and the beat goes on....

Of all the types of Hollywood teacher representations listed by Shannon and Crawford, I think Jack Black's character of Dewey Finn is most likely an Agent of Social Change. At the same time, he also embodies The Loner fighting "against the often-oppressive school to help their students."

While he is presented as the irresponsible outcast during the opening minutes, once he gets in front of the children, he suddenly has a mission and a reason for coming to school beyond scamming some rent cash. Where School of Rock departs from Shannon and Crawford is that it doesn't show Dewey Finn as a teacher who is robbed of a life outside school, but rather his life outside school is what informs his life and passion in the school.

The social change Finn is after is to educate the kids about the importance of "sticking it to the man." Okay, so it isn't exactly Ben Kingsley in "Gandhi," but as my favorite radio personality used to say, "accept the premise, and you'll enjoy the bit." For teachers, that is a bit more difficult than for the general audience. No way such a thing could ever happen, right? But once you get past that, the movie works on several levels.

One of the value assumptions that underlie the portrayal of Dewey Finn in School of Rock is that teachers who relate well with kids and connect with them on a cultural level are unacceptable to parents and administrators. This assumption is reinforced by the speech the principal makes to him about not being taken seriously unless you stop being “fun” and are a bitch. While the movie's basic premise is beyond ridiculous, it does hew closely to its mantra of “stick it to the man.” By extension, being rebellious is not only fun, but liberating.

The children were set free from the drudgery of conventional school days and methods of learning, the parents were forced to reconsider their narrow points of view, and the two uptight females were given the opportunity to either embrace the value of the school of rock, or be permanently uncool.

In this movie, the use of pop music most certainly buttresses the type of Agent of Change. Most of the songs used are songs celebrating rebelling "against the man" in order to follow the rock dream. The song that best exemplifies this and demonstrates the value of this, as well as the role of the Agent of Change, is the song written by the guitar playing student. It reminded my of a song written and performed by one of my sons when he was in a high school punk band. It was a screed against his high school, with lyrics like: "I don't care anymore, you're wasting my time, the thing that I have the least of...."

The fact that Zach the guitar player is able to move from a boy who is completely under the controlling thumb of his father to a guy who not only can identify and articulate his frustrations, but can put them into song, is attributable directly to Dewey Finn. While the movie is obviously not realistic, it still reinforces the audience's idea that teachers can (should?) inspire kids to not only learn, but move to a place where the education goes beyond the curriculum and into managing feelings and relationships in their homes. I think this falls more into the category of mystifying, not clarifying, the teaching profession and life in the schools.

A Disaster of Allenesque Proportion

Just a couple years after Leslie Gore’s “It’s My Party” peaked on the charts, Irwin Allen introduced a TV show called “The Time Tunnel.” Its premise was that two scientists (one played by former teen idol James Darren) were stuck in a time travel experiment gone wrong. They would get zapped to an earlier age, find themselves in the midst of some historical event, and for the next 48 minutes they would battle evil in its various guises, from murderous cavemen to Hitler Youth. Inevitably captured, just as they were to be dispatched, their colleagues back at the lab would find their coordinates and attempt to bring them back. Of course, they could never quite get them back to the 60s, and so we would see them arrive in some precarious situation in another age, and in true cliffhanger fashion, we would have to wait a week to find out how they would escape.

Allen was known for his sensationalistic movies and television programs, but while they were lowbrow, they were also incredibly popular. If you look at his body of work, you see that while he started off producing adaptations of works by such respected authors as Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, his projects became increasingly sensationalistic, and required less and less of the viewer.

Allen went from “The Lost World” to “Time Tunnel” and eventually to such campy enterprises as “Lost in Space” and “Land of the Giants.” While the technological improvements in the production of TV shows was growing almost exponentially, his programming endeavored to shoot for the lowest common denominator, and once it latched onto that audience, proceeded to drag them down even more.

If we track the music video industry and its portrayal of women, it follows an eerily similar arc. Leslie Gore and her contemporaries were the very picture of innocence and even purity. As the sexual revolution of the late 60s and 70s took root, however, the way women were portrayed changed significantly, first in the movies, and eventually on TV and especially in music videos.

