Oct
Some education
Kimmy’s Year 4 program in literature includes a module called “Fantasy Worlds”. Guess which texts she was supposed to be studying in that?
Harry Potter books! And not just the books - all movie installments to date were apparently part of the program as well.
On top of that - wait for it! - the pupils would then progress to watching Star Wars movies.
I’m not kidding!
Now, I like fantasy as a genre a lot and I am a big fan of the Star Wars, but I am not sure that they are an appropriate curriculum for a bunch of 8-year-olds. And, frankly, Star Wars as a literary work!? Really?
Many parents objected, Natasha included (I largely stay on the sidelines when it comes to communicating with schools; after all, Natasha is an educator by trade - she has an insider view on how to navigate a parent-teacher relationship). Star Wars were canned, cinema sessions rolled back, and the plan is now limited to the very first Harry Potter as sort of a modern fairy tale. But in greater detail than before.
I’m sure the kids would be unhappy if they knew that their parents prevented them from watching movies all the time.
Depends on how it’s done. The biggest issue I see is that they’re 8-year-olds, and too young to take any kind of sophisticated critical look at the works. Then again, they’re age-appropriate works that might be used to get the kids’ attention to introduce ideas about plot, structure and conflict, or for some kind of comparative purpose.
I doubt the teachers have the skill to pull it off, but the idea itself isn’t inherently flawed. One of my best friends taught several college-level classes where films were used as the subject of undergraduate literary criticism when he was finishing his doctorate. The college kids are presumably more sophisticated than 8-year-olds.
Without regard to age-appropriateness, Star Wars could be used as a literary work to demonstrate a number of notions including: the differences between genre/pop culture and “high” art, the role of western literary canon plays in informing derivative and contemporary works, the role editing plays in shaping story, and (of course!) Campbell’s theories of heroic archetypes and the mythic journey. Again, not all of these might be suitable for eight year-olds. One notion that leaps to mind just before bedtime is that you might show eight-year-olds Star Wars right before introducing them to a literary forebear–e.g. an age-appropriate version of the Arthurian cycle.
It’s probably just as well the idea was canned, but mostly because the school would probably blow the execution, not because you couldn’t use any of the works you mentioned as pedagogical tools. Just saying.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:36 am |The biggest issue I see is that they’re 8-year-olds, and too young to take any kind of sophisticated critical look at the works.
I think that is precisely the problem, Eric. At that age, kids are years away from acquiring abilities to look at any work of art from a point of view other than “cool” or “fun” or “bo-o-o-ring”. (To say nothing of the fact that they probably lack capacity to adequately process the notions of non-cartoonish violence and death.)
On a different tangent altogether, I suppose a clever person could use virtually any cinematic work to illustrate most, if not all, of the notions that you mention. I am not convinced that this is truly useful in the study of literature (although it would certainly be if the subject was “story-telling”), but I certainly don’t disagree that a good selection of age-appropriate movies could be a fun and illuminating study of a number of subjects in “liberal arts” curriculum. The key is that selection.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am |What Eric said.
Seriously, I was going to bring up the idea that Star Wars, at least, is our generation’s embodiment of the classic fantasy archetypes. (And Harry Potter is our children’s expression of the same, age old story cycle.)
However, 8 is a little young for Campbell and serious study of myth.
I think that calling the teacher on an all-popular film curriculum was probably wise - but a little, to underline a point and maintain interest levels, might be a good thing.
October 13th, 2008 at 5:48 am |