The Idol In Me

Hannah Montana Season One: The Idol In Me

           Considered one of the Disney’s Channels best and most popular shows, Hannah Montana was an extremely successful series that launched the Hannah Montana brand and literally became a nationwide phenomenon. With a huge fan base following, Miley Cyrus became the “it” girl after making Hannah Montana the must watch show in 2006 when it aired. The show focuses on the double life of Miley Stewert, she’s secretly the singing sensation known as Hannah Montana. Dealing with the life as a tween and life in middle school, she’s also the hottest thing around when she portrays the super popular Hannah Montana. In the episode, The Idol side Of Me, Hannah participates in a reality singing competition, Singing with the Stars she’s paired with her enemy, the queen bee Amber and gets her into the top three to humiliate and embarrass her but ends up regretting her decision.

                   A show about a normal girl living a double life as a teen pop star, it’s every girls dream to live the life of Hannah Montana. Already a story about the life (the ups and downs) of being a famous celebrity, Hannah must learn to keep her life as a pop star to her family and closest friends. An episode that focuses on popularity, fitting in, fame, self promotion, this may not be such a good show to promote to young and vulnerable girls. Although a show that emphasizes the life of Miley Stewart and her life with her friends and fitting in at school, girls may relate to that side of Miley but notice and focus more on the glitz and glamour of the pop princess that Hannah is. While the show may be fun and entertaining, it’s unrealistic and terrible example for children. A wig magically transform Miley to Hannah and her mean, sarcastic and trashy attitude is far from what we want our children looking up to.

Jut Getting Started

Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started

A little old for Justin Bieber, the importance of keeping up with who (and what) is popular in the media plays an essential part in our kids world today, not knowing someone like Justin Bieber makes you sound like a fool to any middle school girl. Therefore seeking out material that focused on specific people and getting to know artists like Justin Bieber and other young pop stars and actors, it seemed like the way to go. In 2008 when Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube by mega pop star, Usher, YouTube became the place to be discovered. He was talented, an instant heartthrob and it was the perfect time for entertainment to turn to the next big thing, Young Stars. What happened was our kids became obsessed with stars like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus and knowing intimate details about their lives, creating a whole culture of the celebrity lifestyle and how to get it. Turning to juvenile biographies, Getting Started opened my eyes to how much the celebrity lifestyle has become of a part of the average American’s tween’s life. This book primarily focuses on Justin Bieber, his rise to fame and life on the road. In a nut shell, it’s expanding the brand ‘Justin Bieber’ and screams self promotion.

      A hundred years ago the American Dream was defined by immigrants coming to America to find a better life and doing whatever it took to provide a happier and healthier life than back at home. It meant time, effort and lots of hard work. In today’s culture and society, we continue to go school, get jobs and continue to become successful. But somehow within the last few decades, the American Dream and success is measured by fame, money and independence. Sure young kids look up to Justin Bieber as a talented artist, hot and a bad boy but he is no Benjamin Franklin, so how is this healthy for our kids to want to aspire to be people like Justin Bieber? This idea of fame and the role it plays in our children’s lives is an important topic to bring to the table. What we see on TV and the news is influential in a family’s home, it’s time to change, it’s time to consider that celebrity lifestyle isn’t the most important thing happening in the world.

Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

The first novel in the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar was intentionally meant for a young adult audience but became huge and popular amongst preteen girls in middle school. A series that focuses on teen drama, the first novel titled Gossip Girl, inspired a hit television show that hit an audience that ranged from middle school to college aged girls. The first book focuses on the lives of privileged teenagers at an elite prep school for girls on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. While the story focuses on a group of best friends, the story is from the perspective of an anonymous gossip blogger. The structure of the story revolves around friendship, revenge and exploiting each other’s love lives. Being a part of the popular group, they can’t help but indulge in visiting the “Gossip Girl” site, where an anonymous blogger spreads rumors and gossip about the elite group of girls.

        Released in early 2002, the Gossip Girl franchise took off when the hit and popular show was created in 2007 staring Blake Lively and Leighton Meester among other famous actors. While self promotion seems to play a big theme in the books and television show, this is another story that focuses on fame, egotism and being the prettiest girl in school. Not exactly books we encourage our young girls to read, we can’t help but wonder why this style of young adult (and ‘tween’) fiction is so popular. Do we want our youth to be influenced by rich kids parading around and sleeping with each other’s boyfriends, exploring with drugs and alcohol. It’s the question of innocence, do we want to preserve the idea of ‘child innocence’ or is it time for them to learn about the reality of our culture and society? Is fame really that imperative to being successful in life? Is it healthy for our kids to fill their mind with the idea of fame, sex and self promotion?

