Post #4: Make-up

Well since I am doing this a bit later than the September 29th date for this post I will make a few adjustments and make comments on other possible ideas for research papers about childhood that I might like to pursue if given the opportunity.  In retrospect I wish I would have chosen a topic that lent itself to the topic of childhood a bit more.  Exploring learning disabilities and the research and movements behind them have been very eye opening and beneficial for my future as an educator but the topic was surprisingly difficult to incorporate the voice of children.  The following is a list of potential topics that could be interesting:

1. Speilberg and his portrayal of Children within his movies.  Through most of movie history children play a peripheral role within many movie.  Speilberg seems to have interesting insights into the idea of childhood and it would be very interesting to explore how he portrays childhood and the way this has developed throughout his career.
2. Chistmas and Childhood: Christmas in modern times is thought of as a childhood holiday filled with wonder and excitement.  How has this concept of christmas developed over the last century to bring us to our modern version of chistmas and its showering of gifts.
3. Sports and Children: The concept of student athlete is a rather new concept in the history of childhood. How did the athletic events that were once contested in backyards and streets become the extracurricular activities of students in the educational systems of America? How did this change games for children and how did the athletics effect the schools.
4. Development of the Modern Public School System: With the increased interest in the education of children at the turn of the 20th century what was done to change the school systems? It would be interesting to study the curriculum the children studied to see how it changed to meet the needs of the changing industrial society. It could also be interesting to see how in small towns the schools became the center of the community.
5. Children in Movies: Children have been portrayed in many different ways in movies. What can one gather from how children are depicted in movies from different time periods? It would be interesting to see if their is any correlation between the struggle of children and adults within society and see how it is shown on the big screen.
6. Children and Video Games:  The video games industry has rapidly emerged over the past few decades and has become an important form of childhood play.  How did this occur and how has it changed traditional forms of childhood interactions within play.
7. Gender and Education: Gender plays a huge role in ones path to education. How does gender affect the daily relations of students?
8. Children of Modern War: With the concepts of total war that were popular in the early 20Th century how did children of war cope with the problems they faced during these periods.  How did these wars effect them as they grew to adulthood?  Where there any elements of childhood that were similar to times of no war.
9. Children of High Imperialism: OK this is a bit off from American childhood but I've been looking at this in other classes.  In a look at Africa during the age of high imperialism through the 1920's a look at the difficulties of the young rise to prominence and leadership in cultures that are traditionally elder based.  Torn between tradition and "westernization" how did these things effect their childhood.
10. Children of the Depression: The depression was a difficult time for many people in America. How did it affect the lives of children? How did the depression shape what many would consider as America's greatest workforce and the values of the following generations?

Some of these ideas were taken from my previous post of the ideas of topics and others were developed as I thought of neat ways to explore childhood and how different events can deeply effect how one grows to adulthood.  I believe many of these would make excellent topics for research and lend themselves to exploring the voice of children in different ways.