Learning about postmodern media? Teaching postmodern media more like - teaching is the new learning!
I've come across seemingly pointless contradictions like this on a regular basis since begining in ernest to tackle postmodernism. Soon the students will start trying to think and be 'postmodern'. They will at first undoubtedly try to mock the idea of it. But in truth they are struggling with postmodern thinking and they are intrigued by it. They will have a fake 'this is such bullshit' jokey way of talking about it, but they won't be able to stop thinking about it. They will disguise their lame experimentation of 'wearing' postmodern ideology by expressing a robustly sarcastic, but ultimately powerless hatred of authority - ironically they are all authority's go-to boys....
After this period of ignorance, these students will start feeling wise about what postmodern media are, what postmodernism is and what postmodern media mean... They will feel this way because they'll have written two relatively successful essays on postmodern media. In reality this means two essays which are graded D or above.
So to feel wise about what postmodern media are and what they mean is as easy as understanding the narrative order of Pulp Fiction. But of course when "gifted and talented" students feel they know the meaning of postmodernism, actually they don't. They still have no idea of the scale and significance of postmodern living and postmodern media. Actually they are the greatest emotional and intellectual investors in the idea of postmodernism, but know least about it by virtue of their confidence.
I recently met a media studies teacher who had a masters degree in "Postmodernism" (lol) and he was still at this besic level of understanding of it. I knew this because he said to a roomful of media studies teachers "...although postmodernism is quite an advanced idea, it's actually really cool!".
Actually he didn't say that exactly, but he would have if pushed on the point. I could tell. In fact he told a room full of other media teachers that creating postmodern media was easy because the students didn't have to be truly creative, they just had to pick and choose from pre-made stuff, mix them up and re-present them. Genius.
True understanding of postmodernism comes when you are confused about it again. I believe I have reached that lofty level ignorance. I've read all the literature, albeit in translation. I've applied the ideas to the case studies, generated counter-arguments, written the PowerPoints.
So, I'm teaching media studies. We're about to start on postmodernism... Educationally, I'm in the perfect place to mentor their engagement with postmodern media because I'm so like them, but I'm, like, sooo much smarter than them?
