Smart & Good High Schools - The Flippen Group

CHAPTER 5: Fostering the 8 Strengths of Character—Outcome 1“Some very good environmental questions were not chosen,”the teacher said. “So I said to the class, ‘Let’s investigatethe vested interests of those who own and operateCNN.’ My goal was not to pick on CNN but to explore thehidden factors that may shape what gets included—oromitted—by any news source.”She said she can tell from students’ conversations that thecourse affects how they view the media. For example, theylook at television commercials much more critically.“They’ll come into the class saying to each other, ‘Haveyou seen the such-and-such commercial—can you believeit?’” She says that in general they look at TV and film in amore analytical way; some report that they have becomemore selective about the movies they go to. “I’ve also hadparents say to me, only half-jokingly, that I’ve ruined TVfor them, because their high school student is now constantlymaking comments such as, ‘That’s not true,’ and‘That’s manipulative,’ during television programs.”“I’ve had parents say, ‘You’ve ruinedtelevision for us.’”PornographyPornography is arguably one of the big elephants in society’sliving room. Few adults, including parents and educators,talk about it, although most people are aware thatthe Internet has significantly increased young people’saccess to pornography (45% say they have friends whoregularly download it, as we noted in Chapter 3). Eventhough it is a huge part of the culture—second only togambling as an Internet business—pornography enterspublic discourse only occasionally, as it recently did whensome female public library workers protested the practice(defended by others as “free speech”) of allowing patronsto use library computers to view and download pornography.Given the absence of public discourse about pornography,many people are likely to underestimate its effects onthe minds and behavior of young consumers. As oneexample of the impact it can have, the director of anethics and character education center cited the followingencounter with a junior high school student:This week I had a conversation with an 8th-grade boy whospoke enthusiastically about all the pornography he watcheswith his friends. All kinds of sex—oral sex, anal sex, youname it. His mind is full of this stuff. He says he and hisfriends play “Truth or Dare,” in which they perform varioussexual acts on each other as part of the game.At an independent K-9 school we visited, several femalefaculty confided that they had long been unhappy abouta “tradition” among the 8th and 9th-grade boys of hangingpornographic pin-ups in their hallway lockers. Theseteachers considered this practice to be degrading to themas women and saw it as fostering among the boys an attitudeof viewing women as sex objects. When we askedthem if they had ever raised this for discussion at a facultymeeting, they said no, moral issues were never a matterfor discussion in faculty meetings.Female faculty were disturbed by“pin-ups” in boys’ lockers.Clearly, if we’re serious about media literacy and seriousabout young people’s character development, we canhardly turn a blind eye to this particular elephant. How toaddress it?Obviously, we can’t, and wouldn’t want to, have studentsexamine and discuss pornographic materials in the classroomthe way they are able to review and discuss othermedia. But we can ask them to write in response to anessay or book that provides a critical perspective onpornography. (Sample reflection questions: In thepornography business, who has the power? Who is makingmoney? Who is being exploited or hurt? See box onthe next page for other questions.) Unless studentsbecome critical thinkers about this issue, they are unlikelyto understand the dangers of pornography or its victims.Students might, for example, be asked to respond to a nononsense,non-preachy discussion of pornography in thepopular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, by SeanCovey. 21 Some schools have used this book, which alsodeals with themes such as communication skills and goalsetting,as part of a character development course forfreshman. Treating pornography under the topic ofaddictions, Covey writes:One of the more subtle but dangerous addictions ispornography, and it’s available everywhere. Now, you canargue all you want about what pornography is and isn’t,but I think deep in your heart you know. Pornography maytaste sweet for the moment, but it will gradually dull yourfiner sensitivities, like that inner voice called your conscience,until it’s smothered.You may be thinking, “Take it easy, Sean. A little skin isn’tgoing to hurt me.” The problem is that pornography, like100Smart & Good High Schools