you smarter?
Examples?
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