Debbie wrote on 7/31:
The book Screenagers by Douglas Rushkoff (author of ten books on media culture and values, commentator on NPR, professor at NYU Interactive telecommunications program, winner of Marshal McLuhan Award for best media book) is part of the Media Ecology Association. Here is a link to their conference for next year.http://www.media-ecology.org/activities/ It's in Mexico City...but we have some great stuff. If we took the stop motion animation week for example, we could show how play and the process of creating media intersected and created some really high level thoughts and connections about how the world operates. Fantasy/sci-fi fun is important for kids to use to understand complex realities and cooperative living structures. We have this data in our planning sheets, my documented videos during the process, and the director's cut commentaries by the kids post-production. If we don't decide to submit to this conference, we certainly should think about using this for another conference...perhaps NCTE or NRC for next year. Although the products weren't all "great" the process of "writing" and the process of "learning" that occurred (collective intelligence and cooperation in groups) was absolutely phenomenol...these are all principles Gee discussed in his book on literacy and learning in video games. Although we don't always see the significance through "teacher" gazes, if we return to innocence and look at these processes through a new lens, phenomenologically speaking "that which shows itself to someone"...we are actually seeing the transfer of Gee's principles into more traditional literacies. Our kids are structured through a traditional writing process but are still engaging in the high level learning that occurs during these cooperative processes. Bereiter discusses these learning processes in an article about hypertext Emergent Versus Presentational Hypertext. He argues that the most important learning comes through the process of creating digital works. The product is mearly a by-product of the work. The real literacy and learning occurs through the process. We are looking through "teacher" lenses and viewing the assessment and evaluation of the product. We are still caught in the traditional school web. I think if we analyzed the complex decisions, cooperation, collective intelligence, and text to text-self-world connections these kids actually made without considering the products, we'd be amazed.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Into their worlds
Debbie wrote on 7/28:
Something special happened during the stop motion animation that did not manifest during the other three weeks. I felt that the kids really invited us into their worlds. I'm pretty sure this happened due to the high "play" nature of the creation of stop motion animation. During the creation process, the kids were constantly engaged in creative play. As they joked with us and we joked iwth them, they let us more and more into their secret worlds. And at times our worlds collided...especially in reference to TV, movies and the Internet. One example was when we were choosing movies to show from the reality series On The Lot. Some fo the kids, familiar with the site that accompanies the show (and weekly watchers) provided their own suggestions for "group" viewing (that one is okay...that one is questionable...no way). They had seen the show and as we scrolled the titles on the website, they "helped" us censor these. Both of us, in our own spaces, had viewed and enjoyed these. However, in this third space, we both understood that only certain things were allowed in the "adults as caregivers of children" world. The children understand that adults sometimes behave badly (after all, who created all the unacceptable stuff in the first place). They also enjoy these things in their worlds. For example, a small group of boys was discussing "Epic movie" . Ahem, I had just watched this video because I was interested in the heavy pop culture references and wanted to see the interplay of stories to compare with what the children were doing. The boys spoke about their enjoyment of certain scenes. Then they quieted down at certain moments (one boy saying, hey there is an adult with us). It was almost as if they forgot I was there. I had entered their space. Then we went back into the third space and discussed some of the humor. They said that they laughed at the "bathroom" humor and would love to do it in a movie. Without judging, I reminded them of hte permanance of the film and asked them if they really wanted their parents to see something like that on premiere night. They automatically transformed back from creative-everything-goes-pop-culture-pros into kids who wanted to make their parents proud. This happened again with a group who made a fart sound at the end of their video. They wanted to reedit and make a whole series of fart sounds, creating a kind of fart symphony. This was one of James' groups so I called him over (didn't want to intervene) and they sthrough the same kind of "what would your parents think" discussion, the kids decided to eliminate the fart symphony. In fact, they actually chose another