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    Beyond The Horizon: Reflections of a Life-Long Learner
    Beyond The Horizon: Reflections of a Life-Long Learner
    Beyond The Horizon: Reflections of a Life-Long Learner
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Beyond The Horizon: Reflections of a Life-Long Learner

    By Michael G. Redfearn

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    About this ebook

    A collection of 47 of my published editorials on the following themes: education, information technology, popular culture, media literacy, hope and personal courage.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael G. Redfearn
    Release dateAug 5, 2012
    ISBN9781476126647
    Beyond The Horizon: Reflections of a Life-Long Learner
    Author

    Michael G. Redfearn

    Michael Redfearn is married, a father, educator, writer and blogger with 21 years' experience teaching a variety of subjects to secondary school students. Michael served for 7 years as an information technology consultant and E-Learning contact with the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. He is currently Coordinator of the Ontario Catholic eLearning Consortium and a Digital Literacy consultant.

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      Book preview

      Beyond The Horizon - Michael G. Redfearn

      Beyond the Horizon: Reflections of a Life-long Learner

      Michael G. Redfearn

      Copyright 2012 by Michael G. Redfearn

      Smashwords Edition

      Editorials

      Insidious Fun: Youth needs help to process messages - Dangerous Gifts: Beware of corporate gifts - Internet is really a Black Hole - Don’t forget Teachers – Seductive Technology: We have more than technology to fight against violence on TV - News the bleeds sells - Daily Seductions: The V-Chip doesn’t protect us from TV’s constant soft sell - Out of Class: Education more than 3 R’s - Senseless Violence is the offspring of freedom of choice over social responsibility – Gruesome release: now people can watch JFK be killed over and over again - We get the message - Who’s the boss? The media . . . or us? – Complicity - Kennedy Tragedy - No laughing matter - Resolve to make more Snow Angels - The Poor and Dispossessed need our help - Reality television isolates us from reality - Transforming tragedies into triumphs inspires our communities - Literacy test a good idea but poorly designed - New code of conduct in schools - Bill 74 blatantly fails democratic test - We risk becoming hollow men - Succeeding despite tough odds - Teachers should be free to teach - Front line health workers keep system alive - Assault deflects real problems in education - Grim face of poverty enriches student learning - We’ll miss the man in black - Provocative film has youth talking - Like political attack ads, film can backfire - NHL Lockout - Media savvy pope was a superstar - Film about evil may do some good - Step up to the ‘cyber-learning’ plate - Don’t rush to judgement about killer - Responsibility lagging behind trendy technology - IWB’s taking education giant step into the future - Media must shoulder blame for violence - New media hold opportunities for internet generation - Chinese use time-honored practice of image control - What would Jesus text?

      It’s time to open schools to corporate deals

      Insidious Fun: Youth needs help to process messages of sex and violence

      August 18, 1993

      What do scar-faced teen icon Freddy Krueger and rap performer Bobby Brown have in common? They have both been blamed for inciting a 13-year-old Kitchener boy to sexually assault his 10-year-old stepsister.

      Horror hero Freddy Krueger slashed his way into the collective consciousness of thrill-seeking teens during the 1980's in the notorious Nightmare on Elm Street horror flicks. Every woman's worst nightmare, Freddy would enter his victims' (usually nubile young females) nightmares then kill them, often in a bloody, stylized manner. Bobby Brown's song Humping Around was also cited as a contributing factor in making the 13-year-old sexually aggressive.

      These are the latest victims (Krueger/Brown) in a long line of teen cult heroes who have been slammed for a host of deviant behavior. Rock music has traditionally taken the most hits for allegedly causing everything from teen silliness to suicide. Various lawsuits have been launched (so far without much success) charging heavy metal rock groups with inciting teens to kill themselves. British rock singer Ozzy Osbourne's song Suicide Solution was linked to the suicide of a 19-year-old California youth in 1984.

      Sex 'n violence in popular music, rock videos, films and most recently, video games and collector cards portraying serial killers, are the forbidden fruit for today's curious adolescents. The more adults threaten to censor, ban or restrict the availability of these items - the more alluring their appeal to youth. Yet we deny any connection between our society's fascination with media products containing sex n' violence and real sexual assault - at our peril.

      Many of my students strongly resist the notion that they are adversely influenced by the glut of sex 'n violence they are exposed to. Yet when asked if their younger brothers or sisters would be negatively affected by a steady diet of so-called slasher films, most indicated they would.

