I tend to keep myself very busy, and, between full units in school and working full time, I do not have much free time to spare. Consequently my media consumption is dependant on the kind of media that I can fit in to my busy schedule and thus tends to be sporadic and dishearteningly sparse. I do, however, try to make sure I work in time to read books outside of my class curriculums during the school year. I read a wide range of books – some classics, and some pop culture creations. This year, for instance, I have read The Fall, The Golden Compass, and Watership Down. I also watch clips from show such as the Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight, and the Colbert Report when ever I get the chance, both for the entertainment value and the updates they provide on current issues in the world. Beyond these two main outlets of incoming media, I do occasionally watch television shows such as Dr.Who and The Walking Dead on the rare evenings I have off, and I read a lot of article on various news sites that I stumble upon, either through social media cites or while researching for a class.
I believe the high-low culture distinction is both elitist and vaguely delusional. The endocrine that there is some set of values, facts, and works that are better than other held values, facts, and works simply because one set has been given the stamp of approval by the influential group of well-learned and well-off people in our society, is simply ridiculous and exclusive. Those who uphold the high culture ideals argue that popular culture is lesser, simply because it is popular culture- its new, relatable, and intrinsic to the current way of life- while completely failing to see that the works they now deem historical classics are only relevant now because they too were once popular culture. Take the books Great Expectations and the Harry Potter Series. Both are amazing works of art and rhetoric that had deep impactful meanings that were relevant to the culture and time they were written. To say that Great Expectations should be taught in our education system rather than Harry Potter simply on the basis that it has been declared a classical work and Harry Potter series is simply popular culture, to me, seems like an obvious fallacy.
This leads to the question of what, as a culture, we should expect our students to learn in our schools and how we should teach said knowledge (a question that, as a perspective teacher myself, I find very imperative). According to E.D. Hirsch, a literature professor at the University of Virginia, the answer to this question is based in cultural literacy, which are a collection of these high culture terminology that he and other scholars have deemed important. Though I think Hirsch is correct in arguing that knowledge is central to a students ability to achieve in both school and in the world, I think his methods of picking the “important” aspects of history and art and how he would have them taught, are short sited and destructive.
In an interview with Fran Abrams on the BBC radio, E.D. Hirsch said that “the only really promising way of closing the gap between the intellectual haves and have-nots is to do it through it more systematic schooling and more content oriented schooling.” This approach of drilling a predetermined set of facts into a students brain has been proven over and over not to be effective and leads to students who are removed from the learning process. Hirsch’s assertion that vocabulary size “is the single most accurate proxy for whether or not you have achieved academic equality” leads schools to only focusing on teaching vocabulary and snippets of information that are in the standards, rather than actually working to give their students the tools they need to succeed outside of school, such as the ability to think critically.
The main issues with E.D. Hirsch’s argument are 1) He is holding on to ideals that are not actually relevant to succeeding in modern culture and 2) he is making a distinction between knowledge and skill that, in the real world, does not exist. Hirsch seems to argue that one’s success in life is tied to their ability to recite a very long list of vocabulary, and yet I know very few professions where that is the case. In reality it seems the ability to process new information and create new meaning our of it and the ability to solve problems as they arise is the true test of success in the world outside of the classroom. In the BBC Radio interview, Ruth Wichetts, the chair of a group that drew up Scotland’s educational approach, argued that it is important teachers “impart the knowledge in their subject matter in more creative ways” allowing the pupil to be “creative, be imaginative, be innovative, and to think for themselves, because employers are wanting people who can work in a team, who can be imaginative.” The other main flaw with the Hirschian ideals is that it assumes one only needs knowledge of these key pieces of literature and history to truly understand the world, rather than needing the background and skills to process the knowledge as well. Professor Sir Michael Barber, chief education advisor at Pierson, articulates this failing in logic pointing out the “false dichotomy” between knowing acts and having the skills need to apply them. He asserts that to have actual applicable knowledge, one must have both, “knowing what and knowing how.” It seems that Hirsch’s list of memorized hand picked snippets of knowledge are really only useful in two places; on standardized tests and on a game show.
Journey through Mass Media and the Popular Arts 