Noelle in the Media

So I was meeting with Matt Netto, who works in philanthropy office for Hasbro Hospital and talking to him reminded me of my time in the media.  Most of it has been while I was a teenager, but it was far from "typical".  I made this montage for the Hasbro Children's Hospital's 2009 Radiothon (before my last surgery on May 5th 2010).  It took me forever to make this video (I am the least technical person ever) and since my last surgery I went in for the 2011 Radiothon and did more interviews for the hospital but I will post those later.

Knowledge-able?

Argument

So what I think Wesch is saying in this piece, From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media is that students should move past just memorizing and using standardized bubble scoring methods and create more meaningful ways to engage in their learning.  And with this, the classrooms and educators also need to move into the realm of the 21st century and begin to embrace the technology that is available to them.  Wesch says, "it becomes less important for students to know, memorize, or recall information, and more important for them to be able to find, sort, analyze, share, discuss, critique, and create information.

My mother has been a teacher all her life.  She has taught in Kickemuit Middle School in Bristol Warren, she owned her own preschool, she taught in the EPIC (Enrichment) Program, she taught at Western hills Middle School for a while, before teaching 5th and 6th grades at Orchard Farms Elementary School, and at the moment she is creating the new teacher evaluation programs for the Cranston Public School District.  Basically she knows a lot about teaching.  So of course I went to her to ask her opinion on the subject:

"Of course, from an educator's perspective, we need to start using more technology to our advantage.  We need to start using technology in the classroom in order to engage kids and keep them interested, keep their focus.  Why?  Because it's second nature to them, rather than in my generation when technology was something we had to learn.  The world moves so quickly.  We need to use the same techniques students use in everyday life.  Teachers need to learn to welcome various forms of technology including cell phones... if used appropriately that is.  There should be rules set in place.  There are places that are using things like, Poll Everywhere, in their classrooms and kids are loving it.  They get to text their answers to questions and see them pop up on the board, it's really cool.  Theres also new ideas like Flipping The Classroom.  Where kids take a video home and learn the material there and come back to school and then get to talk about it in class.  If we as educators don't learn how to embrace technology in a meaningful way, we're going to loose students and we're not doing our job.  It makes our job individually obsolete.  Now don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that kids shouldn't have to read books!!  It's just how you engage them in the discussion about the book that is key.  I believe that every American should have to read The Scarlet Letter, but it's what we  as educators do with it that should be different."

 Now personally I have the same philosophy as my mom.  I have always been a really difficult student, but not because I wasn't trying or because I was lazy or anything, but because of Timmy the Tumor pushing on my memory.  I worked my ass off throughout grade school only to pull off average grades.  The summer after I spent three months in Hasbro Hospital I had to make up grades for two of my core classes: British Literature and U.S. History.  I of course was still having a lot of short term memory loss so retaining the information was super difficult for me especially during the summer when all I wanted to do was be with my friends.  But thankfully my History teacher knew how to engage his students using technology that was appropriate, useful, and meaningful.  Mr. P and I spent the summer listening to music of the time periods from his Ipod, watching video clips of important events, and using whatever means necessary to allow my memory to retain the information.  And thankfully, for the most part, it worked.

Katy Perry's Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)

Celine Vescera, Jessica Parenteau, and Noelle Patenaude: Group 1 Media Artifact
February 14, 2013

Million Dollar Quartet

So our class yesterday reminded me of the play I went to go see on January 16th, 2013 with my boyfriend Matt, and my dad and his girlfriend at PPAC: Million Dollar Quartet.

And basically it goes through the last and only night that all four of the big names: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins were together.  It was a fantastic musical production with all the classics.  From Blue Suede Shoes, I Walk the Line, Hound Dog, Rivers in the Sky, See You Later Alligator, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On and Great Balls of Fire.

These were the songs that got teenagers "gyrating"their hips.

It's Media

I forgot that I had found this picture over winter break and saved it to my computer knowing I was taking this class (teenagers in the media) this semester.  I thought it was a great representation of how the media can easily alter how we see things.

Talking Point 4: The Rise & Fall

Hyperlinks

I found this piece to be really interesting and I connected it to this video that I found while I was searching for my group's media artifact.

I thought this video summed up what the article's views on teenagers, along with many adult's views on teenagers -- as a not quite competent person, beset by stress and hormones.  

Growing up as a teenager, I was one of the ones who thought it was totally unfair that we had so many responsibilities and little to show for it.  However, now I agree with the article when it says that defining a person strictly in terms of age feels natural to contemporary Americans... this young person is mature enough to drive or to vote, while another one the same age is not.  

