Informal Blog Task 2: Parents' and student teachers' perceptions of using popular culture in the classroom

Explore the outcomes of your parental/student teacher survey. Did any responses surprise you or challenge you? What might be the subsequent implications for your future practice? Make links to the in-session discussion and to any relevant readings.

For my survey I contacted a friend of mine who has spent the last 3 years teaching in primary schools in Southampton and she is now currently teaching for three months in a school in South Africa. I decided to interview her to get a real life teachers perspective and also to gain an insight into any differences between the UK and South Africa. At the bottom of the post I have included all the responses to the interview as there are some interesting elements I have not been able to discuss fully in this post.

Popular culture, as discussed in our seminar and represented through reading, refers to cultural texts, artefacts and practices that are prevalent and widely reproduced on a global scale (Marsh 2005). The teacher I interviewed believed that this popular culture is a crucial element to the lives of children. In the area of technology she identified the link between technology being a massive part of children’s lives out of school and the belief it should be represented inside the classroom. Palfrey and Gasser (2008) identify that many modern children are often referred to as ‘digital natives’, the fact that they have been born and breed in a digital society and it is a crucial part of who they are and how they live.

When asked if using popular culture scared her, she said no but often children’s popular culture only becomes apparent to her when it has become out-of-date. This is something we need to be aware of as often as a child I can remember teachers using ‘popular’ culture which was outdated and actually acted to decrease interest. However, as my interviewee explained, when used correctly it can “be used as a tool to increase interest, focus and class participation.”

For myself, as a primary practitioner, I must aim to use popular culture, including technology, to the fullest of its potential. However, the challenge of this is how I keep up-to-date with the ever-changing popular culture of primary school children.

Bibliography

Marsh, J. (2005) Popular culture, new media and digital technology in Early Childhood. London: Routledge Falmer

Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital : understanding the first generation of digital natives. New York : Basic Books

Interview (carried out of Facebook) 

Do you see technology as something which should be given time and space in the primary classroom or as something which is unnecessary? Why?

 Yes technology definitely should be part of a primary school classroom! It is so much part of life, children would be put at a disadvantage if technology was not given time and space in the classroom. I am currently teaching in South Africa and even though technology is expensive the school makes a huge effort to give the children access to at least computers. We know we are educating a generation that will need at least basic computer knowledge to find any employment. Also, these children do not have access to a computer at home therefore we see it as a core part of their learning at school.

 How did/do you use technology in your classroom practice? Why?

When in England the children and I used an interactive white board to model and present work. I enjoyed being able to use, within seconds, the vast amount of information on the Internet, e.g whenever we talked about a place or country we automatically looked it up on 'Google earth' so we knew what it looked like. Other uses where interactive maths and grammar games. We also had access to enough laptops for one child each therefore tried to encourage typing work up on laptops to improve presentation whilst practising and using typing skills and word process knowledge. These laptops were also full of maths games which were regularly used to extend and consolidate learning within lessons. The children had weekly ICT lessons, in the computer suite, where they learnt about different programs and we created a class blog to show off our topic knowledge and work. Also, they were taught how to use a search engine efficiently and safely.

 Is popular culture something which scares you as a teacher? Why?

Popular culture doesn't scare me but popular culture for a 7 year old regularly doesn't become known to me until it is out of date.

Do you believe popular culture can be used as a tool in the primary classroom or should it be pushed to the fringes? Why?

I think it can easily be used as a tool to increase interest, focus and class participation. Children love talking about things they are interested in and I have found using popular culture; for example in mathematical word problems, has increase children's enjoyment and focus on the task which improved the quality of their work.

Focusing on literacy, how would/do you use popular culture to help support/develop reading and writing? Why?

 In literacy, popular culture is extremely helpful when encouraging reading, as I know a child that would never enjoy reading until they found a Justin Bieber biography. She read the whole thing in days and her comprehension was fantastic, she could have talked to me for hours about the information she had learnt about him.

Do you believe literary aspects of popular culture, such as comics/graphic novels, should be confined to the book shelf or used as valuable teaching tools? Why?

 I definitely try use aspects of comics/graphic novels as teaching tools where I can as I know they can be very helpful for EAL children and love using comics for teaching children to include speech in their writing. However, I would never force them to fit into a lesson.