Shadows on the wall - Letter to the Editor

Technos: Quarterly for Education and Technology, Fall, 2002 by Frank J. Batavick

I liked the article on media literacy and character education in the summer issue of TECHNOS ("Character Education and Media Literacy: Finding Common Ground," by Scott Herrington and Cindy Emmans). It was right on the money and very topical, given that many states, including New Jersey, are embarking on adopting a character-education curriculum for their schools. Because of the often sordid and corrosive content of media, kids should understand the difference between "real" and "make believe" and that the images they see and the sounds they hear are part of a business designed to generate profits, not report the truth. TV, movies, and pop music are just the shadows on the wall of the cave. Media literacy teaches kids to turn their heads around to distinguish between the real world and the shadow makers.

On the other hand, I found Mike Sullivan's editorial ("Happy [?] Birthday") to be a bit dark and cynical, given the birthday motif. AIT and other educational media producers have a lot to be proud of and should keep the faith. Sure, the going has been tough and real change in education almost impossible to chart. But no one who visits a media center in today's schools would have a hard time differentiating it from yesterday's A/V storage room. Great strides have been made by teachers, media librarians, and producers to make learning more potent and fun, and this should be acknowledged. I know because I was there--then and now.

FRANK J. BATAVICK
Films for the Humanities and Sciences
Princeton, NJ

Mr. Batavick is the former Director of Product Development at AIT and is currently a member of the TECHNOS Editorial Advisory Board.