Censorship, Audience, and International Collaboration

We have had some tough decisions to make in my classroom over the past few days.

As part of the International Teen Life project (or ITL as we are now calling it, see the trendy new logo designed by Jamie Hide of Colombia) one of the groups was working on a project about terrorism. A balanced perspective on a complex issue created by teenagers from three nations, their research was fairly in - depth and detailed.

As part of the creative work surrounding this topic, one of the students from Kuala Lumpur wrote a powerful, moving piece of poetry from a terrorist's point of view. It was about a person who has given up hope, who has tried to become something with his life, but in the end, feels he has no choice except to become a suicide bomber. The students debated on the wiki regarding the appropriateness of this poem and it was decided to let it stand. My personal feeling is that it is a powerful piece written from an original viewpoint. While I don't condone the action, I think it is a valuable piece of fiction.

When the students in my class began putting their creative video together, they quickly found videos on YouTube of the World Trade Centre tragedy and wanted to use pieces of it. They also found a voice over of George Bush calling terrorists "faceless." Wanting to segue into the poem from the Trade Centre tragedy, they found a picture of Mr. Bush in front of a cloud from a nuclear explosion and placed the words "But if you look at it from their (people in oppressed nations) point of view, who really is the faceless one?"

..........

Powerful, overtly critical, and possibly in poor taste.

But when have teenagers ever been strong in good judgement versus wanting to shock people? Now that they have the tools and the skills to place a creative work like this not just among their own friends, but in a space where they will likely have an international audience, this led to days of classroom debates. Was it appropriate generally? Was it appropriate for their audience? Was it too critical? When does political or personal opinion overstep its bounds? The kids producing the piece were never sure, leaning one way and then the other, they could not decide what to do.

In the end, I pulled rank on them and told them that they had to edit the piece with the picture out. I told them that it was being too critical and possibly insensitive or inflammatory towards their audience. In the end, they decided to edit the video more heavily and make some changes to the structure of the piece itself, revising in ways they felt were more effective. You will have to decide if they did the correct thing with their production.

I still can't decide if I did the correct thing in requiring them to make changes......

technorati tags:censorship, blogs, classroom, ITL

Comments

[Chris S]

I know it's a tough call, but one value that it seemed the kids' work lacked was empathy. Any occasion of mass killing deserves some solemnity and should not be an easy part of humor. You're their teacher and mentor, you are allowed to teach them values like respect and empathy.

When students are allowed that type of excess, without a teacher's direction, they don't learn freedom...they just become slaves to their deviations (the desire to shock, I think, in this case)--I'm paraphrasing Maria Montessori here.

Good call.

[Anne Davis]

This is one of the most thoughtful posts I have read about dilemmas we will continue to face. It has been on my mind a lot and I posted about it today. Thanks for sharing and modeling the teaching and learning for us.....

Best,
Anne
http://anne.teachesme.com/2007/04/23/the-dilemmas-we-face/

[Jeremy]

Well, students are basically wards of the state while they're in school. As the agent of the state in their classroom, you get to decide these things for them. Society has decided that this is ok, but I know from your previous writing here that you'd like to go beyond that oppressive standard.

In most places in the world, an image of GWB in front of an explosion resonates immediately and effectively, representing how most people feel about U.S. foreign policy. Yes, it's a blunt instrument to use in making a point about the roots of terrorism, but that point could have been made more strongly. What about photos of Abu Ghraib? There are thousands of images, videos and documents to support the theory that U.S. foreign policy has actually made global terrorism more dangerous rather than less. How to teach kids how to navigate that stew of media, information, and politics?

If the goal was to create art and make an impact, then you should have let them put whatever they want in there. But this was probably supposed to be an artifact of their education -- both in learning the tools of production and covering the subject matter itself. I think this goes to the root of the conflict between a studio approach to learning (self-directed, tools available, creativity and expression orientation) and a traditional educational approach (fill empty buckets with state-approved knowledge). As long as you don't ask them to express themselves and their ideas, these problems don't even come up.

It could be seen as an impossible assignment, to deconstruct a broad and thorny concept like terrorism and try to synthesize something meaningful in a seven-minute presentation. Even Michael Moore's popular (and mostly excellent) documentaries suffer from trying to cram too much into a couple of hours, forcing crude generalizations and inferences that aren't (or can't be) backed up. There's no way something like this could be "balanced" or "in-depth and detailed". Maybe if they spent six months studying nothing but global terrorism, and then another six months crafting presentations for impact and knowledge-sharing...that might create real learning for both producer and audience.

There's also the sticky issue of an obvious conflict of interest when teachers ban criticism of the governments that employ them, or quell opinions they personally disagree with (or are unpopular in their communities). But when it comes right down to it, you've given these kids new tools and ways to express what they believe and what they are learning. The process and the discussions along the way will have taught them about the challenges and opportunities in real learning and the importance of communicating ideas. Some of them will use these tools on their own, outside of state control -- and that's where they'll have the greatest impact.

[Ashley H.]

Yes, Making a choice can be very hard. If I were you, I would have posted up the two videos, and told everyone to leave their thoughts on both of them. But, you had to make a choice sooner or later, and in the end, I thought that your choice was a good one. A very good one. Well, I better go, bye!
-Ashley H.