Themed Reader’s Advisory Tweens: How Fame became the Norm (The Obsession with Fame in Everyday Life

  Hannah Montana: Keeping Secrets

      Hannah Montana originally aired on the Disney Channel and became an instant favorite among tween aged girls with her hit television show, films, concerts and books. What started out as a show turned into a brand that sold dolls, books, music and much, much more. The show focuses on an average American school girl played by Miley Cyrus who is secretly this mega pop star who trying to deal with real life as Miley Stewart. Once the series turned into a popular book series, girls couldn’t get their hands on the books fast enough. In Hannah Montana: Keeping Secrets, Miley doesn’t know what to do when faced with the dilemma of her best friend Oliver is completely obsessed with Hannah Montana. Miley has to figure out a way to keep her life safe and secret from everyone including her friends.

      Hannah Montana is the perfect example to start with when talking about tween’s and the lives of children and the influence of fame. Growing up watching television shows in the nineties, we knew the distinction between what was real and not. We knew how to separate our lives from what was happening on the television screen. In today’s society, fame and self promotion is very much a part of our world and our day to day lives now with the internet and constant access to information. With more shows focusing on Hollywood Access and fame, I think it’s interesting to examine how fame is very much a part of this younger generation and how they shape their moral identity. Hannah’s influence in her show has undoubtedly played an important part on how young minds view and think of fame in our culture. It’s in our news, in shows and in our books. What message is this sending to our kids today? Is Hannah Montana harmless to our kids?

How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy

An interesting article written based on study conducted in Michgan, Ethan Kross a psychologist from the University of Michigan makes a statement that Facebook and other social media sites actually makes users feel lonely and unhappy. In a case where he observed eighty plus people in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he concludes that sites like Facebook can in fact make us more depressed feeling and lonely because we innately compare our lives to other people, their accomplishments and their achievements, we can’t help but become addicted to checking out what other people are doing and then feeling bad because our lives just don’t compare.

      Again, parents of young children and even older children, it’s very important to limit, discipline and control the computer time at home. Spending so much time on social media sites isn’t good for our kids minds. As a society we’re already in fragile and vulnerable states of mind. Letting sites and technology play off our sadness and loneliness from what’s happening in the real world, is not healthy for anyone. Take a closer look at your family and home life and enjoy the company of each other instead of resorting to looking down at screen when you’re missing the life that’s happening right in front of you. 

(image via google, article via new yorker)

Alone in the Crowd

The writer says it all in just a few words, ‘our ability to be elsewhere at any point in time.’ You could spend hours, days, weeks reading and researching the consequences and effects technology has had in our culture but this being ‘elsewhere’ is all we really need to focus on. In a culture and society that tries to emphasize the importance of being here and in the now, this is simply not the case. With technology and being busy twenty four/seven, we live in a very face paced world that doesn’t allow for stillness, tranquility or enjoying the presence of other people. Alone in the crowd discusses and explains that we as Americans in particular not only need to learn to disconnect but truly learn to be here and live in the moment. Elswhere, we’re in a constant state of this place, even we’re sitting at home on the couch watching television with the family, guaranteed someone is on their phone, playing a game, looking a magazine and do something other than enjoying the time with their family in that exact moment.

      This is significant and imperative to teach children in our culture today. Children are forever in the elsewhere, they have ADD and other anxiety related problems because we are not focusing our attention on teaching them the importance of being in the moment. We teach them it’s important to busy, multitask and constantly be on the move. Parents, we must change this way of thinking, teaching them to complete a task one at a time and being in the present moment is the most important thing to teach our kids. It’s our responsibility to not let them become victims of technology and living between ten different apps, games and sites on their tablets.

