[Instructor] So good morning! Last time we met we discussed the importance of raising the bar in our classrooms. I've had some really interesting journal articles from you about that. A lot of people, clearly, are interested in raising the bar... are concerned about dumbing-down... All of you are thinking about the effects of dumbing-down; methodology, as well as content. And some of you have seen it in your classrooms. So, today I want to talk about what sort of tools that we can use to raise the bar in our classroom, so that kids are actually engaged in intellectual thinking, and that they are using methods that are ... better, perhaps... than crayon coloring maps and a variety of other things... some of the artwork that you've seen in your classrooms that you don't feel are particularly rewarding. So the first tool we're going to talk about today is television. Now... when you start talking about television in your classroom... a lot of kids don't watch much anymore, they watch the computer. Essentially what they're watching on the computer is what used to be on television, or is on television - they're just watching it on their computer So, when we talk about television, we're going to really about all visual media. Computers and television and, in some degrees, even film. But I want to start talking a little about television. And I want to start with a clip from a great movie, "Network" ... it's an old movie but it is still a valid and good movie. And this is a four minute clip from the movie... and I want you to be thinking about what it says. - And starring the mad prophet of the airwaves, Howard Beale! [from studio audience - extreme cheering, whistling and applause] - [shouting] Edward George Ruddy dies today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at 11 o'clock this morning of a heart condition! And woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble! [absolute silence from the audience] Beale: [speaking normally] So... a rich little man with white hair died. What does that gotta do with the price of rice, right?! And WHY is that 'woe to us'? Because YOU people, and sixty-two million other Americans are listening to me, right now. Because LESS than 3 percent of you people read books! Because LESS than 15 percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube! Right now there is a whole... an ENTIRE generation... that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation! This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... this tube is the most awesome, goddamn force in the whole godless world! And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people! And that's why 'woe is us!' that Edward George Ruddy died! Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America - there's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor! And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome, goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network! So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth! Television's a goddamn amusment park! Television is a circus! A carnival! A traveling troupe of acrobats, story-tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players! We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth! [chuckles softly] But man! You're never gonna get any truth from us! We'll tell you anything you want to hear - we lie like hell! We'll tell you that... ah... Kojak always get the killer... and that nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house... and no matter how much trouble the hero is in - don't worry! Just look at your watch! At the end of the hour he's going to win! We'll tell you any shit you want to hear! We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But YOU people... sit there ... day after day, night after night... all ages, colors, creeds... we're all you know! You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here! You're beginning to think the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal! You DO whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube! You eat like the tube! You raise your children like the tube! You even think like the tube! This is mass madness! You maniacs! In God's name you people are the real things! We are the illusion! So turn off your television sets! Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF! [Beale loses consciousness and falls over... stunned silence hangs in the air] [instructor's voice] It's one of the great scenes from the great movie, "Network" Now... before you make any comments, I want to through these statistics with you. Once we're done going through the statistics, then we're going to comment about how we use the statistics and that sort of clip in our classrooms. Okay? So these statistics have been gathered from a wide variety of sources, but mostly from the Nielson ratings... most of you are aware of the Nielson ratings... So in the late 1990s, according to the A.C. Nielson Company, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours per week or about 112 hours per month - or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). Ten years later, the Nielson Company found Americans watched 5 hours per day - so that a 75-year-old who, at the age of 10, started watching 5 hours of TV a day will have spent a little more than 13 years of his or her lifetime in front of a television set. So those are pretty astonishing figures. And they've been tracked now for about 30 years, and they continuously go up. So... what, also, have various researchers found about family life and television? Households that possess at least one television: 99 Number of TV sets in the average US household: 2.24 Percentage of US homes with three or more TV sets: 66 - remember this was in 1990s Numbers of hours per day that TV is, on the average, on in the average US home: 6 hours, 47 minutes Now - that's the number the television is on, not the hours it's being watched... which tells you something else - the backgound sound of television... Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion hours Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56 Number of videos rented daily: 6 million - now that, you can translate that to DVDs but not in the last five years since Netflix has deminished that. But that figure has not been revised. Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million. And that's, of course, what they're trying to show you, is the comparison. And the percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49 percent. Now, what about children? Children... the percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70 percent Percentage of parents who would like to limit their TV watching: 73 percent - but they don't, but they'd like to. Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, preferred televisions: 54 percent Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours Average per year the average American youth watches television: 1500 So who are we competing largely with? Media. And that's a hard act to follow. Violence. The number of murders seen on TV by the time a child finishes elementary: 8,000 Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000 Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps cause real life mayhem: 79 percent Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by a child: 20,000 That's, to me, one of the most astonishing of all the stats. Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by the age of 65: 2 million So. That source comes from this great website - you can go here and get all this information in more detail. But I actually also looked at some more recent studies - none of which I cited in full here, but I've given you the background. According to the APA, a 15-year study of 329 youth revealed that men who have watched violent TV shows as kids have been convicted of crimes at a rate triple the rate of other men. Women who watched violent TV shows as kids were more likely to punch, choke, or beat another adult at a rate more than four times the rate of other women. A study headed by Professor Jeffrey Johnson at Columbia found that 22.8 percent of the children who watch between 1 and 3 hours of TV each day become violent when they get older. The percentage increases to 28.8 percent when the children watch more than 3 hours a day... and then remember the average watches 5. According to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a study on the affects of TV on young children indicated that children under the age of 3, who watched an average of 2.2 hours of TV daily, which is pretty shocking, did not perform very well on various reading tests for children in their age group. The conclusion was that children younger than 2 years old should not be exposed to television at all. And this is a big one that most parents are not paying any attention to. TV produces a state in the brain that causes one to be highly receptive to suggestion. It appears that a person's brain slows down when one is watching a television screen, even if the screen is only displaying text. Because of this, people watching TV may be more likely to purchase a product advertised in a commercial since their brain is more open to suggestion. The results of a recent study, published in the British "Journal of Sports Medicine," indicates that for adults 25 or older, every hour spent watching TV will lower their life expectancy by 22 minutes. Okay. So... comments about these... and what they tell you about the kids in your classrooms... and why should we, as educators, even care about any of this? [classroom student off camera] - I would say the number of 30-second TV commercials seen... that gives a lot to attention span 'cause kids - or 'cause advertisers only want you for 30 seconds they only want you to pay attention for 30-seconds... and we can see that in our classroom, with kids and their attention span and how long they can hold onto information. Okay. Noah? [off camera student] - I think it says something about parents. Parents should not let their kids watch as much TV - it shouldn't be a babysitting tool. And they're setting up their kids for failure by having that be where they get their information and entertainment... so they go to school and I'm basically competing with that as a teacher... and it's going to be hard for me to be as interesting as television to these students that that's what their favorite thing is. Okay. So, both of those comments are very astute, very clear. But the big thing is - you are directly competing with media. And so... what's the dilemma for educators? And the other big thing is: do they really just have 8 to 10 minute attention spans? Or if their brains have been just sort of trained, can they be untrained? Can we tell kids how they're being manipulated - can we give them these statistics, and tell them what is happening? - I'm going to show you some other things that are going to be really important here - And will they then get, as later on the moderator in "Network" says, "I'm mad as hell! I'm not going to do this anymore!" ... Will they then get mad and say, "I can think beyond the 9 to 10 minutes that advertisers want me to think!" That's also an issue... Jeff? [off camera student]: - Well what it brings up, too, I've noticed in classes, when a teacher puts on something like a History Channel production, such as "America - the Story of Us" it's under the guise that it's history, and it is but it's very short clips of everything. It's American history in 2 hours, and it cuts a lot of things out; it's very one-sided, very biased and action-oriented. A lot of the scenes are battle scenes, action, slo-mo... but it's things that kids get excited about and when I talk to my teachers about it, they all say, "Well they're not going to watch the other stuff where it's more information, but at least this way they'll get a little bit." And I think it's another way of dumbing down which I think is a major, major problem. [instructor] Thank you. You are all going to hear that - "they only 8 to 10 minute attention spans.. they're not going to watch anything that isn't action oriented," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera That is dumbing down. That means you've accepted what the advertisers want you to accept. And it means that you're not going to try to fight that, or educate your students how they're being used. And yet, really, isn't one of our jobs as Social Science teachers, Social Studies teachers to teach them to be good citizens? A being a good citizen means critically looking at what is on the screen. You can see in your classrooms - the minute something goes on the screen, a sort of glaze goes over them. They start relaxing; their whole body changes. It's because they're now going to be passive recipients of information. And what do you want them to become? Active receivers of information - in which they critically think about the material. That's where we're largely going today. we're going to have those discussions. Television is just one. We're going to talk first - How do we teach our students to critically watch television and other forms of visual media? We're going to go through each of these 10 questions, and I'm going to give you resouces and ways to deal with each. So... first. How do we teach our students to critically watch television and other forms of visual media? I think, first of all, we have to tell our students how their decision making process is being influenced by television. This all comes from various sources that people have done research on. And I see at least four things. First topic - we need to tell kids all of this - Television programmers use short scenes which pander to, or create short attention spans. Programmers use the KISS rule - Keep it short and simple. Students are trained to expect rapid editing with fast-paced action accompanied by simple solutions. Just like Jeff said. And just like you heard him say in Network - it's all wrapped up in a nice little happy bundle at the end of the TV show. So kids think that's real. I know kids that think that "Friends" is real. They think that's real. They think that's what they're going to get in a friendship. Students carry their short attention spans and their lack of thought about what they are seeing into the schools. 