Curricular Potential - BMW Ad

To see the commercial to which this blog refers watch any of the excellent clips at the following url. The commercial runs at the end of each of them: http://www.ted.com/talks

Curriculum Potential is an idea brought forward by Miriam Ben-Paretz in her article "The Concept of Curriculum Potential" (available through JSTOR). Very loosely stated curriculum potential refers to the notion that materials or topics outlined in curricula can be delivered in myriad ways to myriad ends. The article is useful in highlighting something all teachers learn. That is, the idea that curricula are designed by governments and then seamlessly delivered to teachers is a farce because it is both overly simplistic and because it ignores the agency of both teachers and students in the educational process.

The video presented to our class as a site of investigation for curricular potential is definitely rich. It begins with a black and bleak landscape cut through with water. Drops and rivulets and eventually streams of water become the focus. The water grows and winds through a gradually greening landscape until it becomes a river and climaxes in an enormous waterfall. The music that built to this point halts and the waterfall's base, violent and crashing takes up the screen. A car emerges from the torrent and takes to the road as the music restarts. The word clear is etched on its side as it leaves the "natural" world of water and enters the built world of highways and bridges. The journey, replete with close ups of the car's details, terminates in front of a long house, reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's falling water design. A close up of the car's bumper reveals the car's identity, a Hydrogen BMW. A black screen appears and text announcing this car as the first full featured luxury hydrogen powered vehicle scrolls across it.

Reading this text is complex business. From which perspective should it be approached? There are many possibilities. A science class may use the piece as an intro to the energy potential of water. The waterfall's violence might be used as a metaphor for the need for the crisis of a chemical reaction to unleash power. Likewise the transformation from black to green landscape could be used as a lead in to a unit on sustainability in either a geography or a science class. An art class could look at the compositional features of the ad. What does green mean? What does black indicate. Why did the director choose the house he or she did? In an English class the difference between denotative and connotative meaning could be flushed out by asking the class how important the colours, substances and brand in the ad are. Most obvious to me would be the use of this ad in a media literacy class where the simple question, 'What is this ad selling and how is it selling?' could be asked.

A final note. At present our society is besotted by advertising for tangible and intangible products and services. It remains to be seen what this will mean in the lives of our students. However, the unprecedented omnipresence of advertising does beg some attention from educators. Whether I used this ad in any of the subjects listed above I would feel compelled to ask the media literacy question of my students. The intentional aspect of advertising is purposely concealed by advertisers in ads such as this. Classrooms are exactly the place where such things should be revealed. The media rich universe our students function in requires an internalized critique should we wish our students to develop the ability to understand themselves as entities endowed with freedom of choice living in a world that wishes to influence that choice as subtly and as strongly as it is allowed.