(image via google, article via apa) 

Superficially Connected: Social Media and Loneliness

An interesting article that focuses on social media and technology creating the feeling the loneliness, no in fact this writer goes on to argue that we’ve been pushing each other away long before technology came around.  But now that it’s here, it has created an even bigger gap between people. The writer emphasizes that social media and technology “is not meeting our innate, biological need for true acceptance and touch for someone who knows you, and accepts the real you, as opposed to this idealistic falsified image of you.” We all are sucked and glued to these screen that promote the social connection and relationship, when in fact these outlets are making feel even more lonely than before. She argues that it’s not the internet that created this idea of isolation, but the internet and social media sites feeds off of the loneliness we already feel.

      Again, another article that focuses on cutting back more time from the internet and being on screens all day, this writer actually acknowledges that loneliness came before the age of technology. However the internet, social media and technology make makes our loneliness, our depression even worse. “Putting down our phones isn’t the answer if we are too self obsessed and consumed by our own thoughts to actually engage with one another…” We’ve become so independent and focused on the individual that the importance of community is lost.  Parents of the generation born into the technology obsessed world, it’s about teaching your children how to communicate, not to be too selfish and know how to interact with each other in face to face experiences and not relying on a gadget.

(image via google, article via desert news)

Selfie, A Mental Disorder

It is a thing, can hardly believe that is real but as of 2014, the American Psychiatric Association makes it official that ‘selfies’ are in fact a mental disorder. I’m not sure this is something that needs serious address but it is definitely something to talk about, especially with children between the ages of 10-18. The disorder is defined as, “the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy.” Reading and hearing about I’m not sure how I know what to think about this being an actual disorder, but parents be concerned.

      Now that kids, even children is elementary school have phones this is something that parents definitely need to be aware about. The American Psychiatric Association defines this disorder as serious and I even has three levels broken down into Borderline Selfitis, Acute Selfitis and Chronic Selfitis. There are actually people out there and its high among high school age kids that are taking photos one themselves 24/7 and posting and sharing photos on social media site more than six times a day, a day!!! Parents, it’s time to be disciplined with your kids phones!

(image via google, article via aps)

Does Technology Make Us More Lonely

Written in The New York Times, the journalist goes on asking over and over if technology makes us feel more alone. It’s a compelling article that examines the way we live our lives glued to the screen and social media. We’re almost living in a dystopian world that is so often portrayed in our books and movies, we’re living in a culture that is completely obsessed with viewing our lives than actually living it. This isn’t just a problem with adults, it’s our children’s lives. It’s the first time ever where children are being born into the age of technology and information. They know life only to be this; it’s our job, our responsibility as a society to teach children life is meant to be lived not looking down and missing out on what’s going on around them.

      Parents of tweens, probably need to be the most aware of this problem. For those families who allow their children to have phones and tablets, it’s important to create a balance of technology play time. Letting your children sit and play for hours on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, you need to be aware of the severe consequences; your child is missing out on life. These outside influences are shaping our youth and physically rewiring and shaping their brain due to constant screen time. This is the first time children are expected to have shorter life spans than their parents because of an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle.

(image via google, article via new york times) 

The Internet and The Age of Avoidance

Kristin Howerton is a professor of psychology at Vangard University in Southern California and fulfilled a lifetime goal, speaking at a TED Talk Conference. Her main thesis of the evening was how we use the internet as ‘zoning out and logging on.’ She explains how this is how our generation escapes stress, pain and negative feelings about ourselves… to the point of losing ourselves in the abyss of the internet and completely forgetting what’s important to us.  I think she’s right in saying it is a new way of escaping immediate problems. However escaping what’s going in our own lives and getting sucked into the world of social media this may be even more detrimental to our mental health.

      By checking out by plugging in we’re in a new world of stress and sadness because we’re seeing the happy lives of other people. The people who boast and post and share images of happy moments doesn’t exactly make us feel good. We can’t help to compare our lives to our friends and the people that show up in our news feeds. We’re avoiding talking with people in real time and in situations that allow to be in the same room with someone. Avoiding a problem by escaping to the internet or a game is not healthy, for parents it’s important to be on the lookout if your children are going through hard times in other areas of their lives and creating a comforting environment so they feel safe to talk about the greater problem.

(image via rage against the minivan)

Connected, But Alone

Sherry Turkle is a cultural analyst who has been studying technology and how it shapes who we are as individuals and how it is shaping our relationships with others, ourselves and with technology. She has spoken at many engagements but it’s her presentation at a TED Talk Conference where she shares how technology and social media is changing who we are as people and how addicted we have become to devices. We’re becoming detached and less connected than what the platforms promote and they are changing the way to communicate and engage in everyday conversations. Simple things like looking each other in eye and shaking people’s hand is having to be re-taught because we are losing what it means to be present in our lives.

