Tags: art/music, children/youth, discourse/language, education, knowledge, pedagogy, performance poetry, spoken word, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 18:29
Access: TED Talks

Summary: In this TED Talk, 22-year-old spoken word poet Sarah Kay discusses her personal and professional experience with spoken word performance poetry. Throughout the talk, Kay highlights the pedagogical possibilities of spoken word, describing the ways in which New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club became her “classroom” when she was just 14 years old, as well as her current educational work with students across the country, using spoken word as a site of engagement. Such pedagogical possibilities point to the ways in which spoken word poetry might serve as a productive site for sociological analysis as well, in that it provides an accessible and entertaining medium through which students can “figure things out,” allowing them to draw upon their personal stories and experiences to explore something previously unknown to them. Echoing insights from C.W. Mills, Kay describes the pedagogical utility of using our personal stories (i.e., biographies) as a way through which to discover and connect to social phenomena “out there," seemingly detached from our own lives (i.e., history). As sociology instructors, we can draw upon this pedagogical approach. A class assignment might ask students to write (and perform) a spoken word poem about a topic germane to the class content; this can involve an explicit requirement for students to weave their personal stories into a potentially abstract sociological concept or subject area (the subject can be anything, e.g., social networks, gender violence, disability, stratification, hegemonic masculinity, rural poverty, conspicuous consumption, etc). This video clip can serve as an introduction to the assignment, providing a background on spoken word performance poetry; Kay also offers a few poetry writing exercises in the clip. Examples of how spoken word poetry can serve as a site for sociological analysis can be found here and here on The Sociological Cinema. Other TED Talks on the site can be found here, here, and here.

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp

Tags: education, inequality, knowledge, race/ethnicity, colorblind racism, pedagogy, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 12:20
Access: YouTube

Summary: This clip from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 features a debate between Tom Horne (Arizona superintendent of public instruction) and sociologist Michael Eric Dyson on the need for school curricula to incorporate alternative racial or ethnic histories of the United States. Amongst other things, Horne argues "we should be teaching our kids that this is the land of opportunity, and if they work hard, they can achieve their dreams, and not teach them they're oppressed"; noting that teaching oppression is a "downer" and that it teaches children a "race-obsessed philosophy." Dyson notes that much of American history is taught as finding relief from British oppression; he argues that the stories of Caesar Chavez, Dr Martin Luther King, and others must be told to understand American history and democracy, and that full knowledge of our past helps us find relief from oppression. The video may be used as a launching point for discussions on colorblind racism; racially influenced pedagogical practices in the United States (how is race taught in schools?); and the need for engaging with subaltern histories.

Submitted By: Jillet Sarah Sam

Tags: children/youth, education, knowledge, medicalization, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 11:40
Access: YouTube

Summary: Narrated by Sir Ken Robinson, this clip lays out Robinson's argument for the need to reform public education. Set against the backdrop of an illustrator drawing a visual representation of the argument, Robinson argues that the institution of public education is outdated, having emerged out of a fundamentally different social, intellectual and economic context: the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Times have changed, argues Robinson, and the disconnect between an outdated education system and contemporary social realities causes chaos, privileging some but alienating the vast majority of the population. Today, kids are trying to learn in an intensely stimulated environment, and prescription drugs are used as a crutch to keep kids focused. Robinson draws a parallel between the rise in ADHD diagnoses and the rise in standardized testing, claiming that ADHD is largely a "fictitious epidemic" and the real problem is that kids are bored at school. Robinson stresses the importance of arts curriculum to help students' senses operate at their peak; instead, students are anesthetized by drugs that shut off their senses. Robinson says we need a paradigm shift. Rather than moving toward conformity and standardization, the institution of public education should be moving in the opposite direction, encouraging divergent thinking and fundamentally reconceptualizing human capacity. This engaging clip demonstrates for students the ways in which our institutions are products of particular social, economic and cultural contexts, and invites a discussion about institutional change--both the possibilities and challenges involved. Moreover, the clip might be particularly useful for a lesson on the sociology of education, and how our current education system alienates different groups of students. Finally, the clip is useful for illustrating how institutional trends operate in concert with one another, as the rising dominance of the prescription drug industry has had specific consequences on the institution of education. The clip is also available with Spanish subtitles.

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp

Tags: children/youth, consumption/consumerism, education, gender, inequality, knowledge, media, social construction, standpoint theory, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1998
Length: 1:31
Access: YouTube

Summary: The YouTube caption for this clip reads, "By Phil Lord and Chris Miller - This was a fake commercial we made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. Its educational value was somewhat suspect. It was never aired." While the clip may not offer quantitative data, it works well to broach the topic of gender inequality. The Bronte sisters action figures must fight evil publishers who discriminate against women authors. At a minute and a half, the clip is brief but incredibly useful for stimulating discussion about one way gender inequality works. For instance, students can be encouraged to contemplate that the standpoints of women are systematically suppressed through a publishing bias in favor of works written by men. A second point to take away from the clip is the positioning of women as action figures who fight evil. I would argue that even as toys women are rarely represented as such in the United States unless they are also sexually objectified. In this clip, the Bronte sisters are dressed rather modestly.

I would like to thank Elisa Kreisinger for suggesting this clip.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist