Meet Them Where They Scroll: The Power of Pop Culture in Parenting and Teaching

KPop Demon Hunters, Taylor Swift, Adolescence, Kendrick Lamar, Baby Reindeer, Louie —who hasn’t plugged themselves into the zeitgeist to buzz up a boring power point, a classroom lecture or dinner conversation with your kids?

Admit it — when you were growing up, whenever your teacher would cross-reference a trendy song or TV clip in the classroom, didn’t it boost your mood and snap you out of a stupor?

The point is pop culture can be a formidable tool in both professional and personal lives, creating an optimal teaching mechanism when used appropriately.

How, Exactly, Should You Use Pop Culture?

“There is no question that pop culture is a huge educator in and of itself,” maintains Dr. Dawn Johnston, MA’99, PhD’05, professor of communication, media and film in UCalgary’s Faculty of Arts. “I think it's also an amazing entry point into conversations about really difficult topics.” Back when Johnston first began teaching media studies — whether the topic was critical race theory or feminism — if she was able to incorporate something into her lectures from, say The Bachelor (admittedly, Johnston is dating herself), “people perked up.”

“I think a lot of students and kids find the idea of entering into a serious discussion with their parents or their teacher horrifying,” says Johnston. “But it's a whole lot less intimidating when the entry point to that conversation is something from popular culture. It doesn't feel like you're in … for a lecture.”

In other words, it levels up the cool factor.

The Trick 

How can you use a buzz-worthy product such as the hit animated musical KPop Demon Hunters to explore themes of authenticity, vulnerability and self-doubt? Or, how do you take the four-part Netflix series, Adolescence, and use it as a catalyst for a discussion about preventing gender-based violence? Or radicalization? Experts — from professors and teachers to parents — say the use of probing, open-ended reflective questions are key, such as, “What does gender-based violence mean to you?” “Have you ever been in a relationship where someone made you feel uncomfortable or, where you couldn’t be yourself?”

“Meeting your child where they’re at is critical,” adds Johnston, who has taught communication, media and film studies at UCalgary for years. She says know what they’re interested in, listen to what they’re talking about — whether that’s music, movies, a video game — and don’t make the mistake of foisting your priorities on them.

How to Spark Critical Thinking? 

In a formal classroom setting, a teacher may hand out questions in advance, ensuring students are focused on certain themes or situations that will be discussed afterward — in other words, the students are sharpening their critical thinking skills from the start. If a parent were to try do that, it might come off as a clunky and awkward homework assignment, warns Dr. Kim Lenters, BEd’84, PhD, research chair at UCalgary’s Werklund School of Education. While monitoring everything your child is viewing or playing is likely impossible, Lentner says, “even with little ones, parents can listen in … to their child’s play, their conversations, the shows they love, and then, perhaps, ask to be included in one show. 

“Make that your common place and launch-pad, and don’t be worried if it’s something ridiculously silly … humour, and why they find something funny, is a great place to start.” 

Breanne den Ouden, BA’16, BEd’23, who teaches grades 2 and 3 with the Calgary Board of Education, often uses pop culture to engage students in fresh ways. Indeed, den Ouden says, classes have used “KPop Demon Hunters to reinforce classroom behaviours, Taylor Swift songs for math lessons, and the Boundaries Song from Hopscotch (makers of catchy educational tunes) for social-emotional learning.” 

The liveliest discussions, says den Ouden, happen when students connect a topic to their own experience. Social issues such as inclusivity, belonging and kindness are top for little ones — and teaching every student how to express their emotions in a healthy way underscores most lessons. Instead of always asking, “What did you think of … ” a situation, den Ouden says, learn to ask “How did you feel … How do you think so-and-so felt in the movie?”

How to Grow an Emotional Vocabulary

Having a vocabulary to express a wide range of emotions is exactly what Jamie (Owen Cooper) and his father Eddie Miller (Stephen Graham) lacked in Adolescence. Whether you’re in Grade 1 or 12, the job of both parents and teachers is to spark students to become thoughtful, curious, active citizens who care about the world. Passive, lonely and bored teens tend to be the most vulnerable to controversial influencers — and once they’re engaged, algorithms often lead them to even more polarizing content. It's precisely the “manosphere,” often encountered on social media and other corners of the internet, that concerns Kyle Lamirande, a facilitator WiseGuyz, a program that operates out of the Calgary Centre for Sexuality. Aimed at young men, WiseGuyz is a 20-session program, operating in some schools, community groups and in youth-justice settings, that promotes positive identity formation and healthy versions of masculinity. 

