Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Chp. 6: Reflection and Empowerment

Three things I learned about story telling are:

  1. 1.     Tell exactly how/what happened.
  2. 2.     Be your own critic, at times.
  3. 3.     Do not have a single story.


“Media superpeers shape young teens perception of what’s normal and appropriate when it come to the growing up process.”

I strongly agree with this quote from the text; especially when referring the subjects of self-esteem, self-concept, and self-image. As a health educator, I know all too well about the superpeer powers that can “tranqualize” young adolescent girls. Therefore, every semester in middle school health we take three weeks and cover these topics. Teens, more often than not, teen girls to be exact struggle with an eating disorder during their adolescent years; many of these disorders being triggered by a magazine picture or celebrity photo that they have seen. This is a perfect example of one of the many negative effects media has on today’s society.

“They’re at an age where they’re dealing with these issues in their everyday lives..”

Referring to celebrity culture and the topic of decision making and risk taking.. I couldn’t agree more with this quote. Students are living in an age where the same decisions that they see in the tabloids could be effecting or making an appearance in their lives soon. By bringing these messages into the classroom for students to analyze and discuss as teachers we can have a huge impact. For example, if you bring in Taylor Swift’s risky decision for students to analyze and draw conclusions from it will for one, increase class participation, two, give students something to recall and pair with the subject, and three, they will be more apt to discuss and point out flaws in another’s life/decisions rather than their own.

“I know that I have been influenced by the TV shows, films, books, and films that I have experienced in both positive and negative ways.”

As I read this I found myself pondering over it a bit. Interested as to how true this actually is. If you think about it long enough, I’m sure that we all have been influenced by these things in life; some of which, have made and shaped us into who we are. My thoughts then lead to, if I was influenced by one of these things, such as a film, did that influence lead me to another influence of that kind? For example, if I watched a Disney movie and liked it, did that lead me into watching another Disney movie; or multiple Disney movies? How did they influence my life? Well, almost every Disney movie has a moral to the story. Beauty and the Beast, don’t judge based on appearance. When you start to think back and analyze there are numerous influences that make us who we are, even something as small as a movie you watched when you were eight.



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