Life Lessons We Learned from HARRY POTTER
Can reading supplement lost incidental learning opportunities for Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals? That's a question I've been pondering on about recently.
Recently, my mother mentioned the time where she met up with some people at church. They were discussing the Harry Potter books and how they wouldn't let their children read the books. While my mother participates in church-related activities, she does count Potter as one of her ten favorite books. The urge to defend the book sprung up when one mother stated that the pagan side of the books kept her from allowing her children to read the books. "It's all about witchcraft and magic and bad stuff."
I disagree. Fortunately, my mother did too.
Magic, wizardry and witchcraft actually takes a back stand to the real scope of the books. Love, mortality, friendship, testing of one's limits, trust, loyalty, questioning politics and one's elders are just the surface of the many underlying themes that take a front runner. Take away the magic and the stories still ring true - as they reflect today's lifestyles, and that of the past and the future. The books are timeless and will take their place on the classics alongside other oft-banned books (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Giver, just to name a few.)
For me, as an avid reader, the Potter books filled a communication gap that I lacked in the form of incidental learning. As a Deaf individual, I tend to gather information through deliberate learning rather than incidental learning. This great article describes the difference between deliberate learning and incidental learning.
Growing up Deaf, most of the information I gathered were in the form of visual input - through reading, watching TV and movies with captions, communicating in sign language. English vocabulary words were taught on a word-by-word basis rather than picking it up naturally from listening. Even so, I missed out on information sent through incidental learning opportunities.
My hearing peers would chat at lunch time and hear other conversations going on the same time. Most of my lunch hours at school were spent in the company of books. Only when told directly face-to-face by a peer would I learn what they were conversing about - an act of deliberate learning as opposed to incidental learning which I could have attained by listening to conversations while reading.
With that said, I can tell you of things I learned while sitting at the Gryffindor House table in the Great Hall but of the conversations I missed out at my own middle school lunch table, those were lost opportunities. Through reading, I discovered the pleasure of eavesdropping on conversations by fictional characters, seeing how characters react to various situations and events, making parallels between my world and the world of the characters, and so on. Most importantly, I learned how to function in a predominantly hearing society by applying the life lessons I learned from books to the real world out there.
Browsing around on Pinterest, I discovered that I was not the only one who saw the Potter books as a learning tool. Take a look at this infographic found on many Pinterest boards:
Now, what 'life lessons' did we learn from the Harry Potter characters themselves? Can you think of other lessons we learned from the Harry Potter books?
Remember Professor's Dumbledore's statement - before he amended it during Deathly Hallows - "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." (Later, he amended it to "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it.") Despite being a fictional educational institution (or so we are led to believe), Hogwarts has done wonders for me by making the Muggle world more accessible and providing an outlet for me to escape from reality even only for a few hours.
Sources:
"Creativity and Languages": http://www.creativityandlanguages.com/2012/04/the-difference-between-incidental-learning-and-deliberate-learning-and-why-it-matters-to-language-learners/
Harry Potter series: http://shop.pottermore.com/en_US/harry-potter-ebooks
Life Lessons Learned from the Potter Books: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/5b/f7/4f/5bf74f9ac3ac9047ff96da506125b09e.jpg
Recently, my mother mentioned the time where she met up with some people at church. They were discussing the Harry Potter books and how they wouldn't let their children read the books. While my mother participates in church-related activities, she does count Potter as one of her ten favorite books. The urge to defend the book sprung up when one mother stated that the pagan side of the books kept her from allowing her children to read the books. "It's all about witchcraft and magic and bad stuff."
I disagree. Fortunately, my mother did too.
Magic, wizardry and witchcraft actually takes a back stand to the real scope of the books. Love, mortality, friendship, testing of one's limits, trust, loyalty, questioning politics and one's elders are just the surface of the many underlying themes that take a front runner. Take away the magic and the stories still ring true - as they reflect today's lifestyles, and that of the past and the future. The books are timeless and will take their place on the classics alongside other oft-banned books (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Giver, just to name a few.)
For me, as an avid reader, the Potter books filled a communication gap that I lacked in the form of incidental learning. As a Deaf individual, I tend to gather information through deliberate learning rather than incidental learning. This great article describes the difference between deliberate learning and incidental learning.
Growing up Deaf, most of the information I gathered were in the form of visual input - through reading, watching TV and movies with captions, communicating in sign language. English vocabulary words were taught on a word-by-word basis rather than picking it up naturally from listening. Even so, I missed out on information sent through incidental learning opportunities.
My hearing peers would chat at lunch time and hear other conversations going on the same time. Most of my lunch hours at school were spent in the company of books. Only when told directly face-to-face by a peer would I learn what they were conversing about - an act of deliberate learning as opposed to incidental learning which I could have attained by listening to conversations while reading.
With that said, I can tell you of things I learned while sitting at the Gryffindor House table in the Great Hall but of the conversations I missed out at my own middle school lunch table, those were lost opportunities. Through reading, I discovered the pleasure of eavesdropping on conversations by fictional characters, seeing how characters react to various situations and events, making parallels between my world and the world of the characters, and so on. Most importantly, I learned how to function in a predominantly hearing society by applying the life lessons I learned from books to the real world out there.
Browsing around on Pinterest, I discovered that I was not the only one who saw the Potter books as a learning tool. Take a look at this infographic found on many Pinterest boards:
Now, what 'life lessons' did we learn from the Harry Potter characters themselves? Can you think of other lessons we learned from the Harry Potter books?
Remember Professor's Dumbledore's statement - before he amended it during Deathly Hallows - "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." (Later, he amended it to "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it.") Despite being a fictional educational institution (or so we are led to believe), Hogwarts has done wonders for me by making the Muggle world more accessible and providing an outlet for me to escape from reality even only for a few hours.
Sources:
"Creativity and Languages": http://www.creativityandlanguages.com/2012/04/the-difference-between-incidental-learning-and-deliberate-learning-and-why-it-matters-to-language-learners/
Harry Potter series: http://shop.pottermore.com/en_US/harry-potter-ebooks
Life Lessons Learned from the Potter Books: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/5b/f7/4f/5bf74f9ac3ac9047ff96da506125b09e.jpg
This makes so much sense! :)
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