Education and the Mediated Subject

Mary Fobbs-Guillory

ET

Saul, R. (2016). Education and the mediated subject: What today’s teachers need most from researchers of youth and media. Journal of Children and Media, 10(2). Pp.156-163

Roger Saul discusses how the education system that is still in place in most schools around or country is operating on old understandings of how children work and what they need from schools. He says that researchers can help bridge the divide of where were are now to where we should be by helping educators see the untapped potential of their students and the valuable skills they can contribute to their education. He states that there has been a “mass imposition and perpetuation of a constructed reality...embedded in power relations that have operated to deny in young people a range of options for self-understanding and expression that they might otherwise be entitled to” p.158. Teachers may not even realize they are marginalizing students because they are also being robbed of their agency.

This article echoed a lot of sentiments that I've been learning about in my Young Adults library class and that I have felt as an educator. Students can be very bored with the low level work they are often assigned. They need more of a challenge and they are more committed to that challenge when they have input and autonomy. There are a lot of studies that show the value and importance of inquiry and constructed knowledge, yet it is still not the norm in most schools. I sincerely hope that changes.