Alliance for Catholic Education
As a 22-year-old high school English and Spanish teacher responsible for 150 students who watched Friends for the first time on Nick at Nite, I worried about including pop, or popular, culture in a lesson. Did I know enough about the cultural bayou (I taught in Louisiana) my students were swimming in to choose timely references and identify when something was inappropriate or irrelevant? Would I cheapen the language or literature by tying in Saturday Night Live or showing the Leonardo Dicaprio version of Romeo + Juliet? Wouldn't an adaptation with a more plain-looking lead actor be more true to the text?
On further reflection, though, I realized that, much like our faith, it actually cheapened the subject matter to assume it would be degraded by association. If I truly believe The Odyssey, O.Henry, and "Ozymandias" are worth in-depth study, the comparisons my students and I make between the texts and popular culture will only further illuminate their virtue.
We, especially in the humanities, tend to set up this choice between pop culture and the "high" literature/art/culture we want to teach, but really pop culture is one of the main and most effective bridges between what our students know and what we want them to know. And science backs me up on this; we're helping kids become more intelligent and creative when we help them build and connect knowledge in multiple parts of their brain.
Because pop culture, like so much today, has the power to engage or distract, here are a few guidelines for how and when to integrate it in your classroom:
1. Check your definition of pop culture.
You don't have to know all five (er, now four) of the members of One Direction to integrate pop culture in your classroom. Pop culture is what is on the minds of the masses, but remember that is as much local as it is national. The unique fascinations of my students allowed me to teach math using deals at Bass Pro Shop and Popeyes; this would not have worked in San Jose. Integrating a local news story in history class, discussing how the spread of modern American slang echoes the development of ancient languages, or assigning a project where students rewrite a Taylor Swift song in the - dash-heavy style - of Emily - Dickinson are all great ways to integrate popular culture without having to read Tiger Beat.
2. Keep learning your students' interests.
Don't stop gauging your students' interests after your opening interest survey. Build in questions on quizzes or bell work where they can tell you what's captivating them ("What song on the radio today accurately depicts the effects of sin and grace? How?" or "How do you see projectile motion at work in your favorite sport? "). Seek out ways to learn more about them such as inviting them to have lunch with you, chaperoning retreats, attending community events, and visiting their places of worship.
3. Know where you're going so your students do, too.
If you're not sure how a pop culture reference fits in the broader arc of the week, month, and year, it can easily distract your class and make all of you lose sight of the skill you want them to grasp. Lesson plan with this question in mind: "Does this help me to more effectively teach the lesson goal to my specific population of students?" Thoughtfully preparing discussion questions beforehand like this teacher and clearly displaying and repeating the lesson's goal to yourself and your students will help steer the class away from tangents and towards learning.
4. Build classroom procedures and a culture that welcome thoughtful connections.
You don't always have to be the initiator of the pop culture connections. The beauty of pop culture is that it allows kids to be experts, something they love but too rarely get to be. Teach students to annotate their daily work and readings with T2W (Text to World) connections, and facilitate discussions that draw those out of them. One of my proudest moments as a teacher and fellow learner was when my ninth grade girls took a straightforward discussion question about women to a whole new level, discussing whether the females in The Odyssey defied or ultimately conformed to stereotypes (naive maiden, conniving seductress) that they'd seen in Of Mice and Men, popular music, and Disney movies.
5. Make sure the pop culture points to a greater truth.
Any pop culture reference should help bring students not just greater academic skill, but also ideally direct their thinking toward the greater world and, we hope, their Creator. As teachers in faith-based schools, we don't want them to see the real world as distinct from the academic or the secular world as distinct from the spiritual. Rather, we want to give them lenses of biology and history, cultural sensitivity and empathetic faith with which to see everything they encounter outside the walls of our classrooms. And if they're anything like me, they'll never see popular culture the same way again.