Anne Doelman
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VMA Awards: Why Watch?

8/31/2015

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For the past couple years as September looms, I find myself awake in the middle of the night thinking about school and designing course structures. But there is always one night, that rather than get up and do some work, I watch the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA)  and live performance.  It started a couple years ago when my Twitter feed started jumping to references of Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus. And this year, when a former student tweeted her vote, I realized it was time to watch.

In the next couple posts, I want to explain why I think its important for me to watch these awards to become an informed educator.  I also want to make a call out to parents to be aware of these awards and discuss the complexity of how to take apart the images in these awards.




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VMA Reflection # 3: Favourite Moment With Taylor Swift and Joseph Kahn

8/31/2015

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As a Communications Technology teacher, I also like the VMA awards for what it can teach us about the industry.

My favourite moment was when Taylor Swift invited the director of Blank Spaces to the stage to help accept the award.

He goes on to thank the producers and crew that made it possible. What I love about this moment is that it reveals that work of the invisible people behind the Hollywood machinery.

Very sweet moment....

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VMA: Media Literacy Primer brought to you by Jean Kibourne & Ashton Kutcher

8/31/2015

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Before I talk about more of the VMA awards, I want to share Jean Kilborne's media literacy work. I came across it when I was working in residence life at university.  

In this Tedx talk, she quickly covers  her core argument that  commercial media, through its construction of the "ideal human body", is leading to the "trivialization" and "pornification" of  sex.

It also "normalizes dangerous attitudes" that impact people.

This talk is a great background to why the images in the VMA awards needs to be deconstructed. The VMA awards (just like the music videos it celebrates) are ads for mainstream music.
Of course, the VMA isn't all bad.  Just like commercial media isn't all bad. There are values and voices that can inform, educate, challenge, grow who we are as humans.  Media is. as always, too complex to treat  as either black or white. 

For example, a week ago on my Facebook feed I came across this acceptance speech by Ashton Kutcher. I knew he was married to Demi Moore and was on a TV show once but what he says in this speech makes me a fan.  I need to figure out a way to help bring it my students.

Core Message:
1. Opportunity looks like hard work and it is.
2. Being smart, thoughtful generous is sexy.
3. Build a life. Don't live one.

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    About This Blog


    This blog began when I asked my Grade 10 students to blog for an English class in 2011.  I chose to focus on an exploration of Wordworth's poem "Lines above Tintern Abbey". 

     Why? I wrote a very bad essay about this poem in first year university and in my own way, I am trying to make amends with that failed attempt.

    Its evolving into a reflection on my adventures in education, motherhood, life and most recently as a student in  UBC's Optional- Residency MFA Creative Writing program and WRDSB's 1:1 Chromebook Pilot Project.

    Currently, I am teaching with the Waterloo Region District School Board in Ontario, Canada. Opinions are my own.

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