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And do the "Harlem Shake": Interpreting and Acting in the World
It was a really enjoyable experience to read “Life in Schools”, a review of our practices that should be taken into consideration as teachers and learners, towards a pedagogy that is adequate to a new learning era.
This weekend I came across the “Harlem Shake” meme and got overwhelmed. It’s fascinating how much energy and time is spent by not only kids and teens but also by adults in their giving their own local version of a dance which was created elsewhere, a hybrid of an internet phenomena, the intervertion of a DJ, the hip-hop, a dance created in the guettos of Harlem in the 1980s which was based on movements of a typical Ethiopian dance and finally…. non-sense??!
Why is the "Harlem Shake" so appealing to people? Why are memes so attractive? I guess that all this reveals a constant need of interpreting and acting in the world.
Without a critical intervention, our students may grow to act silly on the internet and that would be all. But towards a rich movement, a mix of cultures that are being appropriated by millions of people – at least, this is the way I could see the Harlem Shake – teachers might explore aspects of difference, the local and the global aspects of memes and engage students in working collaboratively giving their own critical view of the meme. Being on the net, it wouldn’t belong to them anymore (as we read in the proprietary dimension of new learning), it would go global, shared with other authors and co-authors.
As designers of pedagogy, teachers would make a lot more sense of the world, using what students already know as the material to be developed and worked, making students think while working and going beyond their boundaries, as agents who do not only act as copycats, but who really havea voice and can speak up.
Or...Am I idealizing memes too much?
)_20Foto_20de_20F_C3_A1bio.png "Fábio Bezerra")
Junot! I've called you Junior! Sorry! :)
Great point, Junior! I do agree that teachers should problematize the outside world (well, don't schools belong to the world? or, as Prof. Maria Elisa Cevasco once said, during one of her classes at USP, schools are comparable to Disneyland, where magic happens! lol...). That's why I pointed, and Livia shares my view, that teachers make sense of the world when considering what students alreadt know and enjoy: we should never forget that as teachers, we are also learners. Unfortunaley, the news Fabricio has shared here shows how far from the real world many schools are. I think to my self, what is the real world considering the dramatic change digital technologies have caused in our realities. Virtuality is real, too, isn't it? Virtual is the real empowered, according to Pierre Levy. Oxford has just shown how unprepared to face this reality many insitutions are, how rigid the system is, as opposed to the liquid modernity we are living in, as Zygmunt Bauman says.
Gabriela, what you mentioned is what I'm concerned about. The fact that people involved in producing their versions to the meme are, mostly, just following orders. That's not what should happen in schools, don't you think?
Interessante pensar em como esse fenômeno do Harlem Shake traz à tona a relevância da internet em relação à questão local-global. Isso me faz pensar sobre aquele que eu penso ser um dos grandes desafios a ser enfrentado pela maioria dos professores: a permeabilidade entre a sua ideia de sala de aula - considerando desde espaço físico até os discursos que nela estão em jogo - e aquilo que é externo a ela, o que compreende desde fatores macrossociais até a realidade dos alunos em si, pensados a partir de suas respectivas singularidades. Essa questão se torna ainda mais complexa e interessante se pensarmos como a internet interfere nessa relação por meio de sua virtualidade característica, capaz de desestabilizar qualquer tentativa de rigidez e controle sobre os espaços. Acredito que estas sejam questões bastante relevantes para se problematizar questões sobre formação de professores, principalmente.
http://noticias.terra.com.br/educacao/oxford-demite-servidora-apos-alunos-dancarem-harlem-shake-em-biblioteca,9880d9615e48d310VgnVCM3000009acceb0aRCRD.html
The Harlem shake trend seems to me one of those unexplained phenomena which loose its original goal as it becomes only a meme or a trend, maybe I`m simplifying it too much, but as a young person who has took part in one of those videos, I have to say, most people are just following other people.
However, they are indeed acting collaboratively and this should be taken into account as we, teachers, try to engage students in the same way but for performing different tasks.
Nice point when you say that teachers can make more sense of the world using what students already know and, above all, enjoy, as material to be developed and worked. It seems that teachers are mostly worried about showing students their own worlds which, for many learners won't make much sense... the inverted logic may also work very well...
Great connection and example, Denise
The ones who havent' seen this meme yet, please check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R8HGsbI4QY