Chapter 6 in Media Education (Buckingham) deals with the subject of “locating media education” within the curriculum. As I mentioned in the introduction of our book talk, I feel like we (media educators) are indebted to those who have stood as stewards of Media Education, ushering it into ever-evolving phases of public education and keeping discussions about its merits alive. For the past several years, the Ontario Report Card has featured a separate section for reporting on Media Literacy. I don’t know the details of how that came to be, but I’m sure the story has its share of ups and downs, hard-won battles and some defeats as well.
Something, I didn’t get the chance to say during our talk last week, is that the rationale for locating media literacy is something we should always keep in mind. Buckingham warns (perhaps too strong a word) that the “aims and methods of media education” depend on “pragmatic considerations of educational policy”. If media education is not strategically located within the curriculum, the very purpose of media education may suffer. So where within the curriculum does media education fit in? The short answer: EVERYWHERE. Yet, this is what makes it such a unique (and at times targeted) area of study. Unlike mathematics, the applied sciences, or English, media education is still seen as a “new” curriculum area. As such it does not enjoy the protection these other subjects seem to have when academic types start to talk about reform or budget cuts. Traditional subjects along with their traditional methodologies and firm footholds in academia, rarely come under scrutiny for the reasons media education has in the past. Buckingham goes into some detail about the perils and pitfalls media education has seen over the past 50 years. By the end of the chapter it seems clear that an integrated approach to media education provides the most appropriate teaching opportunities; enabling teacher to impart hard skills as well as critical literacy skills to their students.
To be continued…
