Sunday, March 29, 2009

Popular Music

This week reading was very interesting, I have to agree with what the book stated about popular music. But there is one issue that I wish the book covered a little bite more and that is how some music effects young kids negatively.




First of all, I agree that using music in a classroom is a very good way to get students' attention. When using something that they can relate to usually grabs their attention. The trick here is to use music in a way that will get their attentions. I remember when I was in high school, we had a few assignments where music was needed. Even though the music part caught my attention, I still thought the assignment was lame because of what we had to do with the music. I remember there was one assignment where I did really enjoy. It was in English class and we were reading the book called The Pearl. For one of our final projects, we had to make a CD with songs that would describe or be apporperiate for certain part of the book. That was really fun because in a way it was like making a movie and I had to pick out songs to go in the background.



What the book didn't really cover was the fact that even a lot of people don't get influence negatively by music, there is a pretty big port of people that do. For the final project, I decided to write on how hip hop music is a bad influence on young kids today. And let me tell you, some of the things that kids do because of music they listen to is crazy! Not only does bad music influence these kids to do bad things, but a lot of hip hop songs protray women as sex objects and kids are thinking that it's okay to treat women as sex objects. For an example the music video called Money Maker by Ludacris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_UQYXV1mc0.
Not only do guys see girls as sex objects, but girls are starting to allow themselves be looked at in that way.



It's good that educators want to incorpate music and popular culture in the circulums, but we have to remember that while we want includes things, we have to be careful not to use things that will influence kids negatively. Maybe there is even a way to use music and popular culture in a classroom and teach these kids what's right and what wrong. Maybe we should teach our students to think critically about what is a good and bad influence on them and their peers.



Overall, I think that using music and popular culture in a classroom is good for the teachers and and students if done in a good and right way. It allows the teachers and students to learn about each other and from one another, And that I think is very big and important.

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