The whole getting your license at 16 is a sore subject for me in the first place since I went into the hospital the week I was scheduled to take my drivers test and was unable to take my test until well over year later, and I have had my license taken away multiple times due to seizures since then.  And my mom is like the parent in this commercial to this day where she still makes sure that I am being careful.

My mom was also the one who made sure that both myself and my older brother, Bubba were both informed at the proper age.  My brother and I actually make fun of her for her conversation with Bubba.  It was right after he started dating his first girlfriend and she tried to make it very serious and they were sitting in the parking lot outside of a diner in Narragansett one summer and she was so flustered that she said:

"15 year-old boys shouldn't be mothers"

That pretty much ended the conversation because neither of them could take it seriously after that.  Thankfully, my brother listened to my mom, and is now a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force now stationed in Anchorage Alaska, who will be deployed in Afghanistan in May and has yet to start his family.

But that brings me to the point that really bothered me about this article.  How could a woman go 9 months without realizing she's pregnant?  

Vagina Monologues

So I went to the Vagina Monologues on Friday night at 7:00.  This is the video that I will really remember most.

My core 3 was Women's Roles in the Middle East and North Africa and my Core 4 was Where in the World is Gender Inequality and in both courses we did a lot of work reading about things like FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), rape, oppression, and death.  We read the stories in Kristof and Wudunn's Half the Sky and they really made an impression.  So I feel like these are connected.

Even though I have seen the Vagina Monologues before, I feel as though I have a new perspective while watching it this time after taking GEND 200 last semester.  For some reason I just felt more empowered and less awkward about myself, my body, and my vagina.  

Talking Point 3: Raby: A Tangle of Discourse

Extended Comments with the help of Eian's blog post -- Thank you!!!

Raby said:
"A powerful, pervasive story about adolescence is that it is a clear, predictable (but turbulent) stage that teenagers inevitably undergo as they grow into adulthood. " 

Eian said:
This statement is true and untrue all teenagers go through adolescents. Some may consider adolescents a bit awkward. I think it all depends on how the teenager goes through that adolescent period.  I think it all depends on what happens and what kind of events are thrown your way.  We all have different experiences and some of our lives are much more difficult or different then others. In my honest opinion I don't think adolescents is at all times predictable. Adolescents is a time of ups, downs and spirals. It all depends on what direction we take and all the twists and turns along the way.


I say:
I agree with Eian that adolescence is an awkward time of life, there is no denying it.  So it really does depend on how the teenager spent their adolescent years: who their role models were, if they had a healthy experience, if they had an "outlet" or skill to focus on.  I love that Eian says: We all have different experiences and some are more difficult than others, those are the exact words that came to my mind when I read this piece.  Our adolescence and teenage years are what shape us into who we grow up to be, they are so important and influential.

Raby said:
"Adolescence is discursively framed as a stage that seems to require a degree of self-refection, it is also marginalized (in terms of voice and self-refection) and often laced with current, popular concern about adolescents as dangerous, ungoverned and in need of control." 

Eian Said:
All in all this is a well said statement. Adolescence is a time where teenagers not all the time but sometimes need guidance in everyday happenings.  I don't think we necessarily have to control this time period in a teenagers life but we do need to sometimes push them along the way.  Some teenagers are free spirited and some even like to live by their own rules. At times this may be dangerous but other times teens need the ball in their own court. Sometimes they need to make their own rules. As adults we can help them along the way but at times we won't always be there to help them. They need to learn how to do it on their own.

I say:
At first I had mixed feelings about what Eian had posted.  I totally agree that teenagers need room to do their own thing, explore, find their way, and be a free spirit.  Any maybe it's because I've always been that goodie-too-shoes kind of girl, with the military older brother and drill sargent of a mother but I've never been the type of kid to get in much trouble.  So until I was diagnosed they gave me more freedom than most kids my age, as long as I was following their standards and checked in with them.  But over the years, I've seen so many teenagers who don't have those people in their lives who are guiding them and it's gotten ugly.  I lost one of my best friends from high school to heroin in October and he is someone who really didn't have anyone in his life to help him or guide him.

Raby Said:
"I know with my parents sometimes they’ll turn things around. Like when they want me to take responsibility for something they’ll say you’re supposed to act like an adult...but then um when I am whatever taking responsibility or when I’m out for the whole day doing my own things and then I want to go to a party or something they’ll say ‘you’re not 21’. (Vienna) " 

Eian Said:
Parents do sometimes put a lot of responsibilities onto teens. I think some parents do this because they know their teens can handle this. I however don't think its fair when parents are contradicting of what they originally say. I know teens can be confusing but parents can be just as confusing. Like teens they can mean one thing and say another. I defiantly experienced this as a adolescent but I also had a very rough time during this period. All most parents want is whats best for their children. They want them to succeed in the best way possible. In order to do that I think teens sometimes need clear cut rules guidelines and not have their parent or parents confusing them.

