Talking Points #4- Christensen

Linda Christensen. "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"; from Rethinking Our Classrooms.

Christensen argues that teachers must educate their students to question the stereotypes and inequalities found in movies, television, cartoons, and the world as a whole. Teachers and students must work together to create a world where respect, equality, and understanding are the ways of life, and stereotypes, inequalities, and racism is a part of the past.

• "True death equals a generation living by rules and attitudes they never questioned and producing more children to do the same." Wow! Just wow! I was floored to learn that a comment like this could come from someone my age. This girl is wise beyond her years. This quote is important because it illustrates that teachers must educate their students to question the rules and why they are in place. Educated people must question the "status quo". Humans are not meant to be mindless sheep following the herd. If humans do not question life, progress stalls and begins to move backwards.
• "We are not only taught certain styles of violence, the latest fashions, and sex roles by TV, movies, magazines, and comic strips; we are also taught how to succeed, how to love, how to buy, how to conquer, how to forget the past and suppress the future. We are taught, more than anything else, how not to rebel." This quote is important because it demonstrates the "codes" that are transferred to our children through the media. Children learn how to act and behave mostly through what they see in the media outlets. Teachers must educate their children to be individuals and to always question what they do and do not understand.
• "It (Cindy Ellie, A Modern Fairy Tale) celebrates the beauty, culture, and language of African Americans. It also puts forth the possibility of cross-race alliances for social change." This quote is important because it illustrates an example of what our society should be striving to be like. The beauty, culture, and language of every person should be celebrated. Individuality is beautiful. People, regardless of their races, should work together to solve their problems.

This article showed me the impact that television and media outlets had on me as a child. Like many people, I watched cartoons as a child. As a child, I was unaware of the racist and sexist stereotypes that were being conveyed to me by the media. I always enjoyed cartoons as entertainment only. As a child, I assumed that the media would convey the same values that my family believed. I always thought, to a fault, that all people accepted everyone as great people, regardless of race, creed, or ethnicity. As I have gotten older, I have realized that the world is not as accepting of everyone as my family and I are. Why does the world let these vicious and hurtful stereotypes to continue? As teachers, we have the obligation to teach our children to accept everyone for who they are and to disregard stereotypes. It is our duty to work with our students to leave the world in a better place then we found it.