Check this clip out...
How should this influence us as teachers? Should we "teach" this doubletalk? Does this make them more prepared to take on the challanges of "citizenship" in the 21st Century. I am not intetionally trying to make a political statement with this clip. I am more interested in hearing your POV on how we prepare our students in an environment loaded with "knowledge claims". Should John Stewart be the one we turn to for "truth"? Our kids might and they might also turn to FOX "fair and balanced".
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=184086
Mark
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22 comments:
in terms of any kind of underlying American/national feelings (or whatever you would like to call the whole sexism thing), I'm not sure its something that the kids will be alien to by the time they reach our class. Theyre immersed in the society just as we are, and there are obviously certain tendencies to view women and men a certain way (let me reassure you I'm not advocating sexism, I'm just open to the existence of the fact that as a whole culture, I think it'd be safe to say that on a macro scale,and for the lack of a better phrase, we would probably associate girls with the color pink and boys with the color blue - its just the way we're wired).
The important thing is to teach the kids to be able to attempt to temporarily step out of their individual modus operandi and try to view an issue from all sides.
In the end, we're all human. I think that's the important message. It complicates our politics, makes the water of our history a murky, but in the end, its the thing that makes it all so interesting - and worth talking about :)
I agree with Mike on this one. I'm a big advocate of an issue being viewed from all sides. I think the best way to understand an issue is to investigate it fully. While I do enjoy the hilarious punditry of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert I also see the importance of getting more then just what is being force fed to the consumer.
I personally find that I like to have a nice mix of FOX News along with other news feeds. This allows me to see other views that I may not have seen through just one single stream of media. I think that by have a balance I am better informed of the issues and what my views of them are.
I always enjoy the Daily Show not for any kind of actual news but as a credible source for identifying the flaws of the media. These shows promoting knowledge claims are simply dumbing the news and feeding it covered in propaganda to lazy Americans who don't have time to think. How else do you explain 8 years of a Bush administration?
I think it's important when teaching kids history, but especially politics to find multiple viewpoints and critically determine the solution or "truth." To be acknowledged citizens they must be able to identify the bias in the media and find a sensible means to learn from the news or current events. The sad thing is that the Daily Show might actually have more credible substance than many of the news shows on Fox.
I agree. We have discussed in class "what is truth?" To properly address this issue, we as teacher should explain all sides of the issue and let the students then decided which is the best "truth" for them. This is especially true in the area of politics. It would be very hard to teach a course on American History without discussing politics. Especially this year and the past presidential elections have been so fierce and so controversial and the students are going to have all different types of opinions on the matter. And it will not just be on politics, but in any event in history, the students will have different opionions, and thus a teaher must teach all view of a topic so as not to alienate any of their students.
I believe there are so many double standrads that come from each side. They use these double standrads to suit them when that want to use it. It was visable in the democratic nomination campaign of Hilliary Clinton. They pulled the sex card when they wanted to make a point and now the John Mcain camp is doing the same thing. They are simply trying to use this as a advantage against their opponent. So shows such as the Daily Show are simply making the situation worse when they spend an obnoxious amount of time of the situatation. I think what we need to remember and try to get through to our kids is that there is a reason why the Daily Show and the Colbert report are on Comedy Central. Remind them that theya re not going to cover the real issues that matter and that yes there is sexism in our world but think of ways to cure the problem and how to critically adress those issues. So keeping this in mind it is important that we as educators remember that there is junk like this show that our students will be watching and try to address it with them.
Now that I'm done laughing and emailing that link to all my Republican relatives, let me answer the questions. I think that we absolutely have to teach that there are always conflicting opinions. That's what makes history so interesting, after all. Students also have to understand that sometimes opinions will differ depending on the circumstances under which the opinion is given. We as teachers need to show our students that there are multiple sides to everything, and there always have been. History can be written in an infinite number of ways, just as current events can be tilted to fit any viewpoint. The key to all this is teaching our students how to extricate the facts from the viewpoint they are in. Recognizing that we are indeed human, as Mike said, and thus susceptible to bias and occasional hypocrisy is over half the battle.
The clip highlights why it is important to not teach one sided history (or politics). It is important to show there are two sides to every story and that neither side are the 'right' side. The Daily Show is the modern day "Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift. It pokes fun at both sides of the issues so they are both more visible for everyone to see.
I think this is important for teachers because students are impressionable and things that we say/teach them do stick with them. We are figures of authority that kids will follow. We need to not choose sides in the classroom, but rather show both sides and allow the students to pick whichever they want.