      With technology becoming more and more a part of lives and it ending up in the classrooms, I think it’s crucial that with technology classrooms we share both the good and back of what it has to offer. Certainly technology has allowed for many wonderful things, the immediacy and instant access to information, the global connection and become information obsessed. However, we are slowly learning that there is a bad side to becoming technology savvy as well. All the time we spend on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is not healthy, in fact they are making more depressed and lonely. A truly inspirational video and something to be shared with the family, listen to Sherry Turkle.

I Forgot My Phone

A short film that depicts the life a young girl surrounded by friends and family who simply cannot disengage from their phones, this two minute is just sad. “We can edit and exaggerate, we put our words into order until our lives are glistening, we don’t even know if anyone is listening.” (Gary Turk) That is the way we live our lives, We live in world constrained to the four sides of a computer, tablet or phone and don’t realize we’re stuck in this world of isolation. This video shows just that, the actress playing the girl without a phone is living her life, trying to be in the present with her lover, her friends and family while they take pictures, text and talk to people in the presence of her. Everyone else is stuck elsewhere, while this one girl is living her life in real time.

      A sad video, it is something everyone needs to watch. They is no dialogue and no life to the video because everyone would rather be looking down at their phones than living their own lives. As adults, this is something we must teach and emphasize to our children. It’s our job to show them that wasting your life away on the computer is not the norm, being plugged into a device is not normal or healthy for anyone. Parents be mindful, be aware of your children’s life and make sure they live it outside and with friends. Don’t let your children stay in all day glued to a screen. 

Look Up

Another truly amazing video that focuses on technology and the feeling of loneliness and sadness, a video that has gone viral and reached over millions of people, this five minute clip is truly powerful. Look Up was created by Gary Turk, who in poetic form talks of ‘devices as delusion’ and a ‘world of confusion.’ His video is about looking up from our phones and noticing the world around us, talking to people, spending the day at the park playing with our friends on the swings and being in the now and not on these devices that us away from the world around us. It’s a miraculous video that he urges us to watch in hopes to promote looking up instead of instead of down.

            A video to that everyone needs to watch or listen too, Gary Turk is a master at verse in the    short five minute video, explaining we need to live off in reality and not in realm of ipads and phones. His message of missing life by being glued to devices, this is a message that we need to teach and encourage in school and to our children before it’s too late for them to be sucked into life of social media. Turk describes these medias as anything but social and he’s completely right, they make us compare our lives to others and make us feel our lives are inferior to those posting and sharing grandiose parts of their lives. That fights and bad days are the norm and being plugged is something we no longer participate in. Gary Turk is on to something and it’s our job to get up and look up from our phones

The Innovation of Loneliness

A video that will leave you with chills, you will agree that social media and technology are not meant to be a way of connecting with other people. On a global scale, social media is definitely good but understanding and obeying some kind of balance is becoming a serious problem. People are spending hours mesmerized by what’s happening a tiny screen rather than living their lives.  We’re simply not living, we are in a place that isn’t in the now, we are too busy at looking at picture of from the night before, checking the status updates of friends and busy taking selfies all night long. This video is a awake up call that social media, is not about connection but about isolation from reality.

       The Innovation of Loneliness is a fantastic short film that explores how social media is not a way of being connected to friends and people, it’s isolating us from what’s going on in the real world and impairing our communication skills. Being in the here and now, talking and conversing with people in real time is something we need to emphasize to our youth. I see the world stuck in the elsewhere, looking down at their phones and simply not living their lives. It’s important as parents, adults and educators to fix this problem of what social connection actually means. It’s our responsibility to teach children, the power of real connection, looking people in the eye, shaking hands and hugging an actual human being.    

Smile

Smile

            The graphic novel, Smile by Raina Telgemeier is an excellent true story of growing up and going through the changes of life as a young adult. This graphic novel is based on the true events of the author going through her teen years and dealing with the struggles and embarrassment children are faced with orthodontia. It begins after a Girl Scouts Meeting when Raina is chasing her friend and trips and falls knocking her front teeth out, one completely falling out while the other is jammed up into her gum. Embarrassed and humiliated, the story spans four years, the crucial years of middle school and transitioning into high school. If orthodontia wasn’t her biggest problem in this novel, Raina grows up realizing her friends are bullies, facing rejection of boys and the ups and downs and the struggle of becoming a young adult.

