Autumn’s Portfolio

Watching these two Dove commercials makes a large impact on how many people look at how people see the beauty industry. I find these commercials to be extremely true and give the message that women and even men should look at how beauty is betrayed and can affect many people. In the first video, Onslaught, the images of what people will do to themselves to make themselves “beautiful” is sad but true. Many of the images show at how people will try to do anything just to force themselves to fit a stereotypical view of what a beautiful person should look like. I for one am against this idea that every person should be rail thin with a size 0 waist because if you really think about it, that means that you should not exist since 0 means nothing. As a teacher this is important to acknowledge in classrooms because it is important for students to understand that forcing themselves to look a certain way can actually hurt them. I think it is important for teachers and parents to bring up these issues because children are getting younger and younger and becoming more worried about how they look and eating disorders are becoming more of a problem. If teachers and parents talk to their kids earlier, some of these problems of eating disorders may be eliminated instead of letting them hurt themselves. These two commercials bring up the important point of understanding some of the problems behind what is considered beautiful and can be used to bring up class discussions of how to avoid falling for these stereotypes and letting them affect students lives.

In the commercial Onslaught, there are a few images that may harsh for younger students. Viewer Discretion is advised.

Onslaught

Evolution

The presentation that I listened to was Building Online Communities for Youth. This was a really interesting presentation because it brings together many aspects of teaching and involves the students. One of the things that I liked about the presentation was how they explained how they were connecting students from all around the world and helping them learn about other countries. This is a really good idea because it involves the students and helps them get a more in depth look at other cultures and help them understand what is really going on. Also this allows students to act more freely and be able to discuss issues with each other and other students. The idea of blogging in the classroom and allowing students to connect with each other in different forms. This is important because students can learn new knowledge by interacting with students who may live on the other side of the world. This also gives students the chance to understand that there is more to the world then just beyond their city. This idea can be used for many lessons in the class room because students can share information about their homes and lives and be able to learn from other students. An example of how this blogging was used was that one of the presenters talked about how he invited a guest speaker from Iran to share a chat with the students. The presenter was surprised to see that the students began to ask in depth questions. This is a good example because the students were able to connect to someone who has real life experience and can give detailed answers that books sometimes cannot supply.  As a student working to become a teacher, I find this to be extremely interesting because it helps students to gain a better perspective on the world and also make new friends from other cultures. This is important because it helps students understand about being multi cultural and how fun it can be to learn about a new culture and how it compares to their own. The idea of building online communities for students is a good idea because they can help connect them to people but also gain knowledge about using technology and understanding how it can help connect people together.

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