At the same time that the sexual revolution was in full swing (wow, that was an awful pun – sorry), the women’s movement was also making major inroads. Traditional gender roles were being called into question, and people, especially those who were mainstream and over 30, were left with a lot of questions. Rather than risk alienating its audience, Hollywood simply stopped making as many movies featuring strong women characters, and instead reverted back to the days of the Westerns when women were either whores or one-dimensional women of virtue. Even Hollywood’s biggest stars took roles as prostitutes (e.g., Jane Fonda in Klute). There were very few good comedy roles for them because most people just weren’t laughing yet about the struggle between the sexes.

Meanwhile, music videos were born as a way for the record companies to promote their acts, usually shown at clubs and concerts between the live acts. Then in 1981, MTV blazed onto the scene, just as cable TV was starting to penetrate more and more households. At first, most videos on MTV were simple performance videos or stylized acting out of the lyrics, but within the first year, a few rock bands realized this was a new way to reach the most active record buyers – teenage boys. To get and keep their attention, most bands started featuring women in their videos, and the race to the bottom was off to a roaring start.

Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” and the J. Geils Band’s “Angel is a Centerfold” were two of the best examples. Soon, however, the gyrating, semi-clad women in the videos were not even central to the “story” of the song, but were simply eye candy for the viewers.

When rap and hip-hop became more popular, the artists started taking it to extremes. The women were reduced to booty-shaking accessories for the men in the videos. The all-time low may have been reached in Nelly’s video for the song “Tip Drill” when a woman is completely objectified, even to the point of having a man swipe his credit card down her butt crack.

So if this is what the men are doing in music videos, what about the women? Unfortunately, the expectations are that women will go along with this teenage boy fantasy, even if the record buyers are predominantly female. Early on, Madonna’s fans were overwhelmingly female, yet she displayed her body in a way that not only appealed to males, but also sent the message to her young female fans that their bodies were their number one asset, and they had better learn how to use them.

This has persisted to today. Britney Spears’ latest single, “If You Seek Amy,” is a thinly veiled come-on, and shows her as a woman on the hunt for sex. Obviously, L’il Kim’s work is meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator, as well.

Even artists who previously eschewed such techniques are now laying on the makeup, putting on the push-up bras and slutting it up for their videos. If Leslie Gore fell into the Time Tunnel, she wouldn’t believe where we’ve ended up now.

A Curriculum Proposal

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

TO: Principal Snyder
FR: Joe Deckenbach
RE: A Curriculum Proposal


The proposed changes to our Language Arts curriculum are understandable, considering the community’s concern over standardized test results from the last two years. District leadership and the school board are under significant pressure to make immediate adjustments and show results before enrollment is affected by families that start voting with their feet.

While initiating such changes may give the superintendent the coverage she needs with the local media and the more activist segments of the parents organization, the reality is that most of the districts that have adopted these types of curriculum revision have not been able to gain the desired improvements in test scores.

A “back to basics” approach is not inherently bad. As a language arts teacher, I agree with some of the goals espoused by those who advocate for curriculum that will help students to read and write better. The way to achieve that, however, is not necessarily through an approach that stresses only the old methods. Instead, research indicates that one of the most effective ways to improve reading scores is to help the struggling reader engage with texts. A technique that I employed when I was teaching Read 180 to high school sophomores was to use contemporary pop music that related directly to the text(s) to get the students’ attention, and often to get them to write a response based on their experiences with that particular artist or genre of music. By tying their responses to the actual text, it convinced many of the reluctant readers to give the book a chance.

Another problem with the “back to basics” mindset is that it often ignores what is actually going on in some schools that teach the basics. For example, a charter school that draws a significant percentage of its students from our district offers a classical education. Its students learn Latin and study the ancient Greek philosophers, while also engaging in aggressive math and science programs. In each discipline, particularly their Humanities courses, they focus heavily on reading and writing, often using original texts in lieu of textbooks. All this can be learned from the school’s web site, as well as their track record in standardized tests, which regularly trump those of the some of the best public schools in the state.

What is not shown on the web site, though, is that its teachers often integrate modern pop music into their lessons. They have come to recognize that their students have an easier time making connections from the ancient world to today when they can relate it to their own lives. Nothing is as personal and immediate for teens as “their” music, and when you can help them connect common themes from Athens to Compton, they become more enthusiastic about learning.

For our school district, I recommend that we continue not only to use pop music in our classrooms, but also to teach about pop music. If students learn about the craft behind the music they enjoy, they will come to appreciate it fully. Not only that, but they will come to a deeper understanding of the influence pop music has had on other parts of American life.