This clip shows just how much double talk and backstabbing there is in the world of politics. But it is also an important teaching tool. There will always be people in the world, whether it be politics or somewhere else, that will talk both ways. It is amazing how quickly people change their perspective when the issue is hitting so close to home. We as teachers need to teach our students to be able to dissypher between these two sides of the story. We need to educate them to make educated decisions about issues by doing good research and not relying on one point of view. You can't allow students to be close minded but must teach them how to open up their minds and make the decisions on their own. We can't rely on any form of media because most are biased but we can use all media together to form opinions and ideas.
While I absolutely love watching Fox News for their close, concise, and balanced information that they bring to the masses, I think that Jon Stewart and forums like the Daily Show provide an invaluable service. Wile watching the news does remain one of the main tools for students and teachers to get their information, I believe that the Daily Show illustrates how people need to question the sources in which they receive their information from. In all honesty I do intend on showing clips from the Daily Show in my classroom. Not because it is funny, but because unlike most media outlets, they question both sides on every issue, whether or not people like to admit it.
As far as the Sarah Palin clip that we watched goes, I think its just interesting that the Daily Show, a fake news show on basic cable, seems to be the only outlet that raises questions like I had previously mentioned. I think that if we want to treat male and female students as equal, then it goes the same for politics.
In the end, students are going to make decision on who controls the truth by themselves. Teachers, pundits and even their parents can have huge affects on how they think, but in the end they are going to make the decision themselves. The role that we as educators play is what kind of guide we are going to be and if we want students to only view one side or both sides of an issue.
I think as future educators we have to be prepared to realize that most high school students are getting their news from unbalanced sources, such as the onion or the Daily Show. Most students are tuning into the BBC in the morning or driving into school listening to NPR. Its are job to tell them the facts and present the fact that there are bias in the media. We have to prepare the students to watch with judging eyes to find the truth. It is my believe that I will have to act as a non bias mouthpiece. I think much like celebrities, teachers do not need to bring their personal political into the classroom. I believe the teachers need to present and help the student to make their own logical assumption about items in the media.
This clip is a perfect illustration of one of the things that frustrates me most about politics - that there is too much talk (much of it doubletalk or vague rhetoric) and not enough action. People on all sides do it. I agree with many of people who have commented previously about our roles as teachers. I think teachers must help students wade through a lot of the political talk so they better understand real political issues instead of sensationalized "political" stories that the media picks up on (focusing on Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, for example). It's certainly not an easy job, and I don't see it getting any easier any time in the future.
I think that the most important thing we as teachers can do for our students is to encourage them to be educated on topics like elections. When I say educate them, I mean, send them to each candidate's own website where the students can find out exactly what each candidate stands for. It's not necessary for John Stewart, or Steve Colbert, or Dick Morris, or Bill Oreilly, or CNN, or Fox News to be part of the education processo of citizens in general. If you are REALLY interested in finding out what candidates stand for, find out from the horses's mouth. I watched that clip as it cut out from clips and moved to other clips so as to make them seem like one clip. That's something that Michael Moore would do... anyway... as teachers, we can certainly give students access to sites where they can see both sides, and even encourage them to look at different news sources so they can form their own opinions. The media, both conservative and liberal, has an agenda. That's the one and only truth about it... we as citizens must remember this. If we understand this, and are able to effectively teach our students this, then it's possible for them to become more informed, more educated, and better prepared to deal with the utter filth that comes from the news media (on both sides of the political fence...)
I think we should certainly help our students to be informed citizens and to understand that it is important to do fact checking on what individuals say and to hold individuals accountable for their stated views and opinions. Students must also understand that in order to advance their arguments, news analysts or contributors who have an inherent bias on a certain issue will be willing to say things that are either untrue or in contrast to previous statements they have made.
I think one useful way to tackle this issue is to advise our students to get their news from multiple sources. This helps to give students a broader picture of the world in which they live and gives the students the opportunity to decide for themselves what side of an argument they find to be more feasible. I personally get my news from a wide variety of sources: Fox News, MSNBC (mainly for comedic value), CNN, NBC News, ABC News, The USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Intelligencer Journal. I think this has helped me to have a more enlightened views of the most important political issues of our time.
This is definitely an entertaining clip but an important one to reflect upon. As future teachers, it is imperative to not show any bias in class. We are influential people and should never bring our own opinion into the classroom. That being said, it is important to show both sides and I do think showing this clip in the classroom is relevant as long as we are showing both sides in the upcoming election!
Sorry, I did not put my user name in the last comment...I am not anonymous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is definitely an entertaining clip but an important one to reflect upon. As future teachers, it is imperative to not show any bias in class. We are influential people and should never bring our own opinion into the classroom. That being said, it is important to show both sides and I do think showing this clip in the classroom is relevant as long as we are showing both sides in the upcoming election!
