One of my favourite parts of teaching is being able to provide students opportunities to think critically about Canadian and world issues. In today’s world, it is essential that students have time to practice critical thinking skills in order for them to begin to form their own opinions and views on various issues. These skills will be necessary to have as they navigate through life in hopes of challenging the hegemony they will face.
My students are so interconnected with the world through social media that some do not realize the power that is at their fingertips. They also may not be consciously aware of the opinions and images of others. In Saara Särmä’s article (2015), Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics, she discusses how we randomly encounter world politics during our interaction on the Internet. She discusses how she has begun to use this interaction as a way to engage with world politics and I believe that it is something my students can begin to do as well.
Personally, in the days following the terror attacks on November 14, 2015 in Paris, I came across the following three images on my Facebook Newsfeed:
My students are so interconnected with the world through social media that some do not realize the power that is at their fingertips. They also may not be consciously aware of the opinions and images of others. In Saara Särmä’s article (2015), Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics, she discusses how we randomly encounter world politics during our interaction on the Internet. She discusses how she has begun to use this interaction as a way to engage with world politics and I believe that it is something my students can begin to do as well.
Personally, in the days following the terror attacks on November 14, 2015 in Paris, I came across the following three images on my Facebook Newsfeed:
I was immediately struck by these images as I knew that they would be of use in my grade 8 class. As I studied the images, I thought that they would be perfect for a class who is beginning to be challenged to think critically about world issues, and really, just about anything. I found these images to be simple enough for children to make connections to and offer personal opinions on, but challenging enough that some students may still not understand the significance of. A good example of this is the image above of the world media image framing the Eiffel Tour while the rest of the world has ongoing conflicts on a daily basis.
These images have been useful in my own life as I shared them with some friends and discussed the filter bubbles we live in as a way of limiting our own knowledge without even knowing it. I shared the example of how I had heard about the attacks in Paris, but not in Beirut.
Whether it be the images I have posted above, the images we have seen in class, such as Osama Bin Lisa, or the images Säramä discusses in her article, there is an element of research that needs to be taken into consideration. Students and myself are challenged, “to figure our what had actually happened to prompt the memes” (Säramä, 2015, p.112) and other images that we view. This is a part of being a globally informed citizen.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article as I found it very timely to current affairs. I wish I had have studied the articles for this course further before writing my final paper as I think this would have been an excellent topic to write on. I suppose that in saying this, it offers me the challenge to continue research and writing post EDUC 5199G.
Saara Särmä. “Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics.” Caso and Hamilton, Eds. pp. 110-119.
These images have been useful in my own life as I shared them with some friends and discussed the filter bubbles we live in as a way of limiting our own knowledge without even knowing it. I shared the example of how I had heard about the attacks in Paris, but not in Beirut.
Whether it be the images I have posted above, the images we have seen in class, such as Osama Bin Lisa, or the images Säramä discusses in her article, there is an element of research that needs to be taken into consideration. Students and myself are challenged, “to figure our what had actually happened to prompt the memes” (Säramä, 2015, p.112) and other images that we view. This is a part of being a globally informed citizen.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article as I found it very timely to current affairs. I wish I had have studied the articles for this course further before writing my final paper as I think this would have been an excellent topic to write on. I suppose that in saying this, it offers me the challenge to continue research and writing post EDUC 5199G.
Saara Särmä. “Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics.” Caso and Hamilton, Eds. pp. 110-119.