Monday, June 17, 2013

PREVIEW Students Can Learn Anything - Italian History and Cable TV

Students Can Learn From Anything – Italian History and … Cable TV?

   My combined knowledge of Italian history can best be summed up into the following buzz-words: Pizza, World War 2, and Rome. Sadly, limiting a country to such minuscule, almost too-broad-to-be-useful words is a part of my biggest issue with learning History …

… there is too much of it! I have to compress my knowledge into those 'sections' because otherwise I am lost trying to think about Popes, Emperors, Axis powers, pizza, and countless history lessons between 4th and 9th grade. 

WORLD?! WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MUCH BACK-STORY?!




   One of the things however that is a powerful pedagogy tool for my introduction to history however is, oddly, the Showtime and the STARZ cable channels. The pay-for-service cable providers have two shows, one entitled The Borgias and the other Da Vinci’s Demons. Both of these shows pander to the crude hunger for a channel that can show breasts, however they serve an important function  - they reveal a great deal about history between their sword-fights and canon-fire scenarios. 

PICTURED - All Italian History up until 1977 ... Okay, not really.


   In a series of about 4 blogs I hope to explore the merits of these popular shows, how they connect to Italian history as taught to our own UTT students, and what they can be used for in classrooms.

   Also? Sweet sword-fights and canon-fire! And Dracula. Yes, Dracula.

Bleh!



   Who says education can’t be fun?

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