Segmento 3: Empresa Privada (Gerentes, jefes o representantes de empresas de Servicios Portuarios, Navieras, Almacén extraportuario, Agente Marítimo,

‘THE POPULAR CULTURE INSPIRED

SOUVENIRS’

This research project made the adult participants recognise the great impact that popular culture has on young children’s lives. Children’s skills and practices in relation to popular culture are described as a central aspect and an integral part of their childhood (Dyson, 2003). Popular culture and its symbols very often appear on children’s belongings (Marsh & Millard, 2000; Wohlwend, 2009), influence children’s playing (Dyson, 2003; Marsh & Millard, 2000) identity building, relationships (Dyson, 2003; Williams, 2007), societal values (Cheung, 2001) and knowledge (Dyson, 2001; Marsh, 1999b; Moje et al., 2004). This research project helped us (adult participants) become conscious of the large amount of knowledge that child participants acquired from their encounter with popular culture texts. At the same time it revealed to us the capacity of popular culture texts to be successfully implemented in the critical literacy curriculum. Morrell (2002) and Stevens (2001) believe that the best teaching approach that can be used when

171 Chapter Five popular culture enters a classroom is critical literacy. In a similar vein, Sanford and Madill (2007) stress the ability of visual popular culture texts to be effectively used in the critical literacy curriculum.

My students were bringing their home and out-of-school popular culture experiences to the classroom, which I embraced within our classroom literacy program with respect and appreciation in ‘hybrid pedagogical spaces’ (Hicks, 2001) and a ‘transformative pedagogy of literacy fusion’ (Millard, 2003). Both the managerial team and parents expressed their approval and satisfaction for this action of mine. Using Gainer’s (2008) words, popular culture in my classroom served “as a bridge between students’ out-of-school literacies and curricular goals of schooling” (p. 29). Parent participants showed their support and trust towards their children’s popular culture choices in a manner similarly to the parents in Arthur’s (2005) research project. Moreover, when parent participants of my project were asked, they were in a position to accurately name their children’s favourite popular culture texts and icons thus revealing parents’ awareness of their children’s popular culture preferences.

In addition to realising the great impact popular culture has in the lives of children, this research project helped us appreciate popular culture as a motivational factor for successful learning. The managerial team mentioned the importance of presenting to children texts and topics that interest them, like the ones retrieved from popular culture. I observed my students enthusiastically participating in classroom activities and expressing pleasure in their classroom experiences. Their parents described the zeal with which their children approached their homework and the eagerness they showed in sharing classroom happenings with their families. Similar to my own research journal observations, in relevant literature teachers and researchers observe learners showing greater enthusiasm, experiencing no difficulties to follow classroom activities or staying on task and developing

172 Chapter Five better understanding of the new knowledge (Cheung, 2001; Comber 1998; Lesley, 2008; Marsh, 1999b; Vasquez, 2005).

However, I have the feeling that the motivation my third graders’ were experiencing was not merely related to the enjoyment they were getting from these texts. As Parry (2014), very vividly, explains: “it is not just the sheer pleasure of sharing popular culture texts that increases children’s motivation in literacy activities (as important as this is). I propose that it is also the ability to fully participate in classroom learning” (p. 14). My students were aware that our classroom routines were setting expectations from them to act in certain ways within our classroom walls. As my students were working with something they were familiar with and enjoyed, they could be productive, feel successful, achieve academically and maintain their identity as ‘good students’.

Dolby (2003) calls popular culture ‘a social glue’ as it brings together people from different social backgrounds. In my socially homogeneous classroom, popular culture functioned as ‘a learning glue’. It brought my students together regardless of the different learning capabilities, skills, pieces of knowledge and experiences that each of them had. Popular culture and critical literacy helped them participate in the learning process successfully and function productively and effectively in the classroom. They even realised that learning can be fun as they gained much pleasure during lessons.

In addition to our realisation of the great influence popular culture has on youngsters’ lives and its capacity to act as a motivational factor during the teaching-learning process, we came across a number of dilemmas related to popular culture. Firstly, parents appeared concerned about the great amount of time their children were spending with popular culture and they described a kind of obsession that characterised their children’s activities with popular culture.

173 Chapter Five

Secondly we got in touch with popular culture’s short life. The short lived nature of popular culture and the anxiety this promotes among the teacher population is described in the relevant literature (Marsh, 2006; Marsh and Millard, 2000). In Marsh (2006) the student teachers that participated in her project “expressed the view that popular culture texts were generally too trivial and ephemeral in nature to warrant a specific focus” (p. 168).My students showed great excitement at the beginning of each unit but after a short period of time they felt bored as they became more interested in different popular culture topics or icons. This quick change of heart and the transience of popular culture was something that parents described vividly in their journals. In addition, my lack of personal awareness on a variety of popular culture themes and my need of time to get familiar with them brought on the possibility that my students would not be attracted to the selected popular culture texts by the time I would have been ready to introduce them in the classroom. This realisation made me aware that

literacy teachers who use popular culture in their classrooms should be alert, highly reflexive and easily adjustable as teaching plans might need to be changed at the last minute. The managerial team suggested that the popular culture units be short in time so as to make students’ disinterest in a lesson theme impossible.

Moreover, we realised that popular culture texts very often present or give rise to discussions on cultural issues that are very inflammatory. I admit that at the beginning I was neither careful nor capable of handling such

controversial issues like sexism, racism, consumerism, homosexuality and violence. This sloppiness could have put my professional dignity or position in jeopardy. However as my units were progressing, I realised that my role was critical as a responsible primary teacher. Even though critical literacy and critical pedagogy both reflect a radical and analytical theoretical approach towards life and texts and they both support the use of authentic texts, I realised that my decisions should have reflected an amount of

174 Chapter Five respect towards my students’ family wishes and culture. This was to be upheld regardless of the fact that some parents expressed satisfaction that controversial issues were discussed in our classroom because they felt unable to discuss these at home with their children. Nevertheless the young age of my students required me to protect them by allowing them to have access to texts within a controlled context, which the managerial team keenly supported. We all realised that using popular culture texts in a third grade primary classroom is by no means the same as teaching adolescents or university students. Older students are in a position and have the legal and social right to make their own decisions, something young students’ parents and teachers do for them. This consideration reveals the need to suggest a possibly different style of critical literacy through popular culture when it is used in the primary classroom.

Lastly my decision to use popular culture, the culture of the masses, as a vehicle for the development of critical literacy, which is not in line with the ethos of most Cypriot schools, required me to constantly justify to others my decisions and actions, which was both annoying and educative. I had to explain to others the reasons for choosing popular culture, the idea behind this decision and the beneficial learning outcomes of this practice for my students. At the same time, this act of defending my research project made me develop a clearer understanding of the concept of popular culture, its place in today’s people’s lives, its educative prospect and the superficial manner of portraying it (as a culture of inadequate importance and worth).

‘THE CRITICAL LITERACY INSPIRED