funny sound as a replacement. Interestingly, however, that new sound became symbolic of their "insider" joke that they shared with me. When I saw the final product and laughed at the squeaking sound and noticed how much the kids were laughing, they looked at me and one said, "you know". This had become a small m meme of mythic quality. This squeak symbolized the initial fart sound, the play around creating the great fart symphony, and the tangled emotions they felt as they changed their sound. However, they were still happy with their sound...maybe moreso...because it had become an inside mini-pop culture symbol, of second level semiotic symbology (Barthes, mythology). The squeaktotally lost the squeak significance. It became a hidden symbol for their desires, conflicts, and civilized cultural resolutions. Their scripts transformed as based on the creative "play" of the characters. This is something I notice when writing a novel. Through the creative interplay of my imaginary characters (in my head) the story "rewrites itself". The kids actually got to this high level of real writing as they constructed their own animations. Although they also scripted and storyboarded their projects (and realized the necessity of hte process for the mostpart) they also noticed how the story sometimes "wrote itself" (something successful published fiction writers say). It was ias if they had "animated" the writing process...it came alive for them...as it does for accomplished writers. They became autuers rather than amateurs. This whole phenomenon also manifested during the Chuck Norris scene. Apparently there are multitudes of joke sites about Chuck Norris and this is a current Internet meme. The kids knew about them and so did the counseler. so they were joking back and forth. the kids would whisper jokes and they tried to work out something hta twas appropriate. Clair text messaged her husband (they both liked the sites) and he sent a possible joke. The kids reacted instantly and she was "in" their culture for the rest of hte time. However, in addition to the play they constructed together, the kids were constantly monitoring each other...not in a don't let the teacher know kind of way...but more in a kind of respect for her position, knowing that there were some lines that could be crossed iwthin the third space and there were some things that had to remain in the kid culture. Interestingly, they know that their talk isn't much different than adult talk. Although we never engaged in this type of behavior at hte camp, they experience it elsewhere. They hear adults discussing "stuff" all the time, thinking htey don't hear or don't understand. Adults do the stuff they can't even joke about in their presence. Anyway, back to the Chuck Norris. He was created out of Clay by one of hte students. It became aalmost a Frankenstein type of scenerio with a touch of Star Wars (he uttered "I am your father") more times than they other boys in his group wanted to hear. After he created this character, he also created rules about how this character should be treated and respected (almost fatherly). This whole scenerio was amazing.
We interviewed all groups yesterday. Tara (brilliantly) had the idea to interview the students as the "director's cut". In the past few weeks, I had limited success with my "researcher" interviews (the adult in her world interviewing the kids who lived in another world). However, when the kids were in role (process drama) as the directors, actors, and creators, they jumped out of their world into the third space created through the "play" interview. Amazingly, they discussed complex plots, character devleopment, intertextual references, transmediated ideas, and underlying philisophical themes. However, also amazing, for a different reason, sometimes these failed to manifest in their actual products. Although the process was symbolic, deeply literary, and mythic (beyond something many of their parents would even understand) their products failed to show the extent of their wisdom. "oh look at those cute little animations...how they must have had fun 'playing'" However, these kids, immersed in literary dialogue through "director's cuts" and interactive websites that accompany all movies and books, are learning the inside high level literary elements, artistic design qualities, and screen literacies that most adults do not recognize. In fact, I could talk plot, character, theme, storyline with these kids as if we were sitting in an adult writing group...an inner circle of highly literate individuals. Do the kids really not understand these concepts in schools or is the way in which they are introduced to these concepts so antiquated that they don't even care to make the connections. Are they, in their own worlds, really shaking hteir heads at the ignorance of most adults. Is that show, "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" really true? Are most fifth graders really smarter than adults? Is school teaching rote knowledge over "real thinking" something that kids engage i nwith out of school literacies and play? Can these kids actually think better and more creatively than their parents??????
