Assignment #1

Making Jefferson as Popular as American Idol?


The first three chapters of Tooning In hit home in many ways. Since much of the text was focused on Social Studies, and being a Social Studies teacher, I immediately began reflecting on the uses of popular culture in my own classroom. To be honest, I was a bit frustrated and offended at how White and Walker portrayed Social Studies teachers. They stated “Social Studies educators must recognize that most students find the lower-level memorization and recitation required in most social studies classes irrelevant and boring….teaching practices should promote interests, engagement, rigor, and enthusiasm.” (18) Almost all the teachers I’ve worked with have found innovative ways to engage the students using popular culture with media, music, articles, and everything happening with the presidential election. Many Social Studies classes are very creative and engaging! I remember when I taught history, I used music to evoke emotion of historical time-periods and read popular poetry of the 1930s to analyze the time period. When I taught government, students analyzed “Biko” by Peter Gabriel and watched the movie Cry Freedom to analyze apartheid and see a society without the Bill of Rights. I have found that one of the best ways to make history and civics interesting for students is to bring it to their level and engage them using reference to popular culture.


It’s here, so we might as well use it. The last presidential election demonstrates how the power of technology and popular culture can go a long way in attracting voters. Think of how candidates used facebook by creating Candidate Pages, allowing voters to declare their support for a candidate. By the end of the campaign trail, Barack Obama had numerous celebrity supporters like Oprah, Will I Am, Justin Timberlake, and Brad Pitt declaring their support and singing Yes We Can. Presidential Candidates found unique ways to blend popular culture and with issues to gain society’s attention. Getting involved in politics became hip and cool. I think teachers need to find innovate ways to bring together popular culture with issues in class...to make learning hip and cool! Not only can this evoke emotion, which can create more effective teaching, but hopefully create more engaged and active citizens.


I appreciate and agree with White and Walker when they state, “Teaching is conducted through media rather than about media.” (18) White and Walker continue to state that “once society gave meaning to images; now images give meaning to society.” If our music, video, pop culture is becoming our new definition of America, why not use it to promote active involvement? Furthermore, what does it mean now to be actively involved citizen? I think teachers need to “hook” students to learning with popular culture and then use that to analyze issues and concepts. We need to teach students to be active, thoughtful, and critical consumers of information and media, rather than passive consumers. Teachers need to use media and popular culture message to force students to critically analyze meanings and interpret it’s relation to our culture. I agree with White and Walker when they write that "Educators must develop critical thinking skills among students in order to combat the trend of abandonment of active citizenship for passive consumerism.” For example, consider the explosion of the ipod or iphone and all the media hype around Apple introducing their latest products. Rather than letting students just consume and use these products, use it as a learning opportunity to talk about supply and demand or global markets. Consider the controversy surrounding the Obama welcome back to school speech. The media outcry of this speech can be used as a strong teaching opportunity to help students consider the partisan views existing in our country. Students need to become active, self-aware consumers, which in turn, can create a more thoughtful citizenry.

Can we make Jefferson as popular as American Idol? I recall an article which polled high school students on their knowledge of pop culture (who won the last American Idol) versus historical facts (who wrote the Constitution). Of course, students’ knowledge of popular culture far outweighed historical facts. So if we know that students will always be texting, looking on facebook, watching American Idol, watching MTV, how can we use these tools to our advantage as educators? It’s not the classroom versus facebook, but it’s creatively bringing the two together. Facebook allows for a variety of discussion and debate among posts. In fact, facebook even let its users vote on the terms of service. Students are already engaging in active citizenship online, so bring that frame of mind to the classroom. Effectively using a variety of media can allow for understanding of different viewpoints, promote discussion and debate, and help foster engaged students. At the same time, however, teachers themselves need to be thoughtful consumers and be critical consumers of media.

I used the song "Biko" by Peter Gabriel and the movie Cry Freedom to help students analyze a society without a Bill of Rights.



The popular Obama Campaign song which utilized celebrities and popular culture to get out his political message