      One confident female student admitted to having recurring nightmares after covertly watching part of a slasher film her older siblings had rented. But the fact is, most of the teens I know tend to believe they are too sophisticated to be affected by make-believe violence. One of my male students laughed when describing the plot of the teen horror film Slumber Party Massacre in which a crazed killer stalks then skewers his female victims to death with a menacing drill.

      The now famous amateur video of the Rodney King beating shows us that even real, graphic incidents of violence lose their visceral impact if viewed repeatedly. Chilling scenes of real violence on reality-type television programs such as Code 3 and I-Witness Video tend to evoke less of a response with each passing episode.

      I have witnessed a kind of psychic and emotional numbing in the reactions of my students when discussing such programs. Being exposed to countless violent acts, real or manufactured, leaves all of us somewhat jaded. What will be the cumulative, long term effects of all this violence on society? Will we be able to react at all to real violent acts which may occur before our eyes? Or will we freeze and stare with eyes glazed as though viewing just another reality TV show?

      Soon pizza-sized satellite dishes will serve up over 500 television channels for the public to choose from. Cable companies will also offer a comparable smorgasbord of visual delights. If present network scheduling is any indication, programs containing sex 'n violence will be even more enticing to impressionable young psyches. Some software programs for computers users now feature soft-core pornography for those who so wish to indulge. Clearly, communication technology has surpassed our ability to keep pace with the social and moral implications of such rapid change. The ever-expanding information highway threatens to deluge our youth with an increasing array of violent and sexually explicit images and lyrics.

      Certainly our childrens' ability to cope with this onslaught will, as it always has, depend largely upon the internalization of sound parental values. As well, parents should take an active role in monitoring the amount and type of music, television programs, videos and computer games their children may have access to. Yet how we help our children process these potentially harmful messages will also be an important factor in their overall psychological and emotional well-being.

      Hence parents and schools have a responsibility to ensure that students be given the opportunity to openly discuss and critically examine the issues surrounding violent or sexually explicit material. One way to lessen the impact of such material is to deconstruct it.

      Studying slasher films or heavy metal rock videos in segments reduces them to the largely misogynistic, formulaic products that they are. Young people quickly learn that what appear to be seamless extensions of reality, are merely the result of carefully constructed camera shots and angles, soundtrack manipulation and special effects. They also begin to see the connections between the predominant female as victim motif in various forms of pop culture and the real problem of violence against women in society.

      What will become even more essential for our children in the high-tech 90's will be their ability to distinguish between what - in this vast electronic field of dreams - is really important and what is not. It is imperative we help guide them along the way; otherwise Freddy's nightmare may very well become our reality.

      Dangerous Gifts: Beware of corporate fixes for cash-strapped school boards

      January 13, 1994

      Picture a high school where teachers are measured not by the number of scholars they produce but by how efficiently their students can run a hamburger franchise. Where each day visions of candy bars, soft drinks and burgers dance in their heads.

      Now imagine this same school charging tuition fees of $6,000 per student and, instead of finding itself in the red, managing to turn a healthy profit.

      Ridiculous you say! Well, if current educational trends south of the border are any indication - this scenario may one day become a Canadian reality - perhaps sooner than we think. Burger King has opened 'Burger Academies' in 14 cities in the US. These fully accredited private high schools represent an emerging entrepreneurial model gaining momentum. IBM and Apple are also considering the idea of schools for profit.

      Within the next ten years it is estimated that as many as 1000 profit-making schools will be operating in the US. This major initiative dubbed the 'Edison Project' is the brainchild of, Chris Whittle, founder and chair of Whittle Communications.

      Whittle also spearheaded the sale of television news-and-advertising packages to public schools in the US and Canada from 1991 to 1993. Modeled on Channel One in the US, the Canadian operation is known as YNN (Youth News Network).

      As a YNN subscriber - each participating school receives television monitors (one for every 25 students), 2 VCR's, a satellite receiving dish, a portable camera, and the wiring required to tie everything together within the school. Once the system is up and running - YNN would beam in a twelve minute daily broadcast including a mix of reporting on current world events, student produced news items and a mandatory two and a half minutes of commercials.

      Commercials for Snickers, Burger King and other youth oriented products are shown in 12,000 schools to almost eight million students daily. Whittle Communications earns $630,000 a day from the commercials that accompany the broadcasts.

      The contract between YNN and participating schools stipulate that: 90 per cent of the children in a school must watch the program 90 per cent of the time, each program must be watched in its entirety and programs cannot be interrupted. An electronic device also measures if the TV set in a classroom is turned on, the channel it's

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