I say:
I think that year after year the responsibilities for teens are growing.  Not only do they have to be in school but they have to have great grades, they have to  go to college, they need a job, the worry about relationships, looks, weight, fashion, popularity, some need to support families, the list goes on and on.  Life is no longer simple and it is certainly not getting any easier for the next generation's teenagers.  

Vagina Monologues 2011

So I'm already planning on going to the Vagina Monologues on Friday February 15th at 7:00 in Gaige Hall.  But I remembered that the woman whom I got really attached to while I was in Hasbro Hospital the first time back in 2008 was in Vagina Monologues in 2011 (the show was fantastic) and I asked her if she had the clip so I could post it on my blog.

Patrick and Kerry had a son named Finnegan who had the room across the hall from me in the Intensive Care Unit while I was in Hasbro.  We had the same pediatrician so we got to know each other pretty quickly.  I like to say that I adopted Finn as my little brother and Kerry and Patrick as another set of parents.  

He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth but he was in remarkably good health until the bowel obstruction on Feb. 11, 2008.  He had cardiac arrest after his first surgery, and 5 more surgeries in the following 8 days, reducing the length of his small intestines by 2/3s.  He had also endured quite possibly every complication during his hospitalization,  

- several pneumonias- a trachaeostomy to improve range of motion while on a ventilator (which was the majority if the time) - a pseudoaneyurysm the size of a baseball on his femoral artery- a clot in the portal vein in his liver, resulting in high blood pressure- liver damage from long-term IV nutrition (compounded by his CF)- fairly regular finger pricks for blood sugar monitoring, and- occasional heavy sedation and withdrawals associated there with, anxiety, and depression       
Finn passed away at the age of 5, on March 20, 2009.

Anyways here is her Vagina Monologue:

Say Yes To The Dress: Same-Sex Couples

So I'm not going to lie, I am totally addicted to Say Yes To The Dress and I remembered a comment made a few classes ago about them not having same-sex couples on the show and that's not entirely true.

And I know that they have done at least one other episode with an older same-sex couple who were looking for pant suits but since there is only one pant suit in the store, they ended up getting ball gowns.

So this is a tap on the glass that there are same-sex couples on these types on shows.

Reality of Disney Princesses

I found this clip floating around with the caption: The Reality Of Disney Princess

Talking Point 2: Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Reflection

I thought this was a really interesting piece by Linda Christensen and honestly afterwards my mind was all over the place.

Peter Pan:
I remember in high school talking about the scene in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell is standing on the mirror and consumed with herself, what is that teaching our children?

What else are we teaching kids with this movie?  That racism and prejudice towards others is ok?

Lesson Learned: Why do Native Americans ask you "how?" According to the song, it's because the Native American always thirsts for knowledge. OK, that's not so bad, we guess. What gives the Native Americans their distinctive coloring? The song says a long time ago, a Native American blushed red when he kissed a girl, and, as science dictates, it's been part of their race's genetic make up since. You see, there had to be some kind of event to change their skin from the normal, human color of "white."

Best (Worst?) Moment: 
It's a tie between Tiger Lilly's traditional Native American hussy dance, and the number of times Native American's misogynistic tendencies are played for laughs (hint: It's more than three!)

Cinderella:

I was super excited when I read about Cinder-Elly by Frances Minters in the article this week.  My mom has been a teacher all her life and is on the Rhode Island Children's Book Award so her library of children's books has been growing for years, and in particular Cinderella books since I was born.  We have over 30 different versions in our library.  I grew up reading Cinder-Elly, it was personally one of my favorite versions.  

After reading this piece however, I went back to my mom however, and we pulled out all the "non-traditional" Cinderella and I was surprised how many there were.  Theres:

And Rodgers and Hammerstein's came out with a Cinderella with Brandi and an all African American cast, except the Prince who was Asian, which I also thought was worth mentioning:

Barbie: I was one of those girls that would rather play with Barbies than go outside and play.  And looking back on it I see that it was both good and bad.  My parents poured a ton of money into that industry unnecessarily.  I also look back and see that this is probably where a lot of girl's body image problems begin, and this picture shows us that:

Barbie stands about six feet tall with a 39" bust, 18" waist, and 33" hips. These are the supposed measurements of Barbie if she were a real person. She was built as a part of the first National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (NEDAW) at a high school.