Quotes: Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

     Linda Christensen is a high school teacher who set out to teach her students about the subliminal messages that we as young children experience through cartoons and the media.  In Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us, she explains her findings through her student's reactions to her lessons and hypothesis.

"Our society's culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live and dream (126)."

     This quote encapsulates Christensen's main idea and highlights what she sees as the problem with cartoons.  Further in depth, she believes that the race, gender, physical, economic, etc. stereotypes that are found in cartoons are so deeply embedded in our minds when we are children, that they change the things we want, our behavior and our aspirations for future endeavors.  She goes on to talk about how some of her students reject this hypothesis right off the bat, while others have a much more radical reaction and begin to change.  Some students even felt depressed, expressing that they had felt like they had been lied to.  This quote sets up the rest of the paper.

"Without giving students an outlet for their despair, I was indeed creating "factories of cynicism" in my classroom- and it wasn't pretty (134-135)."

     The students felt as though their innocence in youth had been taken advantage of, and indeed it had.  A situation that I have encountered as a student many times through out Middle and High School, cynicism just ran rampant through the students.  A good lesson can get the students thinking and even emotionally invested, however it is when students have no way of expressing their new knowledge or frustration of other people's ignorance when cynicism kicks in, creating a cycle in the classroom where the students would be brought down by negativity and seeing the world as hopeless.      

"Instead of leaving students full of bile, standing around with their hands on their hips, shaking their heads about how bad the world is, I provided them with the opportunity to make a difference (137)."

     Christensen is tooting her own horn here a little bit, however I could not agree with her more.  She describes how too many times lessons are given in classrooms that leave students feeling cynical and helpless to the reality that they have just experienced.  Christensen goes on to justify a change in her lesson plan from just a regular essay to a written assignment that would not be confined to the barriers of the classroom. The students were encouraged to publish their written pieces in public literary sources, like newspapers, church bulletins, neighborhood new letters, editorials, etc.  This shows the students enthusiasm to get the new information they just learned into the real world and spread it.  The effectiveness of the lesson is demonstrated through the students excitement and devotion to their work.  Christensen gave her students the opportunity to teach something to their community, applying learning beyond the classroom, inspiring conversation and the spread of knowledge.