This Year’s NYAF

We were fortunate to be among the latter-first in line to see the premiere of Soul Eater. We weren’t the first but we weren’t the last. We were just enough bodies away from the front of the line to not be among the first and just enough bodies ahead where we weren’t among the last.

We waited patiently for 45 minutes. Not a long time but noticeably long enough. When the doors opened, we filed in behind those who were among the first and in front of those who were among the last. We were sat in seats that were far enough away from being too far to see but not close enough to say we got great seats.

We saw the opening title sequence. It whet my appetite for more. We saw the cosplay. He laughed and clapped. Then, as they are about to start the movie, he turns to me and says, “Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Pained, I take his hand and we leave.

The drama above typified my experience at this year’s New York Anime Festival (NYAF). This was my second NYAF. Both my kids came with me to last year’s event. It was a first for all of us. We caught a few screenings but spent most of our time by the stage and in the exhibit hall feeling our way around the event.

This year I came with an agenda. I was going to attend some panels to legitimize my professional presence at this year’s event. It was my decision to bring my eldest despite my agenda (I would have brought my youngest too if he weren’t sick), so I couldn’t get upset when his stamina gave out on him.

Overall he did pretty well. Pacified with Bugdom and Cartoon Wars on my iPod Touch, he sat through the “How to Become Famous on the Internet” (Friday), Tokyo Pop (Friday), and “Steampunk in Anime” (Saturday) panels.

We missed Soul Eater but saw old episodes of Gundam and Sgt Frog (which he really enjoyed). We also saw AKB48, Reni (who was really nice, we met her before during Eureka 7 day at Kinokuniya), and Maids hijinx on stage (including a chicken-riding Spider-man and a dancing Predator).

I am not otaku but am a fan of anime and manga. I have fond memories of watching Captain Harlock and Cyborg 009 on UHF with my sister. The imaginative hybridization of future technology with old timey look and feel and the “real life” complexities of being alive that drew my sister and me in decades ago still draw us in today.

Professionally, I count myself among a growing number of educators who believe anime and manga are excellent tools for forging pathways to literacy and encouraging greater interest in subjects like social studies and science for those not immediately enthused by the subjects.

Series like Code Geass, where the main character possesses the power to hypnotize and manipulate people, asks the question: How far is too far in the pursuit of a just cause? Death Note presents a similar storyline and moral dilemma. The complex themes of just causes and collateral damages occur throughout world history and literature making classroom connections easy.

Regardless of the current educational environment, as educators our passions are directed at inspiring inquisitive minds and critical thinkers, who will eventually become civic participants.  The “test culture” being fostered by Arne Duncan and his constituents makes it challenging to engage students in school but not impossible. Creative use of pop culture artifacts like anime and manga is one method of keeping students engaged.

The next NYAF occurs in conjunction with the New York Comic Con (NYCC), October 8-10, 2010. At the last NYCC, I attended a panel on the inclusion of manga in library collections and the use of comic books and graphic novels as literacy tools.

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BTW – The Funimation blog has a video of the premiere Mother Nature called my eldest at.

A-Muse Ed

The teacher who brings his or her class on a museum field trip provides that class with a potentially lasting impression. It is hoped that this impression benefits that class “educationally” (within rigid academic understanding and assessment) and experientially (those aspects of learning which are more personal and which reach beyond the immediate assessments of paper and pencil tests).

The value of an elementary school or middle school museum field trip as opposed to visiting the institution’s Web site is raw physical sensation of being in a new or rarely visited space. A space that is not always planned with the mission of teaching children. A space that in varying degrees and in varying ways offers opportunities for firsthand interactions or observations with physical objects. This is important because these interactions and observations potentially engrain the learning to create a lifelong lesson or experience.

When I was a student in the Museum Education at Bank Street, one of the questions we had to reflect upon was the purpose of the museum. After much debate the class concluded that a museum “had to be all things to all people.” It sounds glib but when you consider the processes museum curators and educators must engage in it makes sense.

The museum must first decide what is artifact and what is just junk. Then it must decide whose artifact or junk it is (as in cases of objects with potentially strong religious or cultural connotations)? Then it must decide on how to present that object in a manner that is dramatic and engaging while not offending its potential visitors. Then it must figure out how to teach with that object.

A museum without an education department or hearty educational offerings is not complete. While it may have exquisite and rare objects in their collection, those objects carry no additional value outside being pretty or rare and will immediately devalue once another like object is found, made prettier, or simply rises to fashion. Trained museum educators imbue a museum’s collection with meaning and relevance both academically and emotionally (or experientially).

When I heard on NPR that the Field Museum in Chicago was “teaching to the test,” my immediate reaction was negative. I mean how could they sully a potentially brilliant experience of visiting a museum by forcing that museum to adhere (in my opinion) to the worst aspects of institutionalized schooling – the unending creation of irrelevant data through an increasing battery of absurd tests.

Much like the stance taken by the author of the Instructify post, Rebecca Haines, the idea of museums being diminished to satellite test preparation centers was infuriating. I believe as Rebecca believes. Museum field trips are the “most valuable for all of the other learning opportunities and experiences” students can be provided. I also believe that a student’s museum experience can “enhance and reinforce the topics to which students are exposed in the classroom.”

But then, perhaps due to mellowing from old age, I took a more moderate view of the situation. I could see the need to “teach to the test.” I am willing to consider Director of Education at the Field Museum, Elizabeth Babcock’s need to show teachers that the Field Museum is relevant to their classrooms by addressing the demands of their administrators and districts.

However, I believe that relevance has always been there per Rebecca’s words. I also believe caution must be taken to avoid corruption of the positive and very necessary educational experiences museums provide. Unquestioned wholesale adoption of “teaching to the test” is not relevance but a short term fix based on the pedagogical whims.

If the shared definition of a museum “teaching to the test” is it providing opportunities for its visitors to practice academic skills in meaningful and relevant real world ways then I see no reason to condemn it. However, if it is not then we risk diminishing the true value of the museum as “space.”