Okay, enough of that stream of consciousness for a while. i'll get right to the proposal and send it back this afternoon.
deb
Something special happened during the stop motion animation that did not manifest during the other three weeks. I felt that the kids really invited us into their worlds. I'm pretty sure this happened due to the high "play" nature of the creation of stop motion animation. During the creation process, the kids were constantly engaged in creative play. As they joked with us and we joked iwth them, they let us more and more into their secret worlds. And at times our worlds collided...especially in reference to TV, movies and the Internet. One example was when we were choosing movies to show from the reality series On The Lot. Some fo the kids, familiar with the site that accompanies the show (and weekly watchers) provided their own suggestions for "group" viewing (that one is okay...that one is questionable...no way). They had seen the show and as we scrolled the titles on the website, they "helped" us censor these. Both of us, in our own spaces, had viewed and enjoyed these. However, in this third space, we both understood that only certain things were allowed in the "adults as caregivers of children" world. The children understand that adults sometimes behave badly (after all, who created all the unacceptable stuff in the first place). They also enjoy these things in their worlds. For example, a small group of boys was discussing "Epic movie" . Ahem, I had just watched this video because I was interested in the heavy pop culture references and wanted to see the interplay of stories to compare with what the children were doing. The boys spoke about their enjoyment of certain scenes. Then they quieted down at certain moments (one boy saying, hey there is an adult with us). It was almost as if they forgot I was there. I had entered their space. Then we went back into the third space and discussed some of the humor. They said that they laughed at the "bathroom" humor and would love to do it in a movie. Without judging, I reminded them of hte permanance of the film and asked them if they really wanted their parents to see something like that on premiere night. They automatically transformed back from creative-everything-goes-pop-culture-pros into kids who wanted to make their parents proud. This happened again with a group who made a fart sound at the end of their video. They wanted to reedit and make a whole series of fart sounds, creating a kind of fart symphony. This was one of James' groups so I called him over (didn't want to intervene) and they sthrough the same kind of "what would your parents think" discussion, the kids decided to eliminate the fart symphony. In fact, they actually chose another funny sound as a replacement. Interestingly, however, that new sound became symbolic of their "insider" joke that they shared with me. When I saw the final product and laughed at the squeaking sound and noticed how much the kids were laughing, they looked at me and one said, "you know". This had become a small m meme of mythic quality. This squeak symbolized the initial fart sound, the play around creating the great fart symphony, and the tangled emotions they felt as they changed their sound. However, they were still happy with their sound...maybe moreso...because it had become an inside mini-pop culture symbol, of second level semiotic symbology (Barthes, mythology). The squeaktotally lost the squeak significance. It became a hidden symbol for their desires, conflicts, and civilized cultural resolutions. Their scripts transformed as based on the creative "play" of the characters. This is something I notice when writing a novel. Through the creative interplay of my imaginary characters (in my head) the story "rewrites itself". The kids actually got to this high level of real writing as they constructed their own animations. Although they also scripted and storyboarded their projects (and realized the necessity of hte process for the mostpart) they also noticed how the story sometimes "wrote itself" (something successful published fiction writers say). It was ias if they had "animated" the writing process...it came alive for them...as it does for accomplished writers. They became autuers rather than amateurs. This whole phenomenon also manifested during the Chuck Norris scene. Apparently there are multitudes of joke sites about Chuck Norris and this is a current Internet meme. The kids knew about them and so did the counseler. so they were joking back and forth. the kids would whisper jokes and they tried to work out something hta twas appropriate. Clair text messaged her husband (they both liked the sites) and he sent a possible joke. The kids reacted instantly and she was "in" their culture for the rest of hte time. However, in addition to the play they constructed together, the kids were constantly monitoring each other...not in a don't let the teacher know kind of way...but more in a kind of respect for her position, knowing that there were some lines that could be crossed iwthin the third space and there were some things that had to remain in the kid culture. Interestingly, they know that their talk isn't much different than adult talk. Although we never engaged in this type of behavior at hte camp, they experience it elsewhere. They hear adults discussing "stuff" all the time, thinking htey don't hear or don't understand. Adults do the stuff they can't even joke about in their presence. Anyway, back to the Chuck Norris. He was created out of Clay by one of hte students. It became aalmost a Frankenstein type of scenerio with a touch of Star Wars (he uttered "I am your father") more times than they other boys in his group wanted to hear. After he created this character, he also created rules about how this character should be treated and respected (almost fatherly). This whole scenerio was amazing.
