Overview of Mar a chéile muid for Fifth and Sixth Class

This lesson encourages the children to consider how much the media influences them and looks at how the media represents older people.

Aims

The overall aim of this theme Mar a chéile muid is to enable the child to:

• Explore how the media influence our attitudes
• Explore how the media represent older people

The objectives of this lesson are to enable the child to:

• Consider how older people are represented in the media
• Realise that media representations of older people are not always accurate
• Consider how the use of language and humour, however subtle, can convey negative messages and impressions

Resources

The lesson starts with a media questionnaire that the children complete online or on paper. You will find the media questionnaire online in Have a go, Activity 1. Note that the children can complete the questionnaire online or in the classroom. The questionnaire is then the basis for the class discussion. Some time in advance of completing the questionnaire, tell the children to look at ads, especially TV ads.

You will need to print copies of the poem When I was your age for Activity 3 in this lesson.

You may need to introduce the following words and phrases: buanchruthacha, stiallchartúin.

Lesson Content

Activity 1: Questionnaire and discussion - Older people as portrayed in the media

To start the lesson, ask the children to complete the media questionnaire, which you will find online, in Have a go, Activity 1 . If you have access to a computer room, with a computer for every child or pair of children, ask the children to complete the questionnaire online. Alternatively, you can allow the children to complete the questionnaire online, prior to the lesson, in pairs or groups, whenever they have access to a computer, or you can print out the questionnaire in advance of the lesson and complete it in the classroom.

After the children have completed the questionnaire, discuss their answers. Ask whether, in the media that children are exposed to, older people are represented accurately or inaccurately? Positively or negatively? Are they represented at all or are they absent, or under-represented?

Introduce the concept of a stereotype, (a preconceived and over-simplified idea of the characteristics that typify a person) and explain that stereotypes can be positive or negative. Discuss, using the following questions:

• Ask the children to suggest some of the more common types of stereotypical behaviour associated with older people.
• Ask why they formed these ideas: were they influenced by family, friends, school, church, clubs and societies, TV, books, films?
• Of all of these influencers, which is the most important? Why?
• Do we ever make up our own minds about what we think, or are we always influenced by others/the media?
• How can stereotypes be countered?
• Which of the words and phrases from the word bank in the media questionnaire represent stereotypes of older people's behaviour? Remind children that the language used in newspapers, magazines, TV reports and so on, is very powerful in reinforcing negative stereotypes or in counteracting negative stereotypes. Ask children to suggest examples of words or phrases that can be used to describe older people in a positive way. (Mention that there is an online exercise to follow, based on the power of language.)
• Why is it important for elements of the media to try to counter stereotypes?

Ask children to suggest what can be done to reduce or eliminate stereotyping in the media - for example, making older characters more forward-looking and technologically able, rather than nostalgic and inclined to live in the past.

In some cases, the questionnaire will highlight the absence of older people from the media that the children are influenced by. Discuss why this might be:

• Because publishers and advertisers do not consider older people to have spending power and therefore do not make an effort to attract them. (Mention that there is an online exercise to follow, based on advertising.)
• Because film-makers think that older people are less likely to spend money on a trip to the cinema.
• Because TV programme-makers think that older people have less glamour and universal appeal, or are less interesting, or less knowledgeable, than younger people.

Some facts about the representation of older people on TV: (Some of this information is presented as pop-up facts in the children's area of this lesson.)

• A BBC survey found that only 10% of the TV population was aged over 60, compared with 20% in reality. This applied to fact-based and fictional programmes.
• Older people who appeared on fact-based programmes did not usually have leading roles - they were more often interviewees than interviewers.
• Almost half of all older characters in fictional programmes had some negative and stereotypical characteristics.

The BBC is trying to improve its record - it has guidelines for programme-makers on how to avoid stereotyping and it also tries to attract older reporters.

Ask the children to suggest how the under-representation of older people might be remedied, for example, by introducing active older characters into computer games.

Explain that older people are given stereotypical characteristics in adult media as well as children's media. These characteristics can be a source of humour - for example, adult comedy and comic strips frequently contain jokes based on age-related stereotypes, as do adult birthday cards.

The online exercise in Things to do, Activity 3 lists some books for the children to read and review - you could tell the children about the activity at this point. The children may also find it interesting to look at some of the books for younger children that have older people as main characters - some of these books convey very positive attitudes of older people. See the bibliography on this CD-ROM for some suggestions - the children may remember reading some of these books.

Activity 2: Role-play - Alternative end to a film

Choose a film that the majority of the children have seen and that portrayed older people in a stereotypical or negative way. For the benefit of those children who did not see the film, select a child to summarise the story, paying particular attention to the segment that reinforced the stereotype. Ask the children to form groups and allow a set time for the groups to prepare a role-play that shows the older person or people from the film in a more positive way. Allow the groups to take turns to perform their version of the film to the rest of the class.

Some points worth making:

• In films, different groups of people can be portrayed in a variety of ways - but if a group of people, such as older people, is consistently portrayed negatively, this can affect the way that the audience views that group of people.
• Where films consistently do not feature older characters, this gives the message that older people are not an integral part of life.

Activity 3: Poem - When I was your age

Distribute copies of the poem, When I was your age, then read the poem to the class.

Discuss the poem, eliciting the following points:

• The humour in the poem is based on stereotypes:
  1. Older people hanker after days gone by and believe that everything was better in the past than it is now.
  2. Older people tend to exaggerate.
  3. Older people are absent-minded.
  4. Older people are bossy and interfering.
  5. Children nowadays are lazy, untidy and bad-mannered, while children in the past were well-behaved in every way.
• Although they are negative qualities, the poem is clearly intended to be light-hearted and funny and is unlikely to influence people to think that all older people are really like this (or that all children are like this).

Make the point that not all humour based on stereotypes is as gentle as that in this poem. Explain that humour based on stereotypes can reinforce negative associations.

Curriculum Links

This lesson provides opportunities for many cross-curricular activities and links directly to the curriculum for primary schools as follows:

Key Questions

The key questions for this lesson include:

1. Can we rely on TV, newspapers or other media to be impartial and fair?
2. Do the media give an accurate representation of the real world?
3. Do the media represent the world as programme makers and advertisers would like it to be?