Anne Haas Dyson’s article “On Reframing Children’s Words: The Perils, Promises, and Pleasures of Writing Children” discussed how certain experiences are valued more so than others when it comes to educating children. Generally more classic or older content is often seen as more valuable in the classroom. However, from my own educational experience, I’ve seen a lot of openness towards connecting modern or current cultural experiences to the content being learned in class. Many of my teachers in high school have asked for multimodal projects, using things like videos and music. From what I’ve seen they are quite open towards the use of culture that younger generations engage in. This makes sense in an educational setting as it helps to foster interest, engagement, and a stronger connection overall to the material that students are trying to learn. Without this connection between the educational content being taught and the reality of the world that students live in, students would not learn as effectively or see the material as less useful.
Connecting current culture with foundational knowledge learned in school through simple assignments such as finding a song that fits a certain president of the United States, or connecting a social movement of the past to one that is going on today, allows us to truly learn and understand the content that these curriculums are trying to impart rather than simply knowing it.