We interviewed all groups yesterday. Tara (brilliantly) had the idea to interview the students as the "director's cut". In the past few weeks, I had limited success with my "researcher" interviews (the adult in her world interviewing the kids who lived in another world). However, when the kids were in role (process drama) as the directors, actors, and creators, they jumped out of their world into the third space created through the "play" interview. Amazingly, they discussed complex plots, character devleopment, intertextual references, transmediated ideas, and underlying philisophical themes. However, also amazing, for a different reason, sometimes these failed to manifest in their actual products. Although the process was symbolic, deeply literary, and mythic (beyond something many of their parents would even understand) their products failed to show the extent of their wisdom. "oh look at those cute little animations...how they must have had fun 'playing'" However, these kids, immersed in literary dialogue through "director's cuts" and interactive websites that accompany all movies and books, are learning the inside high level literary elements, artistic design qualities, and screen literacies that most adults do not recognize. In fact, I could talk plot, character, theme, storyline with these kids as if we were sitting in an adult writing group...an inner circle of highly literate individuals. Do the kids really not understand these concepts in schools or is the way in which they are introduced to these concepts so antiquated that they don't even care to make the connections. Are they, in their own worlds, really shaking hteir heads at the ignorance of most adults. Is that show, "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" really true? Are most fifth graders really smarter than adults? Is school teaching rote knowledge over "real thinking" something that kids engage i nwith out of school literacies and play? Can these kids actually think better and more creatively than their parents??????
Okay, enough of that stream of consciousness for a while. i'll get right to the proposal and send it back this afternoon.
deb
Film Semiotics
Debbie wrote on 7/29:
I spent some time reading Metz's Semiotics of the Cinema last night because I was trying to make a connect with the proposition idea and how it would apply to film. Well, this is what Metz says and I think it fits nicely into an adapted version of a Turner and Greene-like propositional base. I'm not quite sure because I don't know the Turner and Greene as well as I should. I plan to go back to Spivey this afternoon and flesh that out for myself. Anyway, this is how Metz defines units of cinema. He differentiates film and language like this "to 'speak' a language is to use it, but to 'speak cinematographic language is to a certain extent to invent it" He alsothe smallest unit that can be analyzed is the "shot" . He compares the shot to the taxeme (Hjelmslev) in that it constitutes the largest 'minimum segment (Martinet), since "at least one shot is required to make a film, or part of a film--in the same way, a linguistic statement must be made up of at least one phoneme. To isolate several shots from a sequence is still, perhaps to analyze the sequence; to remove several frames from a shot is to destroy the shot. If the shot is not the smallest unit of filmic signification (for a single shot may convey several informational elements), it is at least the smallest unit of the filmic chain." However, he also noted that "not every minimum filmic segment is a shot. Besides shots, there are other minimum segments, ‘optical devices’—various dissolves, wipes, and so on—that can be defined as visual but not photographic elements. Whereas images have the objects of reality as referents, optical procedures, which do not represent anything, have images as referents (those contiguous in the suntagma). The relationship of these procedures to the actual shooting of the film is somewhat like that of morphemes to lexemes; depending on the context, they hav etywo main functions: as “trick” devices (int his instance, they are sorts of semiological exponents influencing contiguous images), or as “punctuation.” The expression “filmic punctuation,” which use has ratified, must not make us forget that optical procefures separate large, complex statements and thus correspond to the articulations of the literary narrative 9with its pages and paragraphs, for example), whereas actual punctuation—that is to say, typographical punctuation—separates sentences (period, exclamation amrk, question mark, semicolon), and clauses (comma, semicolon, dash), apossibly even “verbal bases” withour without characteristics (apostrophe, or dash, between two “words,” and so on”.
