For over a century, we have lived in a mass-media culture. In the latter half of the 19th century, the major mass media–books, magazines, and newspapers–took the form of the printed word. Soon, audiovisual media came to prominence as well–cinema, records, radio, and television. The internet has brought us digital manipulations of some extant media–particularly [...]
Today’s students, fairly or unfairly, possess the only hope for changing the social trends that their parents and their culture have enabled, and they need the help of teachers and other adults in order to prepare for the task.
New Jersey’s legislation remains silent on the history, framework, mechanisms, psychology, sociology, pathology, intentions, and currents of influence of the very media that most directly and pervasively affect the lives of young people.
We must disagree with each other as opponents, not as enemies; we must look beyond our differences to see on all parts a genuine, if at times misguided, concern for our country and our society.
I am forty years older than my eighth-graders. So little has changed since I was their age–yet so much. In 1982, my friends and I had phones, video games, pop music, movies, and television. I was one of the few kids in my school who had a computer, an Atari 800. I did not have [...]
Real Teaching 