Can big Hollywood productions teach and inspire us? Which elements present in films may be useful in educating future teachers, tutors, or therapists? How does the path from the rank of padawan to master look like? The 9th Scientific Premiere Stage: Science Talk Show will host the Jedi master, Prof. Katarzyna Krasoń from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Silesia.
The author of the book Padawanics. The Force Awakens in mediated experience. A study on film, education and developmental support (the University of Silesia Press, Katowice 2020) is primarily interested in adventure films in which the relationship between the student and the teacher poses an important motif. The combination of film threads with the pedagogical issues Prof. Krasoń calls padawanics. The origins of this newly coined term can be found in the galaxy far, far away, namely, in the George Lucas Star Wars saga, in which the relationship between a master and a padawan is one of the main axes of the plot.
“The book is an attempt to combine film threads with pedagogical issues. The main basis for considerations was inspired by Star Wars saga by George Lucas,” says Prof. Krasoń. The issues raised by the author are an analysis of the film and its influence on the viewer as a form of education via pop culture. The educational context concerns the role of a teacher in the relationship with a student “separated into the focus on the student or a learning programme.”
The researcher underlines that the metaphors present in adventure films carry the potential of discovering the truth about oneself. Interestingly, in her book, it is hard to search for obvious examples from the films that belong to teacher movie genre. The interests of the author almost solely lie in pop culture works, which teachers usually regard as films for pure popcorn fun.
What can pop culture teach us? Can any of us Master Yoda or Luke Skywalker become? Was Jedi code more egalitarian or elitist? What kind of world for his son prepared Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (the father of the famous Indiana Jones from Steven Spielberg films)? The guest of the 9th Scientific Premiere Stage: Science Talk Show, Prof. Katarzyna Krasoń, will give us the answers to these and other questions.
The master-class meeting will be hosted on 13 May 2021 at 6.00 p.m by Katarzyna Głuch-Juszkiewicz, a journalist of the Polish Radio Katowice.
The poster promoting the event