Therefore…in my own words, I think we need to make an analogy of the proposition to a largest “minimum segment” of meaning. The shot as taxeme is one. However, we should not separate frames from the shot (like Leander did in the RRQ article) because this destroys the shot. However, there is also the minimun filmic segment of the “optical devices” such as transitions. So, using this framework, we analyze shots and transitions. Interestingly, as James and I worked slowly through one movie (00Q) we naturally seemed to separate the movie into shots. So I think this really works. Should I add this to the analysis in the AERA proposal??????
I spent some time reading Metz's Semiotics of the Cinema last night because I was trying to make a connect with the proposition idea and how it would apply to film. Well, this is what Metz says and I think it fits nicely into an adapted version of a Turner and Greene-like propositional base. I'm not quite sure because I don't know the Turner and Greene as well as I should. I plan to go back to Spivey this afternoon and flesh that out for myself. Anyway, this is how Metz defines units of cinema. He differentiates film and language like this "to 'speak' a language is to use it, but to 'speak cinematographic language is to a certain extent to invent it" He alsothe smallest unit that can be analyzed is the "shot" . He compares the shot to the taxeme (Hjelmslev) in that it constitutes the largest 'minimum segment (Martinet), since "at least one shot is required to make a film, or part of a film--in the same way, a linguistic statement must be made up of at least one phoneme. To isolate several shots from a sequence is still, perhaps to analyze the sequence; to remove several frames from a shot is to destroy the shot. If the shot is not the smallest unit of filmic signification (for a single shot may convey several informational elements), it is at least the smallest unit of the filmic chain." However, he also noted that "not every minimum filmic segment is a shot. Besides shots, there are other minimum segments, ‘optical devices’—various dissolves, wipes, and so on—that can be defined as visual but not photographic elements. Whereas images have the objects of reality as referents, optical procedures, which do not represent anything, have images as referents (those contiguous in the suntagma). The relationship of these procedures to the actual shooting of the film is somewhat like that of morphemes to lexemes; depending on the context, they hav etywo main functions: as “trick” devices (int his instance, they are sorts of semiological exponents influencing contiguous images), or as “punctuation.” The expression “filmic punctuation,” which use has ratified, must not make us forget that optical procefures separate large, complex statements and thus correspond to the articulations of the literary narrative 9with its pages and paragraphs, for example), whereas actual punctuation—that is to say, typographical punctuation—separates sentences (period, exclamation amrk, question mark, semicolon), and clauses (comma, semicolon, dash), apossibly even “verbal bases” withour without characteristics (apostrophe, or dash, between two “words,” and so on”.
Therefore…in my own words, I think we need to make an analogy of the proposition to a largest “minimum segment” of meaning. The shot as taxeme is one. However, we should not separate frames from the shot (like Leander did in the RRQ article) because this destroys the shot. However, there is also the minimun filmic segment of the “optical devices” such as transitions. So, using this framework, we analyze shots and transitions. Interestingly, as James and I worked slowly through one movie (00Q) we naturally seemed to separate the movie into shots. So I think this really works. Should I add this to the analysis in the AERA proposal??????
