Purpose 3: Pleasure
The idea that the purpose
of schools is to provide pleasure for students might strike
some people as odd, silly, or inappropriate. However, the
concept of pleasure, whether we call it appreciation or
aesthetics, has always been in our schools, along with the
loftier goals of creating responsible citizens and
productive workers. Music, drama, and art classes have
always fostered appreciation. Literature and English classes
are not just for teaching students the basics of grammar;
rather it is hoped that they will motivate students to read
and to find personal enrichment and self-expression through
art, literature, and the performing arts. If concepts
related to preparation are addressed in Social Studies
classes, and protection issues are subjects of Health
Education, then clearly pleasure as an educational purpose
can be integrated throughout the arts, including media arts.
This concept is clearly recognized in West Virginia's
English/Language Arts curriculum. Students are expected to
view media for specific purposes, including pleasure,
performance, communication, and information. Such classifications are,
of course, arbitrary and ignore the interdisciplinary nature
of media literacy. They also ignore the interdisciplinary
nature of art, as evident in the National Endowment for the
Arts (NEA) publication Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the
Core of Learning (1995a). Not content to banish the arts
to the periphery of the curriculum to be tolerated as an
elective, the report argued that the arts "cannot only bring
coherence to our fragmented academic world, but through the
arts, students' performance in other academic disciplines
can be enhanced as well" (1). Further, the report drew upon
Howard Gardner's work with multiple intelligences to argue
that the arts "can play a crucial role in improving
students' ability to learn because they draw upon a range of
intelligences and learning styles" (3). Nor should the arts be
limited to traditional concepts of fine and performing arts.
The study of media was recommended by the NEA in its
publication Media Arts: Education Philosophy (1991).
Four years later saw its publication of The Arts and
Education: Partners in Achieving Our National Educational
Goals (1995b). Addressing the aims of the Goals 2000:
Educate America Act, this report articulated a role for the
arts. "Literacy," it said,
"should be redefined to include media and symbol literacy.
These are the languages of the arts, and they contribute
heavily to the kinds of literacy required for all educated
persons" (15). As our information
increasingly comes to us through a combination of sight and
sound, training in the arts, including music, video,
photography, and computer graphics, strengthens our ability
to use these forms to both encode and decode information in
a variety of forms. Further, as television's window on the
world brings other countries and cultures into our living
rooms, it offers the opportunity to reduce stereotyping,
promote international understanding, and widen our
appreciation of the arts, from the sand paintings of
Australia's indigenous people to the shadow puppetry of
Bali. In May 1997, participants
in Seattle's Images of Youth: Teen Health and the Media
Conference had an opportunity to listen to Raymond Soeung,
Samantha Nop, and other teenagers from the Tacoma area
describe the impact media production has had on their lives.
For many of these young people, the STRIVE (Starting Teenage
Responsibility in Video Environment) program not only
provided a constructive outlet for afterschool activities,
but also literally saved them from the dangers of gangs,
substance abuse, and other destructive behaviors. They
learned video production, and some of the Asian-American
teenagers drew upon the shadow-puppetry traditions of their
native culture to tell their own stories. Many of them
became so competent that they received more than $60,000 in
contracts for video production. It is a real-life success
story that demonstrates the interdisciplinary power and
purposes of media literacy. By developing production skills,
the students received job preparation and even earned money.
But they also engaged in media production as an alternative
to more negative behaviors, so their training not only
prepared them but also protected them. Finally, their
productions gave them an opportunity to succeed on their own
terms, to tell their stories through their own words and
images, to cooperate with their peers, to develop
self-esteem, and yes, to experience the pleasure derived
from all of that.
Continued in
next column.