In my education courses, I have been instructed to relate to my students as much as possible and that this may be accomplished by understanding popular culture and the culture that my specific students are living in. My default is to do this by referring to Harry Potter, which bothers my juniors, or referencing things that my students show me really just make me sound old. I truly believe, however, that my attempting to connect to them makes a difference. I want to relate to my students, to understand the culture of their small farm town and to know what they are into (one of them raps and puts them on Youtube, I checked it out, but maybe will not do that again.).
In this article, there is an emphasis on connecting with students. Many will not care about or connect to the classic literature we will be reading in class and that causes disinterest. There are times where this is more difficult than others. I can absolutely relate Harry Potter to Odysseus, but trying to bring modernity to Macbeth proves more difficult. I end up doing this by paraphrasing the texts the same way any millenial would or referring to characters as "sassy".
Thankfully, I am in a placement where my mentor does try to convey meaning across different texts and relate to all students. This is something I am working on so that it is natural when I have my own classroom.
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