Saturday, July 28, 2007
List of Week 4 Animated Films
Morning Groups
Al the Pirate
Cheese Quest
The Rise of the Dancing Clay
Heroes
Lucky Penny 777
Optimus Prime 2: the Great War
The Creature Attacks
The Lost Episode
The Rise of the Freaky Phantom
Afternoon Groups
Barbie's Next Top Model
Bombing Raid
Clay vs. Lego
Globzilla
A Gift from Above
Jason vs. Jordan
The Beastly Snowman
Titanic 2: Jaws Arrives
Al the Pirate
Cheese Quest
The Rise of the Dancing Clay
Heroes
Lucky Penny 777
Optimus Prime 2: the Great War
The Creature Attacks
The Lost Episode
The Rise of the Freaky Phantom
Afternoon Groups
Barbie's Next Top Model
Bombing Raid
Clay vs. Lego
Globzilla
A Gift from Above
Jason vs. Jordan
The Beastly Snowman
Titanic 2: Jaws Arrives
List of Week 3 Films
Morning Groups
Group 1: Jailbreak
Group 2: Horror at the Tampa Theatre
Group 3: Phantom 101
Group 4: Hanna Montana Comes to the Tampa Theatre
Group 5: Jedi Academy
Group 6: Janitor Rock
Afternoon Groups
Group 1: Triskadekaphobia
Group 2: Lights Out
Group 3: Oddity
Group 4: What Men Want
Group 5: The Secret Life of Athletes
Group 6: The Last Pretzel
Group 1: Jailbreak
Group 2: Horror at the Tampa Theatre
Group 3: Phantom 101
Group 4: Hanna Montana Comes to the Tampa Theatre
Group 5: Jedi Academy
Group 6: Janitor Rock
Afternoon Groups
Group 1: Triskadekaphobia
Group 2: Lights Out
Group 3: Oddity
Group 4: What Men Want
Group 5: The Secret Life of Athletes
Group 6: The Last Pretzel
List of Week 2 Films
Morning Films
Group 1: Mario and Luigi Raiding Bowser's Castle
Group 2: Mr. Tamper's Ghost
Group 3: Girls, Ghosts, and Great Adventures
Group 4: Star Wars VIII
Group 5: The Ghost Worth Following
Afternoon Films
Group 1: Jadana
Group 2: Crazy Celebrities
Group 3: 24: The Terrorist Clowns
Group 4: Capture the Flag
Group 5: The Right Stuff
Group 6: Punked: Tampa Theatre Edition
Group 1: Mario and Luigi Raiding Bowser's Castle
Group 2: Mr. Tamper's Ghost
Group 3: Girls, Ghosts, and Great Adventures
Group 4: Star Wars VIII
Group 5: The Ghost Worth Following
Afternoon Films
Group 1: Jadana
Group 2: Crazy Celebrities
Group 3: 24: The Terrorist Clowns
Group 4: Capture the Flag
Group 5: The Right Stuff
Group 6: Punked: Tampa Theatre Edition
Politics and Other Naughty Words
From: demikoz@aol.com
Subject: pandora's box
Date: July 28, 2007 12:03:18 PM EDT
To: king@tempest.coedu.usf.edu, jlwelsh2@gmail.com
Here's another idea that's been filling my head since last night. I'll call it a parody of "Defecation Hits the Rotating Oscilator" and the "opening of pandora's box. In speaking to a variety of groups (counsellors and students alike) during the afternoon session yesterday, I noticed an interesting loosening of hte conservative teacher reins/reigns/rains (what a great word!) that usually stop the third space from leaking into their private worlds. After talking with a couple of the counsellors last night (briefly) they mentioned the one claymation video shown during the afternoon class, where the word "crap" was used. Apparently, the kids in some groups really wanted to use this word (at least two) and I heard it at least five or six times as I circulated post-movie. In fact, one group used the word "crap" IN their movie. Another group used the word "fart" in their movie. Would they have ever dared to use these words in the land where teachers live in their castles (schools)? By hearing the word"crap" in a demo video, did something (eeee-ew) begin to leak out of Pandora's box???? Hmm.
