Teachers, Teaching & the Movies

Conference
Teachers, Teaching & the Movies

(bijdragen van Geert, Kris en Ronald)

Representations and Pedagogy in Film, Television, and New Media

Multi-disciplinary Conference, March 26-28, 2009
Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA

This multi-disciplinary conference will focus on two growing areas in the fields of education and media studies: 1) The ways in which movies and television represent teachers and teaching, students and learning and 2) How film, television, and new media function as pedagogical tools in the classroom. On the one hand, we are looking for papers that critically examine the cultural representation of teachers, students, and the educational setting. At the same time, we are looking for papers that explore the ways that films, television, and new media open possibilities for new forms of pedagogy – their power as well as their problems and pitfalls. Movies and television have a long tradition of taking school life and teachers as subjects for its stories. These stories have circulated powerful, though often uncomplicated, representations of teachers and influenced our sense of what meaningful educational experiences are supposed to look like and how good teachers teach. Such representations have also shaped our understanding of the dynamics of teacher-student relationships and the roles (positive and negative) that teachers play in the lives of students and the larger community. In short, the movies have become unlikely authoritative texts on what counts as good education. But have the stories that films tell about teachers become so formulaic that other more complex and realistic stories are unavailable to us in the popular culture? And have these representations migrated to the web, and, if so, in what form?

Complementing this emphasis on representations of teaching, the conference will offer panels that focus on the impact of film, television, new media (as information, education, and entertainment) on pedagogy. Can education, at every level, engage – some would say "resist" – the entertainment culture that dominates public discourse in contemporary society? How has increased media literacy affected curricula and what students bring to the classroom? Panels will explore the use of media and its effect on pedagogy within historical, cultural, social, and educational frameworks – from the first uses of radio in the early 1920s to the most recent experiences with multimedia and the internet.

Conference organizers see issues surrounding the use of media in education as closely linked to the representations of teachers on the screen and this conference will be an opportunity for those who work with the media in the classroom to discuss ideas with those who write on representations of the classroom in the media.