After reflecting over the school board’s idea to move “back to the basics” in order to improve test scores in reading and writing, I wanted to put forth reasons why this plan may not work.
For many years, we have seen a decline in not only students’ test scores, but also in their interest level in participating in class discussions, assignments, and other coursework. What seemed important and interesting to the student population fifty, forty, or even ten years ago does not hold the same value for the students we are currently teaching. Our students’ interests are evolving right along with the change in our society. Why is it that we, as educators, are not willing to change right along with them, but instead stick to the same rigid curriculum we have been teaching, without success, for a long time?
The lack of interest in the curriculum they are supposed to learn is a key reason why they are becoming more and more disinterested in our classrooms. If we can provide the students with a “hook”, or a link to who they are and what they like, we may be able to draw them back into an environment where learning can, and will, take place.
I want you to think for a moment about a topic in which you have no interest to learn about. Maybe it is knitting, or fishing, or maybe it is underwater basket weaving. Now consider how you would react if I told you that all you could read about for the next nine months was that one topic, which you have already professed disinterest. Were you overjoyed at the thought of learning more on that subject and being able to understand it better, or did you groan audibly, shut down, and decide you wouldn’t do the reading? Now think about how you would have reacted if you were a teenager.
Next, think of a topic that you love. If you got the chance to read about that topic for the next nine months, how would you feel? Excited? Interested? Ready to get started? We are not so different from our students and I think we lose sight of this as we continue to choose curriculum that does not interest them. Now, I do understand that there is not a magical topic; a subject area that will appeal to each and every member of our school’s community. But I do feel that there are those that will appeal to a large majority of our student population.
One topic that may garner the interest of the majority of the population is popular culture, and, more specifically, popular music. The question is: how do we incorporate the topic of popular music into the already existing standards that we have set for ourselves? Where does this topic fit? At first glance, it doesn’t seem like it would be a smooth transition to bring the topic of popular music into our school. Into which discipline would it best fit?
While reading Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA by Reebee Garafalo, I felt that the ideas presented in both the introduction and in the chapter on the music in the 1980’s would be not only interesting for the students to learn, but also would enhance their understanding our country’s history. Just as reading Wuthering Heights enhances a student’s understanding and knowledge of 19th Century England, learning about and reviewing music from various eras can provide a lens in which to view history and culture.
We can use popular culture and popular music as bait to help students become interested in new subject matter. Will we only be discussing the history of music without opening the doors to the history of our country and the world? Of course not; the two are intertwined. We cannot look at the history of music without talking about the history of the world. It is just not possible. Our history influenced the music of the times, which in turn, influenced our history. Many social and cultural shifts that occurred in the American society happened right along with shifts in the music scene.
If a social studies teacher was given the opportunity to reach out to a student through their love of music, we may be able to help them culture a new passion for history by linking the two together. This new passion could carry on for years, opening new doors to our students as they continue on through the world of academia.
You may be asking, if we can only teach popular culture and popular music in socials studies class, why are you, a language arts teacher fighting for this opportunity? I struggled with this myself. After a cursory glance it seemed that the most logical place to study popular music would be in the social studies classroom, but after probing further into the topic and talking with my colleagues, it is apparent that the topic of popular music is a multidisciplinary one.
Go back to our earlier example of reading something that interests you and relate this to our students. As a language arts teacher, one of my duties is to open our students’ eyes to writing from across the world. By the time they graduate high school, my students are supposed to have been exposed to American literature, British literature, world literature, and poetry. I cannot tell you how many times I have introduced a new novel to a group of incoming students and have been told, I haven’t read a book since elementary school. When asked why this is, it quickly becomes apparent that they have no connection to what they are reading.
Even today, after the students took the practice MCA-II Reading test, one student told me it wasn’t so bad since the reading was interesting. In fact, many concurred with this assessment stating that they hoped to never read about how to peel potatoes ever again; which was one of the passages we had read earlier in the year. The message from our students is clear: if we let them read things they’re interested in, they will want to read. Once we can get past a student’s aversion to reading, I believe they will be much more inclined to give other topics found in literature a chance.
Along with literature, the students must be introduced to poetry. When we think of poetry, people like Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, Deborah Keenan, and Allen Ginsburg pop into our minds. But what about the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Kanye West? Looking back at the works of Emily Dickinson or William Shakespeare it is easy to see where a high school student could get lost when trying to come up with the “true meaning” of their poetry. While the themes may be universal, the language used is not. It can be quite tedious for a novice in poetry to understand the intentions of the poet. If we instead were able to introduce them to poetry through a poet of our students’ generation, such as any of the above musicians, I believe the students would have an easier time understanding the poetry and grasping the meaning. Does that mean that there isn’t a place for Henry Wordsworth Longfellow in our curriculum? Definitely not. After the students have mastered the poets of their generations, it would be our job to take them a step further and challenge them with the classics. But at least them we would have built upon the groundwork of the knowledge and confidence of our students.
In summary, we have tried the “back to the basics” approach and have seen the decline in our student’s knowledge and willingness to learn. Why not try to generate an interest in their own education by offering topics that interest the students instead of pushing them away? Please consider this proposal to include the topics of popular culture and popular music into our curriculum.
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