Everyday curriculum...

In this reading the children’s classroom focus was on Power Rangers which is not uncommon for children to be very into the figures they admire from TV shows. But violence in the classroom is also unacceptable. Students should explore their interests, but not in a way that could cause harm to other students. In banning students from this type of play does protect them physically but changing the play so that it is creative without the violent play is much more useful and productive. When taking away students favorite activity they all migrate towards another one as a flock because none of them want to be left out of whatever is the fun activity going on.
The issue of social justice came up again in this. The opportunity for a conversation with the students about these actions had to be taken up. When the ban was lifter students went back to their Power Ranger phase, but in a different way than before. They showed a separation of gender than had been present but became even more present within the classroom. When the boy was drawing the Pink Power Ranger he talked about how he didn’t like pink because he was a boy but his mother liked pink and since she was a girl it was okay. The media constructs gender in certain ways and society usually tries to follow these stereotypes. Boys are dressed in blue and girls in pink. But these stereotypes don’t continue through to other cultures. In other countries baby girls are dressed in blue. So having the female Power Rangers colors be pastel while the male color are much more bold also says something about females. Student’s especially younger ones want to conform to their perception of the male and female roles. But social justice and equity need to come from the students in thinking about and dealing with these matters. This show raises so many issues beyond the gender stereotyping. It also shows the males as controlling the power while the individual Power Ranger colors are associated with specific genders and races as well as with the cultures.
Teachers do really need to know about the types of things that are most important to their student’s lives. This will help them to help their students deal with the types of issues raised in these activities as well as help prevent much of the negative stereotyping that students begin seeing at such a young age and then spend the rest of their lives trying to conform to them. This will help the teacher to make material much more relevant to all of her students because they will know their students and their interests much better.