“The manosphere has expanded beyond the videos that people like Andrew Tate produce … it has become more stealth and masquerades as media but its reasonings and core values are rooted in misogyny, homophobia, racism and power,” says Lamirande. “We are seeing signs of it in youth who are now using terms such as ‘high-value man’, ‘alpha/beta/sigma’ and ‘incel’ in casual conversation.”

As a program for 13- to 24-year-olds, WiseGuyz focuses on four key issues: sexism, homophobia/transphobia, the pressure to “man-up” and gender-based violence. Lamirande says pop culture and media literacy are used as springboards for facilitators such as those with WiseGuyz, to examine whether what they’re viewing “aligns with their values,” and then they “try to untangle what the intent of the media is, and evaluate what impact it is having on them. Often the core of many of these issues are rigid gender stereotypes, so — we focus on helping our participants unpack, unlearn, and challenge those messages.”

Grade 5 teacher and parent Kelsy Norman, BA’14, BEd’18, admits the issues facing his students and younger son differ due to their age gap, but “challenges like confidence, emotional regulation, kindness, bullying and the influence of social issues are common to both.”

A user of pop culture, Norman also employs KPop Demon Hunters at home and in class as it “explores identity, social emotional learning, teamwork, creativity and more.”

But he warns that, sometimes, it’s too easy just to reference a piece of pop culture in a lesson. The challenge is to find ways to use its themes or messages for learning or emotional support.

Precisely what Grade 9 humanities teacher Ben Scott, says occurs in “circle conversations,” where his class gathers to answer a set of questions that will frequently work on developing a “vocabulary, but also the practices. It’s a space where everybody practises active listening and learns to understand what empathy is.”

One of Scott’s favourite books to teach is Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds). While the book takes readers on a journey of understanding racism in America, it also references the power and influence pop culture has on society and why the poison of racism still lingers.

“The book actually reframed my understanding of the movie Rocky,” explains Scott, who uses clips from the 1976 movie to illustrate the racial dynamics at play in that story. “I love listening to the student-led discussion that happens. Some will identify the white-saviour trope in movies, other may make links to rap songs but, for a teacher, it’s very rewarding to witness the development of critical minds and media literacy.”

A Bridge Between Generations 

Besides forging connections to critical issues, pop culture can also be an effective inter-generational tool offering a supportive space to ask big questions 

“Most kids want to be treated like adults,” explains Grade 8 humanities teacher Sydney Semchuk, BA’17. “Teenagers want to be given the chance to prove they can have difficult conversations.” She has witnessed this in class discussions when reading The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, by Susin Nielsen. Topics raised in the book, from bullying and post-traumatic stress to marital collapse and alienation, were dissected and explored.

With the appropriate use, pop culture can be the perfect bridge that connects teachers with students and kids with parents. Most experts agree that all of us need to be more curious, be open to each other’s worlds and be brave enough to ask hard questions of young people, such as:

• What do you do when you spend time online?
• What do you see in the movie that scares you, or makes you feel uncomfortable?
• When you find things that make you feel uncomfortable, what do you do?
• Teens need to explore ideas like toddlers need to touch everything. They are developing as thinkers and adult beings and they need practice. Similar to interactions seen between characters in Adolescence, this is not the job of schools alone, it is also our job as parents. Be curious about what they are doing and help guide them toward the pro-social and positive and away from the toxic.
• Find what sparks the child, what lights them up? For kids to be engaged, they need to be provided with engaging experiences (sports, music, art) — something that helps them build attention, focus and the desire to dig in.
• Discuss the messages behind commercials (i.e., junk food: why is everyone always having fun and looking attractive while devouring processed food?).
• Parents can establish limits on TV watching and screen time, but shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking a full ban will work. Prohibition doesn’t make problems disappear; it only drives them underground, making it harder for those who need help to find it. 

 “There’s value in drawing some parameters but full censorship of all media or ignoring what’s going on in our world just makes it worse,” says Johnston. “It’s the equivalent of saying we are not going to teach young people about birth control so they don’t get pregnant. We know how that goes …” 

If pop culture teaches us anything, it’s that young people are deeply shaped by the media. They are trying to make sense of the world, just like the rest of us. Let’s ensure they have the critical thinking tools to do it.