My Final Project for Pop Culture Class

Can popular culture be used in schools to enhance education?

     Can popular culture be used in schools to enhance education? My answer would be yes. I would surmise that if students were to have a class that they could actually consider fun, then they might be more apt to attend school or attend more classes. When I think of popular culture, the title alone makes it sound like something that could be fun learning. 

Learning about popular culture could definitely be used to enhance education. Not only could students learn about things that they would be familiar with, like music, movies, television, or clothing, they could learn about stuff they would not be familiar with for example, food, art, or popular culture within a certain ethnic group. If students learned about aspects of American popular culture then they would be able to know more about the people and the country they live in. 

     Thomas A. Fain, Jr. says, “We will be more effective as educators if we integrate the study of the popular culture with traditional education. Doing so will result in making our youth’s education more meaningful, more relevant to the world in which they live, and will allow our youth to truly understand more of what they learn.”  This statement I think sums up what I believe. One thing I like about college is that you mostly take classes that will be relevant to the degree you want. I think that relevance is important. If what students learn in a classroom is relevant, they have the potential to learn more, than if what they learn is not relevant. 

Conspiracy Theories???

       How can you deal with someone who believes in a conspiracy theory or other false belief? First of all, what constitutes as a false belief? If a person truly believes, for example, the moon landing is a hoax, then you need to prove whether or not their theory, claim, or belief is true, otherwise can you really call what they believe a false belief? I do not really know how you would deal with someone who believes in a conspiracy theory, especially if you do not believe the same. To try to convince someone else of a different point of view other than what they already believe, I think you would have to be very convincing and have a lot of (true not false) facts to back up your side of the argument. 

If a conspiracy theorist’s theory is proved to be false, what kind of damage could that cause? Depending on the person and what kind of personality they have, anything can happen or nothing at all. When I think of a conspiracy theorist and what kind of person they would be like, I have this stereotypical belief that they are these crazy and extremely paranoid people that live alone. I would say that movies have given me that impression.  I would hope that not all conspiracy theorists are like this, and if one of their beliefs are wrong then they will not go all crazy on us. 

Click on this for Weird Worm’s 10 Bizarre Conspiracies Theories

Music is Influential

You are walking down the street and decide that you want to go into a store, lets say Hollister, you walk in and the first thing that happens besides the workers greeting you, is music playing loudly from the speakers. I do not want to say all clothing stores play music, but there are a lot of them out there that do.  Sometimes you are walking down the street and a car with their windows rolled down drives by with, for example, rap music like Eminem, classic rock like Journey, or pop music like Lady Gaga blaring from their speakers. My point in saying all of this is that music is everywhere. I doubt there is not a single person that has not listened to music at one time or another. Music is popular,influential, and here to stay.

        Music is just one aspect of popular culture. A topic that is broad, yes I’ll admit, but an influential topic in America, nonetheless. I think lyrics are a major part of what makes songs influential to a person. They can sometimes describe your exact mood at that moment, or it’s as if it describes a past memory taken directly from the pages of your diary or journal. Whatever the case may be song lyrics are a major influence on what mood you might be in. Is this is a good thing? Well, it depends. If it’s a song about how the artist wants to go on a rampage or has inappropriate language every other word it probably is not going to put you in a good or the best of moods. If it’s a depressing song, once again chances are it will make you a little depressed yourself, and is that a good thing, probably not. Song lyrics and how the artist sings it are just one part of how music in our society is influential. 

Hey Everyone!!!

Hi name is Heather. I'm blogging for my Introduction to Popular Cultures class. I have never blogged before, so this should be kind of interesting. I'm not really sure if i"ll be any good at it, but I guess we'll find out won't we :) .