In chapter "Critical Pedagogy in an Urban High School English Classroom," Duncan and Morrell place high importance upon pop culture as a source of education for urban students. I find myself thinking back to my EDUC 413 class, where it was driven into the heads of myself and my other wet-eared educational counterparts that any source of media is considered a "text." Duncan and Morrell push this idea even moreso, postulating that a text doesn't have to be explicitly created for the sake of education to be considered "educational." What they insist is that classroom instruction should avoid being the iconic Ferris Bueller's Day Off scene in which a monotonous Ben Stein lectures about the Holly-Smoot Tariff Act while his students stare blankly into the middle-distance. Well, they don't say that explicitly, but that's more or less the idea. What they think we ought to do as educators is make our instruction engaging and relevant to the interests of our students.
My personal philosophy on pedagogy is that students who are having fun in the classroom are succeeding. What I mean by that is that games should be woven into instruction as much as possible so as to maximize the rate of retention while simultaneously making sure that appropriate standards are met. With the added information from Duncan and Morrell, I can expand my idea of what "fun" is, by bringing in pop culture and the immediate interests of my students into the fold. It goes without saying that such a practice will require being more in touch with youthful perspectives so as to create an environment that isn't "trying too hard," and instead creates a classroom culture that is savvy and relatable. By bringing in appropriate popular music (the tastes of which will vary from class to class), movies, television shows, youtube channels, and the like, I can help construct this ideal classroom culture.
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