2. Students bring their televised "education" into their classrooms. Life and reasoning are much more complex than taught on television. Yet young people who watch a lot of television tend to arrive at simple but fallacious solutions. 3. Many students have concluded that thinking abstractly is much too difficult. They erroneously conclude that if it is easier and quicker – just like television – then it must be better. Some student capacities for abstracting, imagining, and creating are dwindling because they are choosing the passive visual experiences rather than the active experiences of reading, critically viewing, and critically thinking. And they don't know how that. So that's our job - to teach them how to do that. Relying on images rather than on verified information affects student abilities to make knowlege- and evidence-based decisions. And, of course, the big problem is getting our kids to make evidence-based decisions. 4. Most television scripts use vocabularies aimed at the lowest common denominator. And you just really need to know that the scripts are dumbing down vocabulary and that's one of the reasons why our student's vocabulary is so poor ... they're just not hearing big words any more. If you go back and watch old movies, you go back and look at old magazines... you'll see the vocabulary is much, much more complex and rich than it is today. Jeff? - Well I think you can expand on this with television, too, and talk about the internet today... and Twitter, and other things where we're dumbing down. But there's also just sources dumbing down. All my students, when I taught my History day, I said "not Wikipedia" and their first response was, "Why?!" I said we're going to go the library first and look at books and they all think that's too time consuming... there's too many words... there's too much - I want a paragraph from the Internet I can find that gives me all I need maybe change a few words so it's not plagarism - I'm done! [instructor] You brought up a good point - that: how do we teach them to use ALL the resources - Books, articles, magazines, and the Internet? I think it's really important that we don't tell them that the Internet stinks. But we tell them that the Internet is one of several sources that they use... and that they have to use all of them... and they have to use proof of using all of them. I think for kids that's really difficult. But most kids don't like to read any more because we don't make them read any more. So one of things we need to do in our classroom is not just get kids to read... but to see how well they're comprehending what they're reading. So... what do we need to do to help kids become active and critically involved with television programming? Remember - the average young person is spending more hours a day, 4-5 times more hours a day than they are in your classroom. So I think first, because television controls our perceptions, we need to understand the technical mechanisms used to gain that control. TV controls our perceptions in at least four ways: the angle of the camera, the speed of the cuts, the number and kind of technical interventions, and the length and time for each montage. Let's examine the angle of the camera - (now if you're going to present this to the kids, you're going to have to change it... because they're not going to know who Ollie North is.. but most of you should know, I'm assuming) So, let's look at this: If ex-Marine Colonel Oliver North is pictured during the Iran-Contra Congressional hearings with the camera pointed up toward him, this gives the viewer the "feeling" that North has power and command. Conversely, if the camera is shooting down it gives the viewer the "feeling" that North does not have power and is not in command. An angle from the side suggests he might not be telling the truth. An angle straight into his eyes gives the sense that he is being truthful. And everybody in television and film knows that. Many of you know that because you are familiar with YouTube. 2. Because television controls how we "feel" about what is on the screen, we need to understand how we are being manipulated. And this is the most important "kid" thing - NO kid likes to be manipulated. No kid does. And this is where the real buy-in is for kids - when they understand the level of that manipulation Pictures affect how we feel about things, and the pictoral language of television is the close-up shot Extreme close-ups suggest intimacy while long shots suggest a distant relationship. A fast-paced set of "cuts" will affect how we perceive the story that is being told… while a slow pace, with a lot of “dissolves” suggests we should feel something else. Music will greatly influence the mood with which we digest the scenes – as will canned laughter. Now. Let me give you an example of a documentary that, hopefully, you've all seen, or some of you have seen, "Fog of War" Now... what would that documentary have been without Philip Glass' musical score? Close to useless. Because Philip Glass' musical score is edgy. And McNamara is edgy. And the documentary is edgy. And that music makes you sit on the edge of your seat the entire time. So.. if you use any portions of it in your classroom ... and by the way this is the 50th anniversary of missiles in Cuba... And if you were going to use "Fog of War" - in which he talks at length about what really happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis - and you can only use that little piece of the film - you should play it with the music and without the music... if that's possible because the music changes everything. And kids don't recognize how manipulated they are by music as well. Third reason: Because television is edited for an intended effect, we need to understand how it is designed to direct our feelings and perceptions. Every TV show has an intended effect - something the producers and advertisers want us to believe. So they need to know that. Every show has an agenda. Thus, everything is edited after filming - even "live" shows - to meet that intended effect. For instance, if in the 2003 California Recall / Governor's Election, the director chooses to "cut away" to Arianna Huffington while "Arnie" is speaking - a specific message is made. Or if the director "cuts away" to the audience while the Green Party candidate is speaking - and the audience is showing displeasure - another message is being "sold" to the public. Can you see that? 4. Because television is manipulated technically and by subject matter choice, we need to understand the tools used to keep us attentive. In order to keep us attentive, directors must technically manipulate what we see on the screen. The average 30-second commercial has 20 technical manipulations - cuts, zooms, dissolves, et cetera - that are used to keep us focused on what is being sold. Directors must also focus on bizarre, controversial, and confrontation subject matter in order to keep us interested. Thus, if there is a protest in front of the US Capitol and a small amount of violence occurs, the few minutes of violent action is what is shown, rather than the hours of quiet protest. Kids need to understand that. They really need to understand that. And finally: Because television is in the business of making money, we need to be aware of this influence on everything we watch. Commercial television networks pay the Nielson television rating's service to determine the number of people who are watching a particular program. If people are watching, advertisers will pay to reach them; if they're not watching, their profitability will be low and they will not pay. Television broadcasters show what people want - we control the market! And kids don't realize that. If we don't watch the shows, the shows go off the air. If we don't pay attention on the computer... because, of course, over on the computer our 'hits' are being recorded... then those shows won't be on the computer. So kids need to understand - they are empowered in this process... But only if they are ACTIVE participants in what they are watching. Not if they're passive participants. Can you see this? So you can do whatever you want with this data... you can re-word it... you can present it to the students with some re-wording... but, I think the students will find it interesting. Now, several years ago, one of my students who actually has a similar assignment to Jesse's - she was Jennifer's student teacher - presented all this data to her basic US History class... and they were furious. Basically she wanted... she sent them the materials... and then said, "So what do you think?" And after looking at everything, they said, "Well, we're being used! We're being manipulated!" And she said, "True. Do you think you guys can think longer than 10 minutes?" "Yeah! We think longer than 10 minutes! Let's see how much longer we can think!" And so for the next 2 weeks, she added 5 to 10 minutes further of discussion until they got to a whole 50 minutes where they were having discussion... sometimes lecture... or groupwork... but they were actually focusing on a topic for a whole class period. And they were really proud of themselves. And when she got them there after 3 or 4 weeks, that's the way the rest of the year proceeded. And they would always say, "Isn't that a bit short? Shouldn't we be talking a little mit more?" She found it to be terrifically successful. I don't think you with basic kids - you can do it with anybody. Kids don't like the idea that they are thought of as only capable of thinking for 10 minutes. So, can any of you see the use of this? Have any ideas on it? Of how you might use it? Again, you don't need to use this to teach WITH - but how it might form your teaching... your stance. Remember we talked about using "good homework"? Here's an idea for homework Because if they're going to be watching television, or on their computer, you need to tie your homework into that. Always. So, to get an idea of how much television or other visual media your students watch daily, I would ask them the following, and I would ask them in writing: • How much television/computer programs do you watch? • Do you watch it with family members, friends? Who do you watch it with? Alone? • Do you think about what you watch? • Why do you watch television / computer programs? What does it add to your life? - and that question... nobody's ever asked them - "What does it add to your life?" And finally... • How would your lives change if you stopped watching, or cut your time down ? Then, to get even better answers to your questions, have students chart their television / computer program viewing for a week - list all that they watched and have them keep a journal of what they thought about the programs, and how they did / did not contribute to their lives. This is a great discussion topic when they bring their journals back to class. You can take a poll: How many of you watched 3 to 4 hours a day? Ask them all those questions. And then ask them to continue to monitor... this could be an ongoing project.... tell them if they're going to watch 4 hours of TV a day, you'd like one of those hours to be on some education topic they get to pick that topic, depending on whether they have cable TV or what but certainly they can grab it on the internet, if they've got internet at home... but it has to do... remember we talked about the cultural points? ... So maybe you can tie the cultural points in with that... we talked about that several weeks ago... So this is a great way to bring that whole discussion - of how TV influences their life into your Social Science classroom. Next goal... so after I take this question we can pause. [male student off camera] - I was thinking that... we need to add video games to this. Because it's not just passive - violence, action, cut-screens... it's definitely the student doing the violence doing the action... so I'd like to hear some stats... I'd like to do some research on video games and definitely present that to the students as well. Just - how they use the video games and what it brings to them... [instructor] Would you a little bit of research, when you've got the time? [new male voice off camera] - The military have created a lot of video games... - They've got it down - Yeah, they know if they can get them interested... [instructor] And they're pretty scary You can go to your military recruiters on campus and ask them what shows... Aaron - you do a lot of gaming.... so this is something sort of near and dear to your heart... I think it would be really important.... if you guys, maybe this week, individually look for some stats.... I tried to find stats on gaming and violence... what I mainly find is any watching of the... passive watching of violence... you got those statistics... couldn't find anything - but I may not looking in the right place for active participation in violence because, of course, that is a huge, huge issue. And of course, it's fairly new, so the research is going to be recently new whereas the Nielson ratings have been around for years. So that'd be great. Any other questions? Or comments?