Gainer (2007) Social Critique and Pleasure

“While this means that teachers cannot take the traditional role of ‘expert, this role is shared with students; it does not imply that teachers adopt an ‘anything goes’ response to media and popular culture. When engaging g students with critical media literacy, teachers must try to move fluidly between roles, ranging from that of learner to that of guide, and sometimes ‘authority’. This is a balancing act that opens space for pleasure as well as critique, and even the pleasure of critique. This is done with an eye toward imagining a more social order. Therefore critical media literacy that engages students with popular culture texts must navigate the politics of pleasure and acknowledge the pleasure of politics.”

I chose this quote because, as I was reading the article, I kept thinking, “But this sounds hard.”

Being the expert and telling students what to think would be much simpler. It reminded me that one of the reasons I want to be a teacher is because of the constant challenge. Especially in middle school, everyday is different and it requires a lot of adaptation. If I’m not working on improving, then I’m doing something wrong.

I was also intrigued by the image “opens space.” I have been thinking a lot recently about how teachers don’t simply give students information, they create the conditions for learning. Today I talked with my supervisor at my teaching placement about using more Spanish in class in order to create more opportunities foe students to hear and use Spanish. I really like thinking of the foreign language classroom as its own little universe. Students step through the door and are in a space where their exposure to language leads to learning.