Teaching students to be critical and active readers
is an important job of teachers. It
teaches them not to simply accept text as so but to dig deeper, question,
examine, and understand why the text was written, from what perspective, and
what the desired outcome is. To me, I
believe this is just being a good reader.
With a background in Science, I was taught to read this way early
on. In Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc.
we are taught that just because someone says something does not make it
so. We need to dig deeper, discover why
this person did this research, why they published it, and are there any biases
or prejudices apparent that could alter the results.
However, we also need to be careful when it comes to
critical literacy and teaching students how to analyze social issues. In class we discussed role switching and how
you might feel if Snow White was a different race or would you watch Cinderella
if she had a darker skin tone. I understand
where we were coming from, the racial background of our favorite Disney
princesses may have a huge effect on whether or not people few them the
same or moviegoers see the film. However, simply teaching students
to analyze princesses in this way is a disservice to our youth. First,
changing the race of the princess dramatically changes the story line of the
movie (which may be the intent of some teachers). Secondly, and most importantly, it causes us
to miss the historical influence of these stories and why they were portrayed
the way they were.
There was a post online recently titled “This Girl Gets
Told After saying Disney Makes All Princesses White On Purpose.” (See link below) A man goes on to explain the origins of the
princesses and why they are the way they are.
For example, Rapunzel is a German story, Germans are typically white
with blonde hair. And Brave, that movie
is set in Ireland/Scotland where the people are pretty much as white as they
come. The race of the princesses makes sense with
the story. If you go and change the race
of the princess, you are ultimately changing the story and the history behind
the story. I think a better way to be
critical of the Disney Princesses and their race, background, and the story of
their lives is to dig deeper into the history.
Instead of switching roles and analyzing how you would feel if they were
different, I think students should understand why they aren't a different
race.
Just like I did in my science classes, and just like
I would like my students to do in theirs, students should learn to analyze all
aspects of a text. The race, sex,
religious views of the main characters; but also the race, sex, and views of
the author, the time period at which the text was written, and the purpose
behind the image or writing. All of
these factors will help teach students to be critical readers, to determine if
there are social undertones or, like in the case of the princesses, there is a legitimate
reason the characters and information is portrayed the way it is.
Hi Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteI like how you critically thought about yesterday's activity in the class and reflected on it. I also liked the fact that you mentioned how our students should learn to analyse the texts from all aspects rather than focusing on certain specifics. I am a little surprised about you saying "disservice to the youth" when we analyse the race, gender or sexuality. I think it gives the students a perspective to think from an aspect they would have never thought of. As teachers in schools we focus more on the story line, the characters, the predictions, the authors and the best seller books. It is just an idea to make students to also think on these lines so that they are exposed to why, how, what, where and when questions when they come across such differences.
Overall a very good read, reflection and a lovely link to support your argument.