The impact of pop music on contemporary culture, from movies to literature, to the commercials we're exposed to daily, is incalculable. It is so pervasive, that we tend not to even notice it. Yet, it has its effect.

When teaching literature, it is essential to provide students with sufficient contextual background from which they can make meaning of the texts as they encounter them. For example, when reading Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” today’s high school students would not be able to get the full benefit of the author’s vision without having some knowledge and understanding of the Harlem Renaissance and American jazz and blues.

While many would approach the text with some understating of who Langston Hughes was and his contributions from having experienced his work year after year during February, if they haven’t learned about Louis Armstrong, they would never be able to understand the importance of the inclusion of “Black and Blue” in the earliest part of the novel.

Finally, I believe our calling includes preparing these students to not only do well on standardized tests, but to be able to take what they have learned and be successful in college. Knowing how to read and write well is extremely important, but having these skills without the ability to understand the world and its expression through music is a hollow victory.

I strongly advocate that we continue to develop our curriculum in a way that embraces youth culture and pop music, and enables the students to improve their technical skills by applying them to these, the areas of their lives that are most dynamic and hold the greatest interest for them.

Getting Crabby at Graff

I thought the Gerald Graff article, “Clouding the Issues,” brought up some interesting points, but I found myself taking issue with some of his issues. Maybe it is just because I have the end-of-school crankies, but the more I read, the less impressed I was with his piece.

First, he buried the lead. While the subhead tells us where he is going with the article (“taking advantage of the synergies” between academia and pop culture), he doesn’t get around to it for several paragraphs.

Once he does, I find myself rejecting his premise. For example, he writes about creeping intellectualism (insert literal interpretation vis-à-vis a bad horror film here) and an audience that is “fascinated by the culture of teaching and learning.” I disagree. If that were the case, we would have more and better parental involvement in our schools and with our students. Instead, most parents have abdicated their responsibility in the education of their children and simply turned them over to the schools and the teachers. Their “fascination” is more like a passing interest, partly out of complacency and partly due to the way our public school system is designed to run efficiently (?) without much outside input or assistance.

While popular media does include shows, movies, songs, etc., about education, that is nothing new. People have always written about what they know, and what they are confident their audience can relate to. Since the vast majority of Americans have been to school, these school-related programs are easy fodder for the entertainment machine. And they always have been. From dramatic movies of a generation ago like Up the Down Staircase and The Paper Chase to this decade’s Boston Public and Freedom Writers, people are drawn to shows and movies about school because they are familiar.

Do these pop culture versions of education reflect reality? Not so much. But that is okay. After all, we’re talking about entertainment here, not about creating documentaries that reflect the realities of today’s public schools. Anyway, most people probably think they already know what is what when it comes to education. Their personal experience has made them instant experts in much the same way that after watching one or two nights of Olympic gymnastics, the home viewer considers their own assessment of a performance to be as valid as that of a judge who has dedicated their entire life to the sport.

Graff also mentions Ellen Willis and her observations of how “ideas that matter” move up and down the media food chain. Graff’s interpretation, though, is that these ideas originate within academia, are repurposed for more thoughtful or sophisticated media consumers, but eventually end up at the bottom of the heap (USA TODAY and Roseanne). I think it is more of a two-way street than he is willing to acknowledge. Academics are prone to ask questions leading to scholarly research and discussion of ideas that matter, but these are sometimes prompted by observations of the culture that they see in the mass media.

I strongly disagree with Graff’s statement that “What ‘feeds the heads’…of Times writers and PBS commentators (and perhaps even the audiences of Roseanne and ER) doesn’t necessarily enter the heads of college undergraduates or of high-school teachers and students.” This is precisely the type of elitist thinking that separates people instead of bringing folks together. Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but smart people are inquisitive people. Nobody started life as an op-ed writer for the Times, but I can almost guarantee that they were just as intellectually curious as a kid as their contemporaries who never left Columbia or the University of Chicago. Dorothy Parker said, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

Teaching pop culture and its touch points as part of a curriculum (be it English Lit, History, or any other) is important because it grabs students where they live and gives them an opportunity to expand their understanding beyond the limitations of what they and their friends like. They can move from what they know (or think they know) to something less familiar, but interesting, and from there curiosity takes over.

Ultimately, by examining popular music and other forms of youth culture, they go on a journey they may not take otherwise, and as Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Once we can get our students to this point, they are more likely to want to join this “club we belong to” and will bring a broader and more valuable way of employing “Arguespeak” than what we see today.