Before I begin, let me say that I am not an ‘expert’. I am a new teacher; there are no bells or whistles attached to that to make you believe me. All I ask is that you read this with an open mind, and think about it.
In the state of the union address, President Obama encouraged parents and teachers. This is wonderful, but it leaves out a group that influences our students’ perspectives just as much, if not more. Just because parents and teachers encourage students does not mean that their friends will. Research has shown that peers influence kids more than anyone else, and so who influences their peers?
‘Cool’ is defined by…any guesses yet? Celebrities, magazines, television shows, video games and movies. So, what do your kids see as cool? Well, I can almost guarantee you it isn’t school, good grades, or being smart.
I’m not going to list individual shows – my goal isn’t to start a fight. My goal is to start a revolution and to get some people with power to become loud advocates for being smart, making good grades and staying in school. I do need you to see what our kids see though. There are many shows, many cartoons, where the main character is stupid and the only smart character always has terrible things happen to him. This teaches our kids that it isn’t smart to be smart! What about movies where the girl that all of the guys want doesn’t seem to have a brain but she has a great body? Our girls notice that, the boys do too. If you look at pop culture and what our kids see, smart is not sexy. If you think kids aren’t interested in that, you haven’t been around a seventh grader lately.
By now some people reading this are probably nodding and others are probably saying, well of course smart isn’t sexy. You may hate reading, you might be terrible at math, you might even hate school and think it’s the devil’s institution. But that’s the problem, we, as a nation, are passing that mindset on to our students. Humor me for a second, in twenty years, our kids will be parents. Who do you think they’ll be passing their mindset on too?
Now let’s get to the main idea. Pop culture influences our students. Am I talking about a big ad campaign? Not necessarily. What if NFL players occasionally talked about making good grades? What if Vogue took a picture of Kristen Stewart holding or maybe even reading a book for the cover? What if rappers talked about staying in school, or even rapped about it? The effort would be minimal, the impact would be phenomenal, but everyone has to be on board. All it requires is that we intentionally change the way that we, as Americans, think, talk and act about being smart. The change probably won’t come overnight, the results probably won’t show overnight, but imagine the possibilities for our country.
Now let’s get to the punch line, how much does this cost? Since celebrities have media following their every move – if the media gets on board too – besides a little time and effort, it would be absolutely free.