            When it comes to reading at a young age, it is very common that children don’t find the pleasure of reading. They are being forced to read in school and at home, this is where I think graphic novels become a good thing. For children who don’t naturally pick up books and read for pleasure, Graphic Novels are a great way to get them to start reading. With illustration and graphics, it may be easier for kids to start taking interest in reading. Helping children find an interest and encouraging them to find graphic novels or comics is an easy way to fix that “I don’t want to read” phase for children and young adults. Finding stories like Smile, that deal with day to day life and struggles of being a young adult is certainly more entertaining to children who can relate to the story.

(images via pinterest)  

Bat 6

Bat 6

            The story of Bat 6 written by Virginia Euwer Wolff revolves around a group of very different sixth grade girls who a part of the same softball team circa 1949 in Oregon. The story centers on the girls that make up the Barlow Team, a group of misfits if you will that include one Japanese American girl who comes back after being evicted from her home and sent to live in an internment camp, a girl name Shazam who comes from a broken home and other girls with very different backgrounds. With different narratives, the reader grows to learn each girl, her home life and where she comes from and understanding each other playing the game of softball in 1950 America, where women in sports was still considered a new thing.

            The author does an excellent job at presenting a story of young girls who are trying to make sense of the world post World War II in America. At an age where girls have a hard time understanding themselves as young adults, understanding each other and the world around them isn’t as easy as it seems. With so many voices telling their own story, sharing their background and learning about the players on the team, Bat 6 is a powerful account that helps a group of young adults relate to one another, build friendships and relationships, believe in the power of trust during a time of war and to help each other grow.  

(image via pinterest)

One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer

The first in the series of the Gaither Sisters, One Crazy Summer written by Rita Williams Garcia follows the journey of three young sisters as they make their move from Brooklyn to Oakland to spend the summer with their mother. It’s the summer of 1968 and Delphine, Vonetta and Fern leave their father in Brooklyn to try and get to know their mother, a poet and a Black Panther supporter. Dreaming of sunny California and hoping to visit Disneyland, the three sisters are in for a rude awakening when they are forced to live in tight quarters and spend their days in a Black Panther summer camp. Most of the story centers around the uneasy relationship between the girls and their mother (and understanding their place in the midst of the Black Panther Movement) but after getting to know their mother through her poetry (sneakily), the tension begins to fade.

            Although this story revolves around the relationship between the mother and her daughters, it really focuses on the transformation of each character in relation to what is happening in society at the time. It’s 1968 and the Black Panther Movement is strong and powerful, although a scary place for children to grow up and be surrounded by, we really see each character of the sisters throughout the story. Being the oldest, Delphine tries to protect her sisters from the dangerous radical people who become involved in the movement. Watching them grow throughout the story and reading it from the perspective of a child, it’s  chilling but helps young readers gain an appreciation of other cultures and helps them understand who they are in the world, how they relate to one another and understand different cultures and histories.     

(images via pinterest)

Farewell to Manzanar

Farewell to Manzanar

            This haunting memoir Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (and her husband James Houston) recounts the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor and remains to be one of the most popular works of American History from the perspective of a young Japaense American girl trying to understand her place in the world in the midst of World War II. The story begins the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing, Jeanne is a seven year old Japanese American and doesn’t realize her young life is about to change forever. Not understanding the seriousness of war, Jeanne’s father is taken away from her and her home is being raided, her mother is left crying and soon she will be shipped off to live in an internment camp in Manzanar, near Lone Pine, California. During her time at Manzanar, Jeanne continues to question why, why she and her family must be punished for an act they didn’t commit.

            This book is not only an excellent source to remind us what the American homeland was like during World War II, it’s retold from the eyes from a young girl held in internment camp and growing up behind fences and in close quarters with other Japanese Americans. Stories like these are important for young readers to engage in because for a greater knowledge and appreciation for other cultures and their histories. Obviously having the story told from a young perspective helps grab the attention of our youth and helps them understand the harshness of the world in a child’s mindset. Introducing and encouraging multicultural literature into the reading list of tweens and young adults is important to expand their knowledge, vocabulary and becoming more aware of their place in the world and feeling connected with the world.     

(images via pinterest)