Bonfire of the Disney Princesses

                                              

                                                   Bonfire of the Disney Princesses

        

Barbara Ehrenreich

     Once upon a time in a faraway land where the only thing that mattered was princess brand and making money, there lived the corporate giant called Disney. Long before Belle, there was Snow White and Cinderella, and a small-minded man named Andy Mooney who just happened to be in the right place at the right time when the lightbulb exploded in his head. Disney always had the princess collections but they were separate until that lightbulb exploded. It was during that lightbulb mishap that the Disney princess dynasty came to light. Poof! Overnight it seemed little girls everywhere were wearing pink and purple tiaras, nightgowns, backpacks, and anything and everything that was princess!

     Disney created a goldmine. Andy Mooney created a cult of pink and purple minions that would make Barbie seem insignificant in comparison to the princess line. But therein lies the problem, the princesses are only little girls who idealize the make-believe princess. Ehrenreich explains that the princess is only able to move up the career ladder if she marries a prince or becomes an evil stepmother. Idolizing a princess means aspiring to be beautiful, and dress scantily, and if you don’t find your prince then you succumb to a coma, clean houses forever, or turn into the evil witch. There is an even worse fate though; Disney may dethrone you from the princess collection. 

      Even with all this knowledge, parents still buy their little angels a massive amount of Disney paraphernalia each year. Disney is not only exploiting the parents for money but brainwashing them into believing that scantily dressed 3-year-old mermaids are the way to dress their little princess. How in the world did parents let Disney and Andy Mooney use their children to look sexy in a princess outfit legally? This is twisted from the mind of the middle-aged Disney exec Andy Rooney who fed our minds, according to Ehrenreich, till we believed that this was normal. 

It is time to wake up and stand up against this corporate giant who is poisoning the minds of 3-year-olds. Ehrenreich entices the reader to grab their neighbors and friends stand up to corporate giants and have a holiday bonfire with all our plastic! It is time to stand up to Disney executives and take back our children and their innocence. 

To Do List

 To-Do List!

   

1. Get organized

2. Finalize change project idea

3. Write my story

4.  Edit

5. Design slides 20/20

6. Practice 

7. Try to voice record but if not oh well!

8. Relax and go see a sunset!

How to Kahoot!

                                            

      Kahoot is an interactive game that allows you to bring fun into learning for any subject and all ages. Kahoot is easy to use for both students and teachers. Anyone can create or use shared learning games for free. There are upgraded features for price, but the free version is all you need to make learning fun. Kahoots can be created in minutes or from various created Kahoots on the site. I advise you to preview those first! Kahoots can be virtual, in person, in the whole class, as a formative assessment tool, and even as a review. Kahoot is very easy to use and extremely popular in high school. It is a game-like experience that provides instant feedback and gratification that my students love! Everyone wants to play and be on top of the podium. Kahoot is a great way for teachers to quickly get some feedback on what the students are learning and retaining in class. It is even an entertaining class filler! I have used it in so many different ways in my classroom. Some examples are fun classroom activities, formative assessment tools, reviews for content (ex. CPR reviews), and tools that students can use to enhance their projects. Sometimes we play for prizes! High school students will work for food. 

Let’s get started:

1. Go to https://kahoot.com/

2. In the top right-hand corner either log in or create an account. 

         

                                

3.  Once you are logged in - be sure to sign in to FREE BASIC unless you would like to purchase the upgrade. I never have and it works just fine!

4. Decide if you want to look for premade Kahoot in Discover on the left-hand side of the menu.. Here you can play them with your students or save them to your Kahoot account to change or play later (sort of like Google Docs) 

                           

5.  Create your own Kahoot in only minutes. Click on Create in the upper right-hand corner and create a Kahoot from scratch. It can be on any subject or topic.  You can decide how to set up the questions from true or false to multiple choice. 

                          

            

6.   Once you have created your Kahoot or “Discovered” one on the site, you can decide if you want to share it, assign it, or host it live in class or virtually. 

          

7. Click on the option that best fits your needs:

          If you host live the screen will look like this 

    

                            

          If you assign the screen will look like this:

                          

         Either option allows the participants to join via a number or QR code which 

         can be played on any digital device. 

8. Students should be able to join by logging in to: https://kahoot.it/

9.  Once everyone has joined the game by signing in with a name (think about how to have them log in with either nicknames or real names) then …

                                          Let The Games Begin!

10.  Once the game / assigned game is complete, a teacher has access to the results and can review for areas of improvement. All Kahoots are saved in your account to be shared or saved for another time. 

To learn more about Kahoot check out these links!

https://kahoot.com/webinars/schools/

https://kahoot.com/files/2021/06/StarterGuide_0621.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNCBZY3Yg8

 

Change Project Ideas and Thoughts

What ideas do you have about your final project? 

Did any of the projects you reviewed inspire you? 

Initially, there were so many ideas floating around in my head about the change project. The original ideas were very inspiring to solve the absentee crisis in my school to the tardy problems that don't seem to be going away. The more I thought about these problems the larger-than-life personas they took on for me. I want to change those things but I also started to realize that these might be too heavy a lift for me at this time for this project. After viewing some of the previous projects, I realized that it was ok to not take on such a huge lift. It was ok to just take care of things that I exist in my own space. It was validating for me. I am thankful that we were able to view past projects. I decided to start smaller and look at the things that I want to change in my own classroom space.

The three ideas I have centered around better communication. Admittedly, I am still looking to fine-tune it. I am not sure if I can incorporate all this year into this one project or just focus on one so as not to feel overwhelmed during the year. These ideas are all central to my core beliefs as a teacher and a parent. Open lines of communication are essential to cultivating and growing that classroom community of learners.