While discussing htis with three counsellors, the discussion went something like this. The one in charge said the kids really wanted to use it. She respected their wishes and really didn't see that much of a problem. One looked uncomfortable until we discussed the origin o f hte word and the fact that Mr. (can't remember his first name) Crapper invented the toilet. Then she laughed and said it was kind of like a tribute word. We all laughed...maybe nervously...did we jump out of the middle ground? What did this mean? That grou palso created a monster called "Mr. Fricken Awesome". fricken spelled like chicken (fricken chicken-already modified through pop culture ) rather than fricking .
Then there is the Political Animation group. One of hte kids (particularly brilliant and film savvy) originally brought in multiple pictures of Kenny (south park) as an idea of a movie (multiple deaths of Kenny). He also brought two other pictures...an image of George W. Bush and a Monkey. He said to me, don't they look the same. Then he looked at his paper where he had written P.A. to stand for paper animation and wrote the P.A. beside his Bush idea and said "p.a. paper animation or political animation" and laughed. When speaking with the kids aftwards on the interview the alluded to a reference in the credits about the name for Bush. They also said they hoped they wouldn't be sued and that Bush wasn't offended and maybe he really liked tacos (they had decided he could say 'I like tacos' on the screeen) . They also said they were both democrats and "everyone" loved to make fun of Bush...that is why they used his image in the movie. When speaking to the counsellor later, she said they actually wanted Bush to appear and say stupid things and actually say he was stupid. At the end of hte movie, they gave credit to "Dubya" instead of namoing Bush. The inside scoop from the counsellor is that they actually wanted to give credit to "Dumya" and she had to censor their work. You could tell she had an extreme dileme on her hands...on one hand she wanted to allow their creative genius...this was film camp not school. On the other hand, what was appropriate when the worlds collide? In convergence culture, when the kids have so much knowledge, what is happening?
So then we spoke about the political nature of the talking head showing up on the scene. Without going into the "text-to-world" connection of Bush being a talking head while all the killing goes on around him, these kids seemed to really be world intelligent. I mentioned their talk about being democrats and two of the other counsellors said that must have come from their parents. But then again, I wonder if it is just parents? I remember being in third grade and having political difficulties with my best friend. We eventually parted ways and I became friends with another girl whose political ideology was more in line with the one I was developing based on my father's strong influence (he has always talked politics and war with me). I was eight atthe time and can distinctly remember feeling saddened by this parting. I also remember why I couldn't agree with her. I took what my father taught me and applied it to the real world. Obviously these kids (at 10) can have these strong political beliefs and feelings. Except now with the internet they can actually become more literate about the situations ( much more than I could in the 70's). The god-like quality of government during hte time of war has diminished to demi-god. The public is becoming more educated world-wide. They are beginning to realize that most "truth" fed to them in the past as news or history is really faction...a semi-fictional account of fact told from a specific ideology. A fictional world does not need to be created for them. When people tire of the real world, they can easily escape into a "second-life" kind of world. Fact does not need to be disguised so much in a world where people are increasingly more intelligent and able to use their "inner fairy godmother" to resolve conflicts rather than waiting for the "wizard of oz" to tell them what they can or cannot do.
So what's a counsellor to do? Waht Are the leaders of the camp to do? Does this make its way onto the website???? Did we open Pandora's box. If so how far open did it actually get? Will the sh*t hit the fan? How do we respect the voices of these intelligent and creative children and still keep it "cute"...without really letting hte world know how insightful and intelligent they really are???????
________________________________________________________________________
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Subject: pandora's box
Date: July 28, 2007 12:03:18 PM EDT
To: king@tempest.coedu.usf.edu, jlwelsh2@gmail.com
Here's another idea that's been filling my head since last night. I'll call it a parody of "Defecation Hits the Rotating Oscilator" and the "opening of pandora's box. In speaking to a variety of groups (counsellors and students alike) during the afternoon session yesterday, I noticed an interesting loosening of hte conservative teacher reins/reigns/rains (what a great word!) that usually stop the third space from leaking into their private worlds. After talking with a couple of the counsellors last night (briefly) they mentioned the one claymation video shown during the afternoon class, where the word "crap" was used. Apparently, the kids in some groups really wanted to use this word (at least two) and I heard it at least five or six times as I circulated post-movie. In fact, one group used the word "crap" IN their movie. Another group used the word "fart" in their movie. Would they have ever dared to use these words in the land where teachers live in their castles (schools)? By hearing the word"crap" in a demo video, did something (eeee-ew) begin to leak out of Pandora's box???? Hmm.
