FAMU's homecoming made the ubber fabulous blog --- Young Black & Fabulous. Oh, this is a BIG deal. YBF has more daily readers than the Tallahassee Democrat. The site, which chronicles the "glamorous life", is a big hit among the 16 to 35 sect and claims over 6 million regular readers. There were not one, not two, but 12 photos of the FAMU homecoming concert on this site. Now that's fab!
As a FAMU teacher, I find it discouraging that so many students spend so much of their time and attention on popular culture distractions like the ones shown on this site.
ReplyDeleteSurveys show that young black people totally dominate one category of activity: Watching TV.
How can we pry more of them away from such activities and toward acquiring the kinds of skills that enable them to make a living extending what is worthwhile in our civilization?
Relax!
ReplyDeleteYou act like you've never watched Entertainment Tonight, read a People Magazine or Jet Mag? As long as the kids can read and use the internet God Bless'em.
May YBF will introduce some young folks to FAMU. Perhaps, they will think we are fab!
Carry on.
Everything on TV is not bad. Especially the tv shows that Edu-tain us. Many right-brain visual people prefer watching tv.
ReplyDeleteHow can we pry more of them away from such activities and toward acquiring the kinds of skills that enable them to make a living extending what is worthwhile in our civilization?
Tell that to the Diddy's, Jay-z, and Bob Johnson's of the world!!
Hey, if she's got 6 million young folks reading maybe some of these kids would think about continuing their education at fabulous FAMU.
ReplyDeleteReading? You call picture captions reading?
ReplyDeleteWe faculty deal with students every day who have difficulty learning from a textbook, reading a passage and extracting its meaning, summarizing a chapter, remembering something they passed a test on last month.
"Reading" has a special meaning at a university. It means the kind of reading that cultivates reasoning, critical thinking, understanding, and reflection, and which links people to the vast network of the culture universities were set up to perpetuate.
We are not talking about perpetuating the latest pop star. We are talking about keeping civilization stocked with people who have the mental equipment to run it and fix it when it breaks.
I don't think Diddy, JayZ and those folks are facilitating this kind of learning.
If we want a future, we have to.
Yes but many of us are striving to have the business success that Diddy, Jay-Z, and Bob Johnson have. Reading is not the only way to learn. Visual presentation is a means as learning as well!
ReplyDeleteConcrete loop had a post as well... same pics, though...
ReplyDeleteVisual presentations do not and cannot replace reading in a university education.
ReplyDeleteVisual presentations are made possible only by stacks and stacks of printed technical manuals, used to make and maintain the components used to create the visuals -- and by people who can read those manuals, understand them, and actually make things. So-called visual communication is a byproduct of reading and writing that disregards its origins.
Black students waste too much time watching entertainment TV, or so say a lot of people who are trying to understand the achievement gap.
It is not OK for students to justify a failure to study on the rationale that they hope to become rich and famous entertainers.
I think I'll skip work this week on the grounds that I bought a lottery ticket.
Duh.
Visual presentations do not and cannot replace reading in a university education.
ReplyDeleteVisual presentation should never replace reading if the method in which you learn concepts are grasps best through reading. If you are a visual person, no matter how much reading is done, it will never have the same effect as a visual presentation.
The examples of Diddy, Jay-Z, Dame Dash, 50-Cent are examples of inviduals who run $250 million + businesses and not one has even graduated from college, and I can bet do not possess the skills in reading you assert one must have in order to have business success in America.
One can speculate, by the length of your posts, you are not a visual person.
There are a million people to identify the issue: Black students have an issue reading. There is research supporting that. Now take it farther back. If it is true that humans absorb most of their learning and understanding before the age of 8 and that consequently, everything else learned is built on the foundation of being able to read, write, and perform simple mathemetical functions, then students must be missing it then. From a psychological perspective, kids are cruel and when you are the kid that can't read well you find something else in which you succeed (or think you succeed). Whether it is athletics, singing, rapping, talking, joking, etc. The issue still remains that you are missing an essential skill, so my question to you, concerned faculty member is what are YOU doing to stop the cycle? No, I don't expect you to take the time to bring every student up to where you feel they should be. No, I don't expect you to write a book or even perform research about it. But if you are so bothered about it that you can make multipple posts then I hope you take just as active an interest to devoting some part of your time to help a elementary or middle school student or illiterate adult to learn those very skills you for which you are dismayed because your students do not exhibit them. If your excuse is, "I don't have the time..." for whatever reason, then I challenge you to make the time. We prioritize our lives in the manner we see fit. So for you, or anyone else, "So Concerned" then I hope to see you on your lunch break at one of the schools, libraries or community centers as a mentor providing this service. Because right now, as a volunteer doing just that, the halls are full of sudents, but they are pretty damn empty for volunteers.
ReplyDelete6 million people being exposed to our illustrious university isnt a bad thing...maybe we can do some promotion on these blogs to attract more young and savvy students. this is a good thing.
ReplyDelete