1. Parent communication - I would like to improve the communication between school and home with my students' families especially my MLL parents who struggle with the language.

2. Classroom communication - I am always looking for ways to connect with my students to create that classroom community .....and ways they can connect with each other. I think this is well established in my class since I have most of my students for 4 years but I always want to make improvements in this area. I am thinking of blogging this year.

3. Teacher-to-teacher/intern (internship communication) - SInce my students intern in a variety of placements it is important to keep the line of communication open. In the past, I have sent out newsletters, calendars, emails, and hand-delivered notices. I visit the classrooms as often as possible but I am looking for a way to streamline the communication process. It might be remind or a blog for this as well. At this time I am still searching.

I am not sure if I will start small with just one of these ideas and then branch out as I feel more confident or if I will just stick with one. However, I feel they are all intertwined with each other. Looking back, these change ideas will impact daily attendance and tardies at least within my own classes and students. Hopefully, this will help to also influence the larger student body as my own students encourage their larger friend groups to be on time and come to school. They will in turn become the champions of this systemic problem. Communication is an essential piece of education and learning so I know I am heading in the right direction for the change project but need to narrow it down a bit.

Princess Barbie 101

What is your relationship to Barbie or any kind of children’s culture (like Disney?) 

How does Christiansen validate or challenge your views? 

Barbies! When I was a child, I loved to play with Barbie. I had the Barbie camper, the townhouse, the car, and as many Barbies as I could get my hands on when I was a child. Barbie was my hero when I was a child until she wasn't. Even though I didn't play with Barbies anymore in middle school, Barbie was still secretly part of my life. She was the idea that I held myself to daily. I wanted to look like her. She was pretty with blonde hair, blue eyes, the best clothes and the perfect body. All the "Kens" loved her. Middle school was not a time that I remember feeling confident in my looks, my clothes, or anything else for that matter. I was athletically built and loved to play sports. To make matters worse my brother was tall and thin with blonde hair. My mom would always tell the story that people thought I was the boy and he was the girl when we were toddlers because he was so cute. Unknowingly I was being influenced by my childhood enemy and best friend, Barbie, about how to look and act to be a beautiful girl.

When I was younger we did not have a TV until I was a little older so I did not watch a lot of Disney movies or cartoons. If we did watch Disney shows or go to the movies, it was mostly my parent's choice of what we were going to see at the movies. When we did go to the movies, I remember thinking most of the women were always pretty. Princess Leia was always beautiful and tough. Cinderella got to marry the prince even though she was poor. Snow White, even though she had black hair, was still not me. Was this the secret education that Christiansen was eluding to?

I was particularly drawn to a quote by one of Christiansen's students. "When we read children's books, we aren't just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated". The idea of "secret education" is suggested to go beyond just media and infiltrate our children's books too. These problems are not just in movies, cartoons, and characters but in books too. This problem is everywhere! Christiansen reminds us that the media colonizes our minds to think and believe what is shown on the screen. If you see something long enough then you live and believe it. The secret education that Christiansen described is a scary one. It doesn't just apply to my generation but to generations to come in the future.

The Digital Divide

 What do you make of the Divergent positions of Boyd and Prensky? 

Where do you stand on the digital native terminology?

       Boyd and Prensky have similar but different views on "digital native".  "In his article, he claims today's students think differently from their predecessors'' (Boyd, 179).  Prensky describes today's youth as digital natives, stating that they are tech-savvy just because they were born during this period. Prensky describes the digital immigrant as the generation, typically older, as the group of people with whom technology is not natural but must be learned to be useful. Presnsky's view of how people acquire digital technology is straightforward. At first glance, it seems easy to understand but underneath there is bias and serious unintended consequences. 

      "It is dangerous to assume that youth are automatically informed" (Boyd, 177). Becoming literate in the digital age is hard work for anyone.  Just because you are born in today's society does not equal technological savvy. The reverse can also be said about older generations. It is not enough to simply assume that this group of people cannot be digitally literate. Just because you are born in the digital age doesn't mean you understand them and vice versa. Additionally, society and educators especially need to be concerned with the "digital divide" proposed by Boyd. 

       Digital technology is not available to everyone. Not all young people are prepared for the digital age. There is an inequality that exists that is not often acknowledged. Today not all youth have access to technology and can practice outside of school as privileged youths do today. Educators need to empower all youth, not just the privileged to shrink the gap in the digital divide. Boyd also points out the dangerous consequences of repeating history using terms like native and immigrants. History tells us, as Boyd delicately points out, that it is often the immigrants who betray the natives. It is important to find a way to provide digital wisdom to all. As teachers, it is important to teach and develop media literacy skills for all groups, lessening the digital divide, and inequality and ensuring everyone is a participant in today's digital age. "Learning is a lifelong process" (Boyd, 199).  We are all still learning how to navigate this new digital world. 

      

      

Christine - All About Me

 

        

      Hi everyone! My name is Christine. I teach at Woonsocket High School / Woonsocket Area Career & Technical Center.  I teach grades 9 - 12 in the Child Studies program. It is a CTE program. My students are all interested in learning more about the child development, education, and teaching. In addition to classwork, my students intern in Woonsocket schools in the district from preschool to high school and everything in between. Besides my high school classes, I run a full time preschool that the students work in my classroom. Next year there will be 20 preschoolers ages 3 - 5. Now you can see why I am very excited for summer. I am love going to the beach, traveling and spending time with my family. This summer I will taking some classes at RIC  for my master's in TESOL.  My favorite time of day is at sunset.