While discussing htis with three counsellors, the discussion went something like this. The one in charge said the kids really wanted to use it. She respected their wishes and really didn't see that much of a problem. One looked uncomfortable until we discussed the origin o f hte word and the fact that Mr. (can't remember his first name) Crapper invented the toilet. Then she laughed and said it was kind of like a tribute word. We all laughed...maybe nervously...did we jump out of the middle ground? What did this mean? That grou palso created a monster called "Mr. Fricken Awesome". fricken spelled like chicken (fricken chicken-already modified through pop culture ) rather than fricking .
Then there is the Political Animation group. One of hte kids (particularly brilliant and film savvy) originally brought in multiple pictures of Kenny (south park) as an idea of a movie (multiple deaths of Kenny). He also brought two other pictures...an image of George W. Bush and a Monkey. He said to me, don't they look the same. Then he looked at his paper where he had written P.A. to stand for paper animation and wrote the P.A. beside his Bush idea and said "p.a. paper animation or political animation" and laughed. When speaking with the kids aftwards on the interview the alluded to a reference in the credits about the name for Bush. They also said they hoped they wouldn't be sued and that Bush wasn't offended and maybe he really liked tacos (they had decided he could say 'I like tacos' on the screeen) . They also said they were both democrats and "everyone" loved to make fun of Bush...that is why they used his image in the movie. When speaking to the counsellor later, she said they actually wanted Bush to appear and say stupid things and actually say he was stupid. At the end of hte movie, they gave credit to "Dubya" instead of namoing Bush. The inside scoop from the counsellor is that they actually wanted to give credit to "Dumya" and she had to censor their work. You could tell she had an extreme dileme on her hands...on one hand she wanted to allow their creative genius...this was film camp not school. On the other hand, what was appropriate when the worlds collide? In convergence culture, when the kids have so much knowledge, what is happening?
So then we spoke about the political nature of the talking head showing up on the scene. Without going into the "text-to-world" connection of Bush being a talking head while all the killing goes on around him, these kids seemed to really be world intelligent. I mentioned their talk about being democrats and two of the other counsellors said that must have come from their parents. But then again, I wonder if it is just parents? I remember being in third grade and having political difficulties with my best friend. We eventually parted ways and I became friends with another girl whose political ideology was more in line with the one I was developing based on my father's strong influence (he has always talked politics and war with me). I was eight atthe time and can distinctly remember feeling saddened by this parting. I also remember why I couldn't agree with her. I took what my father taught me and applied it to the real world. Obviously these kids (at 10) can have these strong political beliefs and feelings. Except now with the internet they can actually become more literate about the situations ( much more than I could in the 70's). The god-like quality of government during hte time of war has diminished to demi-god. The public is becoming more educated world-wide. They are beginning to realize that most "truth" fed to them in the past as news or history is really faction...a semi-fictional account of fact told from a specific ideology. A fictional world does not need to be created for them. When people tire of the real world, they can easily escape into a "second-life" kind of world. Fact does not need to be disguised so much in a world where people are increasingly more intelligent and able to use their "inner fairy godmother" to resolve conflicts rather than waiting for the "wizard of oz" to tell them what they can or cannot do.
So what's a counsellor to do? Waht Are the leaders of the camp to do? Does this make its way onto the website???? Did we open Pandora's box. If so how far open did it actually get? Will the sh*t hit the fan? How do we respect the voices of these intelligent and creative children and still keep it "cute"...without really letting hte world know how insightful and intelligent they really are???????
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