Don't call me Ismail... It's Professor Doctor to you!

I love pop culture. I love quirky, geeky, left of centre intellectual references. I like it high tech and vintage at the same time... but don't try to define me or I'll subvert that, I'll redefine myself and shock you.

As a product of the 80's coming of age in the 90's, I have experienced the very bad and short lived (scrunchies, "Blossom" and Vanilla Ice) to the awesome and enduring (Converse, "The Simpsons" and Nirvana) facets of popular culture. I obviously hold some of these things dear but also, like the youth I teach, I move on and embrace the new fads (I've tried loom-banding). I feel that I have an edge as a teacher, I have more in common with the generation I teach than with my fellow teachers in aspects of what I find 'fun'.

This is probably why this article annoyed me a bit. It created a divide for me... between 'teachers' and me. I am a teacher but I don't view teaching in the same way that the teachers in this study seem to, I also don't view pop culture in the same way. This study surveyed 32 teachers at upper primary school level from 4 schools in Ankara, Turkey. I saw a painfully strong resemblance to my co-workers in the responses they obtained. Our man, Professor Doctor Guven asked his study participants about the use of popular culture in their teaching. This statement from the Abstract struck me.

"Although teachers are against popular culture, they all agree that it is a reality for schooling and sometimes they use it reluctantly."

Personally I feel that there is no way to be a good teacher unless you are aware of your students' popular culture. Teaching is about building on what your students already know. Knowing popular culture is still knowledge and can be vast. It is a complete shame to ignore such knowledge just because you don't understand it. The paper backed up my feelings to an extent but I felt there was a certain amount of 'lost in translation' as statements didn't quite flow and I felt that I may be misunderstanding the exact intention.

"If educational fields of knowledge are to remain relevant, it is imperative that more scholars start to take into consideration the impact of popular culture on the learning of students and teachers."

What I read here is not the issue of popular culture versus 'high' or 'proper' culture but an issue of relevance. It you lack the ability to make your lessons relevant to your students are you really doing your job? You spend your days with children, you earn a living from the promise that you will enrich their lives and learning but you have no interest in their popular culture? If this study were completed in Australia would the outcome be different? If younger teachers were surveyed would the results still be read as "teachers are against popular culture"?

While this article seemed to be pro pop culture in the classroom I felt that the data collected were rather weak. While the narratives expressed and the overall tone of the piece felt, to me, to be at odds with each other, this article gave me inspiration for a rant and made me question the very subjective nature of defining popular culture.

• Reference
• Güven, I., & Kelesoglu, S. (2014). A qualitative study towards infusing popular culture on teaching practice in classroom. Egitim Ve Bilim, 39(171)