These days it seems like references are everywhere and in everything. Whether in imagery used in a new music video, or the namesakes for everyone’s favorite pizza-eating, crime-fighting, shelled superheroes; references are common occurrences and carried with them is meaning. The use of high culture references in mass culture is a good starting point that, when used in an educational setting, increases student engagement, understanding, and recognition of topics and terminology, but this often must battle with an altered perception of the topic after it has been used in mass culture. First, we need to understand the different standpoints on the use of popular culture in the classroom, each side and the reasoning behind their ideas. Finally,
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References used in class settings of current or famous media are quickly becoming a useful tool that many instructors are utilizing. Dr. Patricia Thompson discusses in her essay the influence that popular culture has on education. Thompson gives an example from her life in the essay, "[w]hile visiting the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., with my ten- and eleven-year-old sons, I asked the boys whether they knew who Goddard, the father of space travel, was. My oldest son replied, “Oh, he is Jimmy Neutron’s dog!” (Thompson 83). This interaction with her sons not only helped reinforce prior observations Thompson had already made about the influence that popular culture has on education, but also lead her to the conclusion that this influence is built up through immersion since childhood (Thompson). This foundation formed through popular culture at a young age becomes, for many, a starting point for learning. Creating a reference that can then later be gone back …show more content…
When in a learning environment, the recognition of something that is familiar can help with overall understanding and comprehension. Though references are useful, their use in popular culture can alter the perception of the reference. An example of this is "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Not only are the main character's names taken from Italian Renaissance painters as a high culture reference, but the series at its most basic conception is a reference. As Shane Richey, a digital media manager at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art briefly wrote about in 2016, "during an art appreciation class when the instructor went off-topic and started telling the class about Charles Wilson Peale’s little-known turtle sanctuary, his interest in Eastern martial arts, and his tendency to name his children after Italian Renaissance painters” (Richey). This tangent giving the inspiration to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for what would be the beginning of a very successful comic turned franchise. With the success and popularity of their comic, it became a prime example of the blending of high culture and popular culture. Fusing, for seemingly at least one generation of viewer's perception about two topics that before had no relevance to one another. But, as discussed earlier, popular culture can be used in an educational setting to better engage students in a
References used in class settings of current or famous media are quickly becoming a useful tool that many instructors are utilizing. Dr. Patricia Thompson discusses in her essay the influence that popular culture has on education. Thompson gives an example from her life in the essay, "[w]hile visiting the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., with my ten- and eleven-year-old sons, I asked the boys whether they knew who Goddard, the father of space travel, was. My oldest son replied, “Oh, he is Jimmy Neutron’s dog!” (Thompson 83). This interaction with her sons not only helped reinforce prior observations Thompson had already made about the influence that popular culture has on education, but also lead her to the conclusion that this influence is built up through immersion since childhood (Thompson). This foundation formed through popular culture at a young age becomes, for many, a starting point for learning. Creating a reference that can then later be gone back …show more content…
When in a learning environment, the recognition of something that is familiar can help with overall understanding and comprehension. Though references are useful, their use in popular culture can alter the perception of the reference. An example of this is "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Not only are the main character's names taken from Italian Renaissance painters as a high culture reference, but the series at its most basic conception is a reference. As Shane Richey, a digital media manager at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art briefly wrote about in 2016, "during an art appreciation class when the instructor went off-topic and started telling the class about Charles Wilson Peale’s little-known turtle sanctuary, his interest in Eastern martial arts, and his tendency to name his children after Italian Renaissance painters” (Richey). This tangent giving the inspiration to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for what would be the beginning of a very successful comic turned franchise. With the success and popularity of their comic, it became a prime example of the blending of high culture and popular culture. Fusing, for seemingly at least one generation of viewer's perception about two topics that before had no relevance to one another. But, as discussed earlier, popular culture can be used in an educational setting to better engage students in a