As an educator in an inner-city middle school and a parent of two teenage boys, I believe we must seriously question the effects of using popular digital literacies in our classrooms. Although our own Ministry of Education may view the Internet and video games as an oasis in the middle of the desert of the crisis in boy’s literacy, saying that they will de-feminize language arts classes1, we educators have the responsibility to take a closer look. Examining this research shows that these digital literacies are really a mirage; too good to be true. Not only do they fail to address the reasons why boys are not literate in the first place, introducing these media into our classrooms really just reinforces gender stereotypes at a serious emotional and academic cost to our students.
If we follow the Ontario Ministry of Education’s recommendations about using popular, digital literacies to create a "boy-friendly2" curriculum, we promote a disturbing hidden curriculum. Popular digital literacies such as video games are chock-full of demeaning attitudes towards women, and people being blown to bits. They promote the idea that there is only one way to be a man: heterosexual, violent and patriarchal3. The rationale that some educational researchers use, namely that there is a "necessity for violence4" in boys’ literacy practices, is appalling. Stories where women and girls are frozen, tortured to death or turned into giant bugs and squashed5, are not just the product of boys wanting "to take an adventure in their minds.6" They are the product of boys learning, through literacy practices, what it means to be a man.
And boys themselves dislike being put into the macho-man box. Interviews with high-school boys reveal that they feel constant pressure to act "cool7" and that they are unable to "be themselves" because of the pressure they feel to conform to these stereotypes of masculinity8. It is time that we start recognizing the disservice we are doing to students by bringing these popular digital literacies unchallenged into our classrooms. Reinforcing gender stereotypes in this way can only result in failure: academic failure for the boys who have the stereotypes reinforced and social failure, in the form of being ostracized, for boys who fail to live up to the stereotype9.
The answer, therefore, is not to introduce digital literacies in our classes because adolescents like them,10 or to pretend that we will be able to engage our boys by having them critically analyze gender in Grand Theft Auto. Let them experience whatever pleasure they get from digital pop culture outside the classroom; teachers, in any case, will not be able to walk the fine line between letting children enjoy these media and getting them to see that they promote serious stereotypes that are damaging to the identities of both women and men11. If we want to get serious about helping boys improve their literacy skills, the real solution is to change the conditions that are de-motivating boys to read and write in the first place. Boys don’t reject school-based literacy because it’s too feminine, they reject it because they don’t see how learning how to analyze narrative fiction is ever going to help them in the real world12. If we really want to get our boys tuned back into the English classroom, we need to frame literacy in terms of its relationship to the real world, including our students’ future employment endeavours13. As both an educator and a parent, my message to my colleagues is this: Stop being fooled by the illusion that making literacy fun will fix things, and start making literacy relevant. Only then will we produce a generation of truly literate young men who are able to "be themselves."
1 Ontario Ministry of Education. (2003). Me read? No way! A practical guide to improving boys’ literacy skills. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca. Retrieved March 17, 2009.
2 Martino, W. (2008). The politics and crisis of boys’ literacy: Beyond essentialist mindsets and the boy-friendly curriculum. In In R. F. Hammett and K. Sanford (Eds.) Boys, girls and the myths of literacies and learning. Toronto: Canada’s Scholars’ Press Inc. pp. 91-114. pg. 91
3 Ibid.
4 Newkirk, T. (2002). Misreading masculinity: Boys, literacy and popular culture. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. pg. 110.
5 Ibid.
6 Williams, B. T. (2004). Boys may be boys, but do they have to read and write that way? Journal of adolescent and adult literacy, 47 (6). 510-515. pg. 511.
7 Kehler, M. & Martino, W. (2007). Questioning masculinities: Interrogating boys’ capacities for self-problematization in schools. Canadian Journal of Education 30 (1), 90-112. p. 95.
8 Ibid.
9 Martino, W. (2008). The politics and crisis of boys’ literacy: Beyond essentialist mindsets and the boy-friendly curriculum. In R. F. Hammett and K. Sanford (Eds.). Boys, girls and the myths of literacies and learning. Toronto: Canada’s Scholars’ Press Inc. pp. 91-114.
10 Sanford, K. (2002). Popular media and school literacies: Adolescent expressions. In R. F. Hammett & B. R. C. Barrell (Eds.). Digital expressions: Media literacy and English language arts. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. pp. 21-47.
11 Alvermann, D.E. & Heron, A.H. (2001). Literacy identity work: Playing to learn with popular media. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45 (2). 118-122.
12 Smith, M. W. & Wilhelm, J. D. (2002). Reading don’t fix no chevys. Literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
13 Ibid.
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