September 27, 2008 4:41 PM
It is in my opinion that we no longer have journalism in America. No, instead we have infotainment. As far as things go the media in this country can be summed up by the cute acronym Make Everyone Dumb In America or M.E.D.I.A. What people are failing to see is that if you want real information you have to go find it in books, and not depend on the corporate media to bring it to you. The Media is all owned in this country and they serve their own best interest. NBC is owned by General Electric, and GE owns the electrical contracts for the military. Do you think we will get accurate news about the Iraq war? Also they own the contracts for the new age nuclear power plants, do you think they will report accurately on nuclear power? this is why Rep Dennis Kucinich(ANTI WAR, AND ANTI NUCLEAR POWER) wasn't covered by NBC during the primaries. In fact the last time NBC gave him air time; May 2003. He ran for president this year!!! I used NBC as an example but do not be fooled CBS is owned by Viacom,ABC is owned by Disney, and Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch a known neo-conservative.
The best advice we can give our students is the old saying believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. If you want the real info you have to do the work and go get it!
Well first and foremost I would teach my students that with politics, especially before a major election its nothing but a popularity contest, and that certain stations, papers, and people all have different biases when it comes to certain individuals or subjects. For example CNN may lean more Democratic, where Fox may lean more Republican. As for the doubletalk thing it all depends on the students and there level. I may make short notice on it, where Fox may diss Hilary but on the other hand praise Palin for the same thing, due to the biases I talked of before. As for citizenship I don't believe this makes them less or more a citizen what we can do is at least make them an informed citizen so they can see beyond this double talk and just know the facts. As for John Stewart he is a political comedian, yes what he says sometimes has some good creditability behind, and as I stated before depending on who runs the corporation, the paper, or just the person in general will depend on their point of view. What we should do is just teach our students how to be informed voters, to give them the knowledge unbiased and the truth. As teachers that’s all we can do, it’s truly up to the students who they vote for or who they follow. Besides us parents and the outside world influences that student. So when it comes to politics all we can do is to inform them and help them to make decisions for themselves.
It is important for educators (especially social studies educators) to realize that many students are watching shows such as The Daily Show as their source of current events. Many students get their political ideas from one-sided news programs. While I think that it is great that our students are watching anything to do with current issues, it is a problem that they are only getting one-side.
In my Contemporary Issues class during senior year, we discussed this issue of doubletalk and we watched a series of one-sided news programs, including The Daily Show and the O’Reilly Factor on FOX. We had to analyze the programs and the program’s validity, interestingness, etc. I loved this class because it was a real-life situation and many people (not just students) are creating their political views based on these shows.
As I mentioned before, the sheer fact that students have enough interest to sit down and watch political shows, whether one-sided or not, is great because they have some interest in politics. If students can understand that what they are watching may not be the 100% truth and the stories may be skewed to one side or the other, then their watching one-sided shows is not a problem at all. Overall, I believe the most important thing dealing with this topic is to make our students aware that most shows are trying to persuade the public one way or the other. If they can see the one-sidedness of a show, we have done our job. Whether they decide to be swayed by the programs is their own choice because it’s not their news source, they will probably be swayed by some other media.
Very interesting clip!
I think this is a very scary thing because there are many people who do just listen to these news shows and don't create thier own opinion. It is important to be informed about the events that are occurring but we cannot just listen to one or two analysts who we like. There is obvious bias in all news whether we think it is true or not.
As a future educator it is important to lay out the information with as little bias as possible. When this is done hopefully the student can create their own opinions about the world and what is right or wrong. We can't narrow them into one way of thinking, they have to be ready to understand the world through their own eyes and not listen to everything they hear.
I think that we should acknowledge the controversies that take place in our society and that it is important to look at such issues from all sides. We do live in a world where sexism takes place, however I think it is only feeding the fire to blame certain people for hiding behind the issue. Double standards will always be there in just about everything that happens and I think it is our job as teachers, not to pick a side and try to teach why one might be right or wrong, but to teach relevant information that would help students form their own ideas about such controversial topics.
I really agree with Harry. We should acknowledge the controversies that take place in our society and it is important to look at any issues from all sides. However, I do question the idea of relevant information. What is relevant to one person, may not be relevant to another. Our job as teachers will be to use our best judgment, fair and balanced (and as free of bias as possible)to decide what is relevant. I enjoy the Daily Show as much as the next humor seeking individual, but it necessary to see the bias in any type of news cast, whether it be Jon Stewart, Bill O'Reilly, or the BBC. We just need to make sure that our students acknowledge the perspective of each.
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