Culture in the Cupboard

To carry out the National Geographic assignment titled, "Culture in the Cupboard", in terms of cultural capital and pop culture, I would modify the task slightly. I do feel as though this lesson plan is different and interesting I feel as though things can be tweaked a little to make it more relevant to a lesson on popular culture. I would change the task of bringing in 10 items to three items one from each area of interest. If their family values reading very highly and they all read Harry Potter together before bed then I would ask them to bring in a copy of one of their books. If certain families were a part of Rainbow Families, an organization for GLBT parents and their children, I would ask them to bring in a t-shirt or pictures from their times spent at one of the Rainbow Families summer camps for example. Let's say that one of my students was part of the Quaker faith, I could have them bring in a parent to talk to the rest of the class about what it means to be a part of this community. The list could go on forever! I feel as though limiting this lesson to two to four hours is depriving our children of a possible chance to feel validated and to introduce a possible new aspect of popular culture that may be different from their peers. I feel that an activity like this holds great importance and should not be simply skimmed over. After all every culture does not mean American culture and every culture does not recognize our popular culture as their own. 

Barbie, Shmarbie

While reading the article titled 'Barbies without Ken: Femininity, Feminism, and the Art-Culture System' by Lynn Spigel, many different thoughts were conjured up in my mind. The world we live in today in full of SO MANY different controversial issues that it is hard to read something like this and think, "Wow, Barbie is really making an impact on our kids." Although there are several interesting points made regarding the issues of racism, classism and gender roles, there are many other much more prevalent dolls that we should be focussing on. What about 'Bratz' - if that is even how you spell it. They are or were, maybe I'm continuing to date myself, very popular and have many of the same if not more exaggerated traits than Barbie has. I think the bigger issue is the way that we are parenting our children. Let's be honest with ourselves. We could give our child any toy they wanted and someone could find something wrong with it. Don't get me wrong I am a strong believer in creating change and ridding ourselves of the stereotypical images of women that we constantly see but for me it is more important to focus on what really matters. Our children's opinions and ideas originally stem from us as parents and the resources that we provide our kids with. Parents need to wake up and educate their children. Why not use Barbie as a tool. Talk with your kids about how this is not what most people look like, Barbie is just a doll that some people think is fun to play with and dress up, provide these children with other examples of images and toys in popular culture that are progressive. How about giving your daughter legos and giving